{"id":1617,"date":"2021-04-12T11:43:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T09:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?page_id=1617"},"modified":"2026-09-24T14:14:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T12:14:49","slug":"preface","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/","title":{"rendered":"Preface"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The immediate reason for publishing this outlineT)<\/sup> is the need to provide my students with a guide for the lectures<\/mark> that I deliver, in accordance with my office, on the Philosophy of Right<\/em>. This textbook is a further, and especially more systematic, development of the same basic concepts that are already contained regarding this part of philosophy in the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences<\/em><\/a><\/mark> (Heidelberg 1817)1)<\/sup><\/a> which I otherwise use for my lectures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T) Translator’s note.<\/em> Given my critique <\/a>of the word ‘outline’ for the main title, it might seem a glaring contradiction that I retain the traditional translation of “Grundriss” as “outline” here (and for the work’s subtitle “Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse”: “Natural Right and the Science of the State in Outline<\/strong><\/em>“). To be consistent with our architectural metaphor, Grundriss<\/em> ought to be translated as Ground Plan<\/em>\u2014the two-dimensional map of the completed structural totality. However, for the sake of clarity and to avoid overburdening the text with terminological changes, I have chosen to retain the conventional translation for “Grundriss” as “outline”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1)<\/a> The paragraphs specified by Hegel always refer to this 1st (out of 3) edition(s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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|IV|<\/span> The fact that this outline was to appear in print, and thus come before a larger public, provided the occasion to expand on the Notes<\/em> here and there. Originally intended as brief mentions of related or divergent ideas, further consequences, and the like\u2014matters that would receive their proper explanation in lectures\u2014they were further developed here to clarify the more abstract content of the text at times and to take more extensive account of current ideas prevalent in the present day. Thus, a number of more detailed notes have arisen than the purpose and style of a compendium usually entails. A proper compendium<\/mark>, however, has as its object the circle of a science regarded as complete<\/mark>; what is characteristic of it, with perhaps a minor addition here or there, is primarily the compilation and arrangement<\/mark> of the essential moments of a content that has long been accepted and known, just as that form has its long-established rules and manners. One does not expect this format from a philosophical outline<\/mark>, perhaps because one imagines that what philosophy brings forth is as ephemeral a work as Penelope’s<\/a> web, which is started anew every day<\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To be sure, this outline deviates from an ordinary compendium in the first place through the method<\/mark> that serves as its guiding principle. However, it is presupposed here<\/mark> that the philosophical way of advancing from one subject matter to another<\/mark> and of scientific proof\u2014this speculative mode of cognition<\/mark> in general\u2014differs essentially from other modes of cognition. |V|<\/span> Insight into the necessity of such a difference<\/mark> is the only thing capable of snatching philosophy out of the ignominious decay into which it has sunk in our times. People have recognized, or rather felt more than recognized, the inadequacy of the forms and rules of former logic<\/mark>\u2014of defining, classifying, and inferring, which comprise the rules of understanding-cognition<\/mark>\u2014for speculative science. Consequently, they have cast these rules aside as mere fetters, only to speak arbitrarily from the heart, the imagination, and random intuition<\/mark>; and since reflection and relations of thought must nonetheless enter in, one proceeds unconsciously<\/mark> in the despised method of quite ordinary inference and reasoning. I have developed the nature of speculative knowledge<\/mark> in detail in my Science of Logic<\/em><\/mark>; in this outline, therefore, an explanation of progress and method has only been added here and there. Given the concrete and inherently manifold nature of the subject matter, showing and highlighting the logical derivation in every single detail has been neglected. In part, this could be considered superfluous assuming an acquaintance with the scientific method; in part, however, it will be immediately apparent that the whole, as well as the development of its members, rests upon the logical spirit<\/mark>. From this side primarily, I would wish for this treatise to be understood and judged. For what is at stake here is science<\/em>, and in science, the content is essentially bound to the form<\/em><\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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|VI|<\/span> One may indeed hear from those who seem to take it most profoundly that the form is something external and indifferent to the matter at hand<\/mark>, and that only the matter counts; further, one can place the business of the writer, especially the philosophical one, in discovering truths<\/em>, saying truths<\/em>, and disseminating truths<\/em> and correct concepts<\/mark>. If one then considers how such business is actually practiced, one sees on the one hand the same old cabbage<\/mark> constantly reheated and distributed in all directions\u2014a business that may indeed have its merit in the cultivation and awakening of minds, even if it could be regarded more as a bustling superfluity<\/mark>\u2014”for they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them<\/a>.” Above all, one has frequent occasion to marvel at the tone and pretension<\/mark> displayed therein, as if the world were only lacking these zealous disseminators of truths, and as if the reheated cabbage brought new and unheard-of truths that were primarily to be taken to heart “at the present time.” On the other hand, however, one sees what is issued as such truths from one side being displaced and washed away by similar truths dispensed from other sides. |VII|<\/span> Now, in this throng of truths, what is neither old nor new but permanent<\/mark>\u2014how is this to emerge from these formless, shifting reflections\u2014how else is it to distinguish and prove itself but through science<\/em>?<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Besides, regarding right<\/em>, ethical life<\/em>, and the state<\/em>, the truth<\/em> is just as old<\/em><\/mark> as it is openly displayed and known<\/em> in public laws<\/em>, public morality<\/em>, and religion<\/em><\/mark>. What more does this truth need\u2014insofar as the thinking spirit is not satisfied with possessing it in this immediate way\u2014than to also comprehend<\/em> it and to gain the rational form for the content which is already rational in itself, so that it may appear justified before free thinking? For free thinking does not stop at what is given<\/em><\/mark>\u2014be it supported by the external positive authority of the state or the agreement of men, or by the authority of internal feeling and the heart and the immediate concurring witness of the spirit\u2014but proceeds from itself and thereby demands to know itself as united at its innermost with the truth<\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The simple attitude of the naive mind<\/mark> is to adhere with trusting conviction to the publicly known truth<\/mark> and to build its way of acting and firm position in life upon this solid foundation. Against this simple attitude, the supposed difficulty arises: how, from the infinitely various opinions<\/em>, what is universally recognized and valid therein might be distinguished and found<\/mark>? One can easily take this embarrassment for a right and true earnestness about the matter. |VIII|<\/span> In fact, however, those who pride themselves on this embarrassment are in the position of not seeing the forest for the trees, and only the embarrassment and difficulty they themselves create are present; indeed, their embarrassment and difficulty are rather proof that they want something other than what is universally recognized and valid, than the substance of the right and the ethical<\/mark>. For if it were truly about that, and not about the vanity<\/em> and particularity<\/em> of opining and being<\/mark>, they would adhere to the substantial right, namely the commands of ethical life and the state<\/mark>, and arrange their lives accordingly. The further difficulty, however, comes from the fact that man thinks<\/em> and seeks in thinking his freedom and the ground of ethical life<\/mark>. This right, as high and divine<\/mark> as it is, is perverted into wrong when only this counts as thinking, and when thinking knows itself as free only insofar as it deviates from the universally recognized and valid<\/em> and has known how to invent something particular<\/em> for itself<\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In our time, the notion that freedom<\/mark> of thinking and of the spirit in general proves itself only through deviation<\/mark> from, and even hostility toward, what is publicly recognized, has been most firmly rooted in relation to the state<\/em>; accordingly, a philosophy of the state especially seems to have the essential task of also<\/em> inventing and giving a theory<\/em>, and specifically a new and particular one<\/mark>. |IX|<\/span> When one sees this notion and the activity corresponding to it, one would think that no state or constitution had ever existed<\/mark> or were presently present in the world, but as if one must start entirely from the beginning now<\/em>\u2014and this now<\/em> lasts forever\u2014and as if the ethical world had only waited for such a current<\/em> thinking-out, fathoming, and grounding<\/mark>. Regarding nature<\/mark><\/em>, it is admitted that philosophy is to recognize it as it is<\/em><\/mark>, that the philosopher’s stone lies somewhere<\/em>, but within nature itself<\/em>, that it is rational in itself<\/em><\/mark>, and that knowledge has to explore and grasp through comprehension this actual<\/em> reason<\/mark> present within it\u2014not the configurations and contingencies showing themselves on the surface, but its eternal harmony, but as its immanent<\/em> law<\/mark> and essence. The ethical world<\/em><\/mark> by contrast, the state\u2014it, the reason as it actualizes itself in the element of self-consciousness<\/mark>\u2014is not to enjoy the happiness of being the reason which has in fact in this element brought itself to power and authority, maintains itself therein, and dwells within it<\/mark>.2)<\/sup><\/a> The spiritual universe is rather to be abandoned to chance and caprice; it is to be godforsaken<\/em><\/mark>, so that according to this atheism of the ethical world, the true<\/em> lies outside<\/em> of it, and at the same time, because reason is also supposed to be in it, the true is merely a problem<\/mark>. |X|<\/span> In this, however, lies the justification, indeed the obligation, for every thinking to take its run\u2014yet not to seek<\/em> the philosopher’s stone<\/mark>, for through the philosophizing of our time the search is spared, and everyone is certain, just as they stand and walk<\/mark>, to have this stone in their power. Now, it certainly happens that those who live in this actuality of the state and find their knowledge and will satisfied therein<\/mark>\u2014and there are many of them, indeed more than they suppose and know, for at bottom<\/em> they are all<\/em><\/mark>\u2014at least those who consciously have their satisfaction in the state<\/mark>, laugh at those runs and assurances and take them for a game that is sometimes more humorous or earnest, delightful or dangerous, but always empty. That restless activity of reflection and vanity<\/mark>, as well as the reception and encounter it experiences, would be a matter for itself, developing in its own way; but it is philosophy<\/em> in general<\/mark> that has been placed in manifold contempt and discredit<\/mark> by that activity. The worst of the contempts is that, as said, everyone is convinced that they are capable of knowing about and passing judgment on philosophy in general just as they stand and walk<\/mark>. To no other art or science is this final contempt shown: to believe that one possesses it straight away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2)<\/a> Addition<\/em>. [This addition, inserted by Gans, comes from a lecture course on natural right and political science given in the winter semester of 1822\/23.] There are two kinds of laws: laws of nature and laws of right<\/mark>. The laws of nature are simply there and are valid as they are: they suffer no diminishment, although one can offend against them in individual cases. To know what the law of nature<\/mark> is, we must get to know it, for these laws are right; only our representations of them can be false. The measure of these laws is outside of us<\/mark>, and our recognizing adds nothing to them, does not further them: only our knowledge of them can expand. The knowledge of right is partly the same, partly not.<\/mark> We learn the laws just as they are simply there<\/mark>; so the citizen has them more or less, and the positive jurist stops no less at what is given. But the difference is that in the case of laws of right, the spirit of observation arises<\/mark> and the very diversity of laws draws attention to the fact that they are not absolute. The laws of right are posited<\/em>, originating from men. With this, the inner voice can necessarily enter into conflict or align itself. Man does not stop at what is present, but maintains that he has the standard within himself of what is right; he can be subject to the necessity and force of external authority, but never like the necessity of nature, for his interior always tells him how it should be, and in himself he finds the confirmation or lack thereof of what is valid.<\/mark> In nature, the highest truth is that a law simply<\/em> is<\/em>; in the laws of right, the matter is not valid because it is, but everyone demands that it should correspond to his own criterion. Here, then, a conflict is possible between what is and what ought to be<\/mark>, between right existing in and for itself, which remains unchanged, and the caprice of determining what is to count as right. Such separation and such struggle are found only on the ground of the spirit, and because the privilege of the spirit thus seems to lead to discord and misery, one is frequently referred back to the observation of nature from the caprice of life and is supposed to take a pattern from it.<\/mark> Precisely in these oppositions, however, between right existing in and for itself and that which caprice asserts as right, lies the need to learn to recognize right thoroughly. His reason must meet man in right; he must therefore observe the rationality of right, and this is the matter of our science, in contrast to positive jurisprudence<\/mark>, which often has to do only with contradictions. The present world has an even more urgent need for this, for in olden times there was still respect and reverence for existing law; but now the cultivation of the time has taken another turn, and thought has placed itself at the head of everything that is to be valid<\/mark>. Theories set themselves against what is present and wish to appear as inherently correct and necessary. Now it becomes a more specific need to recognize and comprehend the thoughts of right. Since thought has elevated itself to the essential form, one must also seek to grasp right as thought.<\/mark> This seems to open the door to random opinions if thought is to come over right; but true thought is not an opinion about the matter, but the concept of the matter itself<\/mark>. The concept of the matter does not come to us by nature. Everyone has fingers, can have brushes and paints, but that does not make him a painter. It is the same with thinking. The thought of right is not something that everyone has straight away, but correct thinking is the knowing and recognizing of the matter, and our knowledge should therefore be scientific<\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Indeed, what we have seen emanating from the philosophy of recent times with the greatest pretension regarding the state justified anyone who felt like joining in the conversation in the conviction that they could make such a thing straight away on their own, and thus provide proof of being in possession of philosophy. |XI|<\/span> Besides, the self-styled philosophy has explicitly stated that the true itself cannot be known<\/em>, but rather that what is true is what everyone allows to rise out of their heart, mind, and enthusiasm<\/em> regarding ethical objects, especially state, government, and constitution<\/mark>. What has not been said to please the ears of the young in particular? And the young have likely taken it to heart. He gives to His own in sleep<\/em><\/a> has been applied to science, and thus every sleeper<\/mark> has counted himself among His own<\/em>; what he thus received in the sleep of concepts was certainly of corresponding quality. A leader of this shallowness<\/mark> that calls itself philosophizing, Mr. Fries<\/em><\/a>3)<\/sup><\/a>, did not hesitate<\/mark>, on a solemn public occasion that became notorious, to offer the following notion in a speech on the subject of the state and constitution: ‘in the nation in which a true common spirit prevails, life would come from below out of the people<\/em> to every business of public affairs; living<\/em> associations, indissolubly united by the holy chain of friendship<\/em>, would dedicate themselves to every individual work of national education and popular service,’ and the like4)<\/sup><\/a>. |XII|<\/span> This is the main sense of the shallowness: to base science on immediate perception and random imagination instead of on the development of the thought and concept<\/mark>; likewise, to let the rich articulation of the ethical within itself, which is the state\u2014the architectonic of its rationality, which makes the strength of the whole emerge from the harmony of its members through the distinct differentiation of the spheres of public life and their rights<\/mark> and through the rigor of the measure in which every pillar, arch, and buttress holds itself\u2014to let this cultivated structure melt away into the mush of the “heart, friendship, and enthusiasm.”<\/mark> Like the world in general according to Epicurus<\/a>, so the ethical world is<\/em> not, but according to such a notion it should<\/em> be handed over to the subjective contingency of opining and caprice<\/mark>. With the simple home remedy of basing on feeling<\/em> what is the work\u2014and indeed the work of several millennia\u2014of reason and its understanding<\/mark>, all the effort of rational insight and knowledge guided by the thinking concept is certainly spared<\/mark>. Mephistopheles<\/em> in Goethe\u2014a good authority\u2014says roughly what I have also cited elsewhere:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despise but understanding and science,
the highest gifts of man \u2014
so you have given yourself to the devil<\/mark>
and must perish.5)<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

|XIII|<\/span> <\/a> It is immediately obvious that such a view also takes on the form of piety<\/em><\/mark>; for with what has this activity not tried to authorize itself! But with godliness and the Bible, it has believed itself able to give the highest justification for despising ethical order and the objectivity of laws<\/mark>. For it is indeed also piety that wraps up the truth, which has branched out into an organic kingdom in the world<\/mark>, into the simpler intuition of feeling. But insofar as it is of the right kind<\/mark>, it abandons the form of this region as soon as it enters from the interior into the day of development and of the revealed richness of the idea<\/mark>, and brings from its inner worship a reverence for a truth and laws that exist in and for themselves, exalted above the subjective form of feeling<\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3) Hegel’s footnote.<\/em> Of the shallowness of his science I have elsewhere given testimony; see Science of Logic<\/em> (Nuremberg 1812), Intro. p. XVII.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4) Jakob Friedrich Fries, 1773-1843\u2014as professor of philosophy and mathematics Hegel’s predecessor in Heidelberg\u2014had given a speech at the Wartburg Festival in 1817 and was temporarily suspended from teaching; see “Festival Speech of Prof. Fries to the German Burschen… “, Oppositionsblatt oder Weimarische Zeitung, 1817, No. 257.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5) “Despise but reason and science,
Man’s very highest strength,
…
And even if he had not given himself to the devil,
He would nonetheless have to perish!”
Goethe, Faust, Part 1, Study, V. 1851-52, 1866-67<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The particular form of bad conscience that manifests itself in the kind of eloquence with which that shallowness plumes itself<\/mark> can be noted here; specifically, that where it is most unspiritual<\/mark><\/em>, it speaks most of the spirit<\/em>, where it talks most deadly<\/mark> and leathery<\/mark>, the word life<\/em> and introducing<\/em> into<\/em> life<\/em>, where it expresses the greatest egoism of empty pride<\/mark>, it most uses the word people<\/em>. The peculiar mark it bears on its forehead, however, is hatred of the law.<\/mark> |XIV|<\/span> That right and ethical life, and the actual world of the right and the ethical, are grasped through thought<\/em><\/mark>, and through thought give themselves the form of rationality, namely universality and determinacy\u2014this, the<\/em> law<\/em><\/mark>, is what that feeling which reserves for itself its own pleasure<\/mark>, that conscience which places right in subjective conviction, rightly regards as most hostile<\/mark>. The form of right as a duty<\/em> and as a law is felt by it as a dead<\/em>, cold<\/em> letter<\/em> and as a fetter<\/em>; for in it, it does not recognize itself, and thus does not find itself free therein, because the law is the reason of the matter, and this does not allow feeling to warm itself at its own particularity<\/mark>. The law<\/em> is therefore, as noted somewhere in the course of this textbook6)<\/sup><\/a>, primarily the Shibboleth<\/a> by which the false brothers and friends of the so-called people are separated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6) Hegel refers to his own Remark to § 258<\/a>; the footnote there, “The book in question is, on account of the character just described, of an original kind …”, stands in the first edition of 1820 on pages 245–250 and does not belong in the preface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since the rabulistry of caprice has seized the name of philosophy<\/em><\/mark> and has succeeded in persuading a large public that such activity is philosophy, it has almost become a dishonor to speak philosophically about the nature of the state; and upright men are not to be blamed if they become impatient as soon as they hear of a philosophical science of the state<\/mark>. It is even less a surprise that governments have finally directed their attention to such philosophizing<\/mark>, since with us philosophy does not, as it did with the Greeks, exist as a private art, but has a public existence affecting the public, primarily or solely in the service of the state<\/mark>. |XV|<\/span> If governments have demonstrated trust in their scholars<\/mark> dedicated to this field, relying on them entirely for the development and the content of philosophy\u2014even if here and there, if one likes, it may have been not so much trust as indifference toward science<\/mark> itself, and its teaching office was kept up merely by tradition (as, so far as I know, in France the chairs of metaphysics at least have been allowed to lapse)\u2014then that trust has frequently been poorly repaid<\/mark>, or where one wished to see indifference, the result, the decay of thorough knowledge<\/mark>, is to be regarded as a penance for this indifference. At first, shallowness indeed seems most compatible<\/mark> at least with external order and peace, because it does not get so far as to touch the substance of things, or even to suspect it; it would thus, at first at least, have nothing against it from the police<\/mark>, if the state did not still enclose within itself the need for deeper education and insight<\/mark> and demanded its satisfaction from science. |XVI|<\/span> But shallowness leads<\/mark> of its own accord regarding the ethical, right, and duty in general, to those principles which in this sphere make up what is shallow, to the principles of the Sophists<\/a><\/em><\/mark>, which we know so decisively from Plato<\/a><\/em>\u2014the principles that place what is right on subjective ends and opinions<\/em>, on subjective feeling<\/em> and particular conviction<\/em><\/mark>\u2014principles from which the destruction of inner ethical life and of the upright conscience, of love and of right among private persons follows, just as much as the destruction of public order and state laws<\/mark>. The significance that such phenomena<\/mark> must gain for governments will not be brushed aside by a title that relies on the very trust granted and on the authority of an office, in order to demand of the state that it should allow and let prevail<\/mark> what corrupts the substantial source of deeds, the universal principles, and even its defiance, as though this were only proper. To whom God gives an office, He also gives understanding<\/em>, is an old joke<\/mark> which in our times one would likely not wish to assert in earnest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the importance for the mode and manner of philosophizing which circumstances have revived in the eyes of governments, the moment of protection and support cannot be overlooked, of which the study of philosophy<\/mark> seems to have become needy from many other sides. |XVII|<\/span> For if one reads in so many productions from the field of positive sciences<\/mark>, as well as of religious edification and other indeterminate literature, how not only the aforementioned contempt for philosophy is shown\u2014that those who at the same time prove that they are entirely behind in thought-formation<\/mark> and that philosophy is something completely foreign<\/mark> to them, nonetheless treat it as something settled<\/mark>\u2014but how there they explicitly rail against philosophy and declare its content, the comprehending cognition<\/em> of God and of physical and spiritual nature, the cognition of truth<\/em>, to be a foolish, even sinful presumption; how reason<\/em>, and again reason<\/em>, and in infinite repetition reason<\/em> is accused, disparaged, and condemned<\/mark>\u2014or how at least it is made known how uncomfortably the inescapable claims of the concept fall upon a large part of the activity that is supposed to be scientific<\/mark>\u2014if, I say, one has such phenomena before one, one would almost give room to the thought that from this side<\/em> tradition were no longer venerable or sufficient to secure for philosophical study tolerance<\/em> and public existence<\/mark>.7)<\/sup> |XVIII|<\/span> The declamations and pretensions against philosophy current in our time present the strange spectacle that, owing to that shallowness to which this science has been degraded, on the one hand they have their right and on the other hand they themselves take root in this element against which they are ungratefully directed<\/mark>. For since that self-styled philosophizing has declared the cognition of truth to be a foolish attempt, it has, as the despotism of the emperors of Rome<\/em> made nobility and slaves, virtue and vice, honor and dishonor, knowledge and ignorance equal, leveled all thoughts and all materials<\/mark>\u2014so that the concepts of the true, the laws of the ethical, are also nothing more than opinions and subjective convictions, and the most criminal principles as convictions<\/em> are placed in equal dignity with those laws, and that likewise every object, no matter how bare and particular, and every material, no matter how strawy, is placed in equal dignity with what constitutes the interest of all thinking men and the bonds of the ethical world<\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7) Hegel’s footnote.<\/em> Such views came to mind in connection with a letter of Joh. v. M\u00fcller<\/a> (Werke<\/em> [T\u00fcbingen 1810-19], part VIII, p. 56), where it is said of the condition of Rome<\/em> in the year 1803, when that city stood under French rule, among other things: “Asked how matters stood with the public educational institutions, a professor replied: On les tol\u00e8re comme les bordels<\/em>.<\/mark>” – The so-called logic<\/em> can even be heard recommended<\/em>, perhaps with the conviction that one is no longer concerned with it as a dry and unfruitful science or, if it happens here and there, that one only receives contentless formulas that give nothing and corrupt nothing, so that the recommendation will in no case do harm or any good<\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It is therefore to be regarded as a stroke of luck<\/em> for science<\/mark>\u2014in fact it is, as noted, the necessity<\/em> of the matter<\/em>\u2014that that philosophizing<\/mark>, which might have continued to spin itself out as a school wisdom<\/em> within itself, has placed itself in a closer relationship with actuality<\/mark>, in which the principles of rights and duties are taken in earnest and which lives in the daylight of the consciousness of them, and that it has thus come to an open <\/em>breach<\/mark>. |XIX|<\/span> It is precisely this position of philosophy toward actuality<\/em> that the misunderstandings concern, and I return herewith to what I noted earlier: that philosophy, because it is the exploration of the rational<\/em>, is precisely the grasping of the present and the actual<\/em>, not the setting up of a beyond<\/em><\/mark> that should be God knows where\u2014or of which one indeed knows quite well where it is, namely in the error of a one-sided, empty reasoning. In the course of the following treatise, I have noted that even the Platonic<\/em> Republic<\/mark><\/a>, which passes as the proverbial example of an empty ideal, essentially grasped nothing but the nature of Greek ethical life<\/mark>; and that then, in the consciousness of the deeper principle breaking into it \u2014 which could appear in it immediately only as a still unsatisfied longing, and hence only as corruption \u2014 Plato<\/em> had to seek help against it out of that very longing; but this help, which had to come from above, he could at first seek only in an external particular form of that ethical life, by which he thought to master that corruption, and by which he most deeply injured its deeper drive, the free infinite personality<\/mark>. By this, however, he proved himself the great spirit, in that precisely the principle around which the distinguishing feature of his idea revolves is the pivot upon which the [then]8)<\/sup> impending revolution of the world turned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8) Inserted in Hegel’s Handexemplar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What is rational is actual;
and what is actual is rational.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

|XX|<\/span> Every naive consciousness stands in this conviction, as does philosophy, and from this philosophy proceeds in its consideration of the spiritual<\/em> universe just as much as of the natural<\/em>.<\/mark> If reflection, feeling, or whatever form subjective consciousness takes, regards the present<\/em> as something vain<\/em>, is beyond it and knows better<\/mark>, it finds itself in the vain, and since it has actuality only in the present, it is thus itself mere vanity. If, conversely, the idea<\/em> counts as what is merely such an idea, a representation in an opining<\/mark>, philosophy by contrast grants the insight that nothing is actual but the idea. What matters then is to recognize in the appearance of the temporal and transient the substance which is immanent, and the eternal which is present<\/mark>. For the rational, which is synonymous with the idea<\/mark>, as it simultaneously enters into external existence in its actuality<\/mark>, emerges in an infinite richness of forms, appearances, and configurations and surrounds its kernel with the variegated rind<\/mark> in which consciousness at first dwells, which the concept first penetrates<\/mark> in order to find the inner pulse and to feel it still beating in the external configurations as well. The infinitely manifold relations, however, that form in this externality through the shining of the essence into it<\/mark>, this infinite material and its regulation is not the object of philosophy<\/mark>. |XXI|<\/span> It would thereby meddle in matters that do not concern it<\/mark>; it can spare itself giving good advice on such things; Plato<\/em> could have refrained from recommending to nurses never to stand still with children but always to rock them in their arms, and Fichte<\/a><\/em> likewise from constructing<\/em>, as it was called, the perfecting of the passport police<\/em> to the point that suspects should have not only their description entered in their passports but their portrait painted there. In such elaborations, no trace of philosophy<\/mark> is to be seen any longer, and it can leave such ultra-wisdom<\/mark> all the more, as it should show itself most liberal precisely regarding this infinite multitude of objects<\/mark>. Science will thereby also show itself furthest removed from the hatred that the vanity of knowing better casts upon a multitude of circumstances and institutions\u2014a hatred in which pettiness takes most pleasure, because only through it does it attain a feeling of self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thus, this treatise, insofar as it contains the science of the state<\/mark>, shall be nothing other than the attempt to comprehend and represent the state as something inherently rational<\/em><\/mark>. As a philosophical writing, it must be furthest from being supposed to construct a state as it ought to be<\/em><\/mark>; the instruction that may lie within it cannot aim at instructing the state as to how it ought to be, but rather how it, the ethical universe, is to be recognized<\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u0399\u03b4\u03bf\u1f7a \u03a1\u03cc\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f30\u03b4\u03bf\u1f7a \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c0\u03ae\u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1.
Hic<\/em> Rhodus, hic<\/em> saltus<\/mark><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To comprehend what is<\/em> is the task of philosophy, for what is<\/em> is reason.<\/mark> |XXII|<\/span> As for the individual, everyone is a son of his time<\/em> anyway; so also philosophy is its time grasped in thoughts<\/em>.<\/mark> It is just as foolish to imagine that any philosophy goes beyond its present world as that an individual leaps over his time, leaps beyond Rhodes. If his theory indeed goes beyond it, builds itself a world as it ought to be<\/em>, it indeed exists, but only in his opining\u2014a soft element in which anything whatever can be imagined<\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With a slight change, that adage would read:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here<\/em> is the rose, here<\/em> dance.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What<\/mark> lies between reason as self-conscious spirit<\/mark> and<\/mark> reason as present actuality<\/mark>, what separates<\/mark> the former from the latter and does not let it find satisfaction in it, is the fetter of some abstraction that has not been liberated into the concept<\/mark>. To recognize reason as the rose in the cross of the present and thereby to delight in it\u2014this rational insight is the reconciliation<\/em> with actuality, which philosophy grants to those upon whom the inner demand has once been made to comprehend<\/em><\/mark> and to maintain subjective freedom<\/mark> in that which is substantial, as well as to stand, with subjective freedom, not in something particular and contingent but in what is in and for itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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|XXIII|<\/span> This is also what constitutes the more concrete sense of what was designated more abstractly above as the unity of form and content<\/em><\/mark>, for the form<\/em> in its most concrete meaning is reason as comprehending cognition<\/mark>, and the content<\/em> is reason as the substantial essence of ethical as well as natural actuality<\/mark>; the conscious identity of both is the philosophical idea<\/mark>. – It is a great obstinacy, the obstinacy that does man honor<\/mark>, to refuse to recognize anything in disposition that is not justified through thought<\/mark>\u2014and this obstinacy is the characteristic of the modern age<\/mark>, indeed the peculiar principle of Protestantism. What Luther<\/mark><\/em> began as faith in feeling and in the witness of the spirit is the same thing that the further matured spirit strives to grasp in the concept<\/em> and thus to liberate itself in the present and thereby find itself therein<\/mark>. Just as it has become a famous word that a half-philosophy leads away from God\u2014and it is the same halfness that places cognition in an approximation<\/em> to truth<\/mark>\u2014but that true philosophy leads to God, so it is the same with the state. Just as reason is not content with approximation, which is neither cold nor hot and is therefore spewed out, so it is just as little satisfied with the cold despair that admits that things go poorly or at best mediocrely in this temporality, but that nothing better is to be had in it and only for that reason is peace to be kept with actuality<\/mark>; it is a warmer peace<\/mark> with it that cognition procures.9)<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

9) Cf. Hegel’s “Wastebook” (1803–1806): “Original<\/em>, quite wonderful works in the realm of culture are like a bomb falling into an idle town, where everyone sits over the beer mug, supremely wise, and does not feel that its flat well-being is exactly what brought on the crash of the thunder.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To say a word more about instructing<\/em> how the world ought to be<\/mark>, philosophy always comes too late anyway<\/mark>. |XXIV|<\/span> As the thought<\/em> of the world, it only appears in time after actuality has completed its process of formation and finished itself.<\/mark> This, which the concept teaches, is necessarily shown likewise by history: that only in the maturity of actuality does the ideal appear over against the real<\/mark> and builds for itself that same world, grasped in its substance, in the shape of an intellectual kingdom<\/mark>. When philosophy paints its gray in gray, then a form of life has grown old, and with gray in gray it cannot be rejuvenated, but only recognized; the owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the falling of dusk.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But it is time to close this preface; as a preface<\/mark>, it was anyway only proper for it to speak externally and subjectively<\/mark> of the standpoint of the writing to which it is prefixed. If a content is to be spoken of philosophically, it tolerates only a scientific, objective treatment<\/mark>; and so, too, the author must regard any contradiction of another kind than a scientific treatment of the matter itself as merely a subjective postscript and arbitrary assertion, and must be indifferent to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berlin, June 25, 1820.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The immediate reason for publishing this outlineT) is the need to provide my students with a guide for the lectures that I deliver, in accordance with my office, on the Philosophy of Right. This textbook is a further, and especially more systematic, development of the same basic concepts that are already contained regarding this part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-vorrede","meta":{"footnotes":"[]"},"class_list":["post-1617","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1617"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":906269,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1617\/revisions\/906269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}