1.  Independent self-consciousness [the lord] has only the pure abstraction of the ego, I, for its essence.  The abstraction develops acquiring differences, but this differentiation does not become its objective essence existing in itself.  This self-consciousness thus does not become one ego truly differentiating itself within its simplicity, an I remaining identical to itself within this absolute differentiation.  ²Compressed consciousness [the serf], on the other hand, does become its own object in the process of formation [labour] as the form of the constructed thing while at the same time regarding being for itself in the lord as consciousness.  ³For servile consciousness as such, however, these two moments: itself as an independent object and this object as a consciousness and hence its own essence, separate from each other.  ⁴For us or in itself the following obtain.  Form and being for itself are the same.  In the concept of independent consciousness, being in itself is consciousness.  Putting these two together, the being in itself or thinghood acquired by form in labour is no other substance than consciousness itself and a new pattern of self-consciousness has emerged to us.  Now we have a consciousness whose essence is infinity, the pure motion of consciousness; it thinks for it is free self-consciousness.  ⁵Thinking is not just the abstract ego, but much more.  The I in the sense of being in itself, i.e. being an object to itself, relating to objective essence such that it signifies the being for itself of the consciousness for which it functions.  This is what we call thinking.

– ⁶To thinking, the object does not move in images or patterns, structures, but in concepts, that is in a differentiated being in itself that, for consciousness, is not immediately distinguished from consciousness.  ⁷Anything imagined or patterned, structured, or given being existing as such, has the form of being something other than consciousness.  A concept is given being too and this difference, to the extent that it is inherent to the concept, is its determinate content.  Also a comprehended content, the concept remains constantly conscious of its unity with that determinate given being differentiated from it.  None of this holds for the image.  In this case consciousness must first make a special effort to recall that this is its mental image.  In stark contrast, the concept is immediately my concept.  ⁸In thought I am free because I am not in another, but remain totally by myself, while the object, essence to me, is in unbroken unity my being for myself.  My movement in concepts is a motion within me.

– ⁹In the above formulation of this pattern of self-consciousness we must be clear about one thing: this is thinking consciousness as such in general, i.e. its object is the immediate unity of being in itself and being for itself.  ¹⁰Consciousness, like to itself, repelling itself from itself, becomes its own element of being in itself.  But this is its own element only initially as universal essence as such, not as objective essence in the development and motion of its diverse being.

2.  Stoicism is the famous name taken by this freedom of self-consciousness when it emerged in conscious form in the history of spirit and mind.  ²Its principle is that consciousness is thinking essence and that something only partakes of essence for it, or is only true and good for it, to the extent that consciousness functions within it as thinking essence.

3.  The diversely self-differentiating individuation, interconnectedness and diffusion of life is the object on which desire and labour are active.  ²This multifarious activity has now pulled itself together into the simple difference contained within the pure motion of thought.  ³Not difference as a definite thing, consciousness of a determinate natural existence, is more essential, nor, indeed, difference as a feeling, desire and its goal, whether set up by the desiring consciousness or by an alien one.  In stoicism, only the difference that is thought and as such is immediately not distinct from me can lay claim to that.  ⁴Stoic consciousness thus relates negatively to the lordship and bondage scenario.  In lordship, it does not find its truth in the bondsman; neither as the serf does it find its truth in the will of the lord and servitude to him.  No, on the throne or in chains it remains free within all the relations of dependence of its singular, individual existence, maintaining an unfeeling indifference in action and in suffering, in doing and being done to, always withdrawn from the tumult of existence into the simple essence of thought.  ⁵Obstinacy is the freedom that clings rigidly to some detail and is itself a form of bondage.  Stoicism, in contrast, is the freedom that always immediately moves out of bondage into the pure universality of thought.  Stoicism could only emerge as a universal form of the world spirit in a time of universal fear and bondage, but it also had to be a time in which a general education and culture emerged raising formative education to the level of thinking.

4.  Stoic self-consciousness does not have its essence in another self-consciousness different from itself, nor in the pure abstraction of the ego or I.  Its essence is the ego to which otherness, albeit as a difference of thought, is inherent, so it has immediately returned into itself within its own otherness.  Nevertheless, this essence remains abstract.  ²The freedom of self-consciousness is indifferent to natural existence, which it thus sets free so that the reflection is doubled.  ³Freedom in thought has only the pure thought for its truth, bereft of the rich content of life.  That makes it just the concept of freedom, not living freedom itself, for it takes thought alone as essence, form as such, which has turned away from the independence of things back into itself.  ⁴Individuality, however, is supposed to demonstrate its vitality in its activity and in its thinking it should grasp the living world as a system of thought.  In these terms, thought itself should contain what is good in that profusion and what is true in that thinking.  This would ensure that there is no ingredient in what is for consciousness other than the concept that is the essence.  ⁵Unfortunately, when it cuts itself off in stoicism as abstraction from the manifold diversity of things, the concept has no content in itself, but only one given to it.  ⁶In fact, consciousness here destroys content as alien being just by thinking it; but the concept is determinate, which is the alien feature inherent to it.  ⁷Thus, stoicism embarrassed itself when it was asked for what was called the criterion of truth as such, i.e. in fact for a real content of thought.  ⁸When stoicism was asked what was good and true, all it could answer was thought itself without content; truth and goodness were supposed to lie in reasonableness.  ⁹This self-identity of thought, however, is once again merely the pure form in which nothing is well-defined.  Clearly, the big words like truth and goodness, wisdom and virtue, where stoicism had to stop, are generally elevating, but they can't really offer any great expansion of content, so they get boring fast.

5.  Stoic thinking consciousness is abstract freedom, as it defines itself, and is thus only an incomplete negation of otherness.  Merely withdrawn from existence within itself, it does not complete its transformation into the absolute negation of existence within existence.  ²Content is only valid for it as thought, but as determinate, definite thought and simultaneously definition as such.

6.  Scepticism is the realization of what stoicism is only the concept.  Scepticism is the real experience of what freedom of thought is: in itself the negative that has to present itself as such.  ²Self-consciousness reflecting into the simple thought of itself results in the other side confronting it, independent existence, persistent definition, actually falling out of infinity.  Scepticism now establishes for consciousness that this other is totally inessential and no way independent.  Thought becomes thinking powering the complete destruction of the very being of the diversely defined world; free self-consciousness' negativity comes into its own as the real negativity in this varied structuring of life.

– ³Clearly, while stoicism corresponds to the concept of independent consciousness that appeared as the relation of lordship and bondage, scepticism represents the realization of that concept as the negative orientation to otherness; it corresponds to desire and labour.  ⁴Where desire and labour could not execute the negation for self-consciousness, this polemical drive against the multifaceted independence of things will be successful, for scepticism is already complete, free self-consciousness in itself when it turns against that independence.  More specifically, success comes from the thinking or infinity within it, rendering the various independent moments in their differences now merely vanishing magnitudes for it.  ⁵The differences, which in [stoicism's] pure thinking of itself amount to no more than abstraction of the differences, combine here [in scepticism] into the whole of all differences and all differentiated being is now one difference of self-consciousness.

7.  The activity of scepticism in general and its mode of operation have now acquired definition.  ²Scepticism exhibits the dialectical motion that is sense certainty, perception and understanding.  It also demonstrates that what is considered well-defined and determinate in the relations of lordship and bondage as well as in abstract thinking itself is merely inessential.  ³The lordship-bondage relation entails a determinate mode of operation that includes customary and ethical laws as the lord's commands.  In contrast, what has definition in abstract thinking are concepts of the kind of science that spreads content-free thinking.  Such science just hangs the concept in a purely external manner onto the being, which is quite independent of it, that makes up its content, only allowing certain concepts as valid, which may be pure abstractions too.

8.  Initially, dialectic was a negative motion and it seemed to consciousness that it had been abandoned to it, not that it was something determined by consciousness itself.  ²But scepticism is dialectic as a moment of self-consciousness and now the disappearance of what it sees as real and true does not just mysteriously happen, it knows not how.  No, in the certainty of its freedom, self-consciousness now makes this other – claiming to be real – disappear.  Not only what is objective as such disappears, but also that relation of self-consciousness to the other in which its objectivity is asserted and established as such, i.e. its perception.  Self-consciousness' fixing of what it is in danger of losing, its sophistry [III. Perception §20.4 ff. M], goes too as well as the truth determined and fixed by it from out of itself.  Self-conscious negation!  This self-conscious negation is the key to how self-consciousness establishes the certainty of its freedom for itself, actually producing the experience of that freedom itself and thereby elevating that certainty to truth.  ³What disappears is determinate; it's the difference that, in whatever manner and coming from wherever, sets itself up as fixed and unchangeable.  ⁴There is, in fact, nothing abiding in this difference and it must vanish before the thinking subject, because what is differentiated is precisely this: not to be in itself, but to have its essential being only in another.  Thinking, however, is the insight into this nature of what is differentiated; thinking is negative essence in its integral simplicity.

9.  Sceptical self-consciousness thus experiences its own freedom in the transformation of everything that wants to fix itself for it, a freedom it grants and sustains itself.  Ataraxy is the word for it, thought thinking itself, the unshakeable, true self-certainty.  ²This certainty is not a result that just pops out of something alien, which collapses the complex development of its production within itself, i.e. not a result that leaves its process of emergence behind it.  Rather, consciousness itself is absolute dialectical turbulence mixing up sensuous and thought images, where differences fall together and likewise their equality (here determinate against inequality) falls apart again.  ³Not self-identical at all, this consciousness is nothing but a casual confusion, dizziness in a disorder constantly regenerating itself.  ⁴It is this for itself, for it maintains and produces this self-sustaining, constantly moving confusion.  ⁵It acknowledges that too.  It recognizes that it is a completely casual, singular consciousness.  This consciousness is empirical, orienting itself to what has no reality for it and obeying what has no essence for it, doing and actually realizing what has no truth for it.  ⁶But just as it stands to itself here in this manner as singular, contingent, as really animal life and lost self-consciousness, just so in the opposite condition does it make itself again over into universal identity with itself, for it is the negativity of all singularity and all difference.  ⁷From this self-identity, or better within it, it falls back into that contingency and confusion, for precisely this self-propelling negativity is only concerned with the single individual and only operates with chance, with contingencies.  ⁸To put it bluntly, this is in fact nothing more than empty-headed drivel meandering back and forth from the one extreme of self-identical self-consciousness to the other of contingent, confused and confusing consciousness.  ⁹It never brings these two thoughts of itself together.  First it finds its freedom in elevation above all confusion and all the contingency of existence, but then it concedes its relapse into what is inessential and gets stuck there.  ¹⁰It causes inessential content to disappear from its thinking, but even in that it remains consciousness of the inessential.  It announces absolute vanishing, but this announcement is and this consciousness is no more than the announced vanishing.  It utters the nullity of seeing, hearing and so on and yet it goes on seeing, hearing, etc. itself.  It declares customary and ethical principles to be null and void while simultaneously affirming them as the powers governing its behaviour.  ¹¹Its action and its words always contradict each other.  Indeed, it persists in the double contradiction of constancy and identity with itself together with complete contingency and non-identity with itself.  ¹²Holding the poles of its self-contradiction apart, it stands above it as in its purely negative motion in general.  ¹³When equality is pointed out to it, it points to inequality; when it is now confronted with the inequality it has itself just uttered, then it shifts position to point out equality.  The drivel it talks is really just the bickering of opinionated youths, one of whom says A when the other says B and switches to B when the other says A.  Revelling in contradicting each other, they keep the fun going by staying in contradiction with themselves.

10.  Scepticism truly gives consciousness the experience of being contradictory in itself.  A new pattern emerges from this experience, one that brings together the two thoughts scepticism keeps apart.  ²Scepticism's thoughtlessness about itself must be abandoned, because it really is one consciousness that includes both modes within itself.  ³This new pattern of consciousness doubles itself for itself.  One is self-liberating, unchangeable and self-identical; the other is absolute self-confusion and self-inversion.  On top of that, it is perfectly aware of all this, its own contradiction!

– ⁴In stoicism, self-consciousness is its own simple freedom.  In scepticism that freedom realizes itself destroying the other side of determinate existence and, in fact, doubles itself in the process.  ⁵Doubling, which formerly divided itself between two single individuals, lord and serf [IV.A. Lordship and bondage §12.4], here returns to the one.  Self-consciousness' doubling within itself, essential to the concept of spirit/mind, has emerged at last, but not yet in its unity.  Unhappy is the consciousness of itself as the doubled and merely contradictory essence.

11.  Unhappy, internally divided consciousness, for which the contradiction in its essence is one consciousness, must in the one side thus always have the other side.  Each, then, fancying itself victorious and finding peace in unity, must immediately drive the other out.  ²True return into itself, reconciliation with itself, however, will have to wait for the concept of spirit/mind to emerge into existence, to become vital and living, because it comes with the built-in feature of internal doubling as one undivided consciousness.  Unhappy consciousness is one self-consciousness peering into another; indeed, it is itself both.  Unity of the two is its essence, only it is not yet this essence for itself, not yet really their unity for itself.

12.  Initially, it is only the immediate unity of the two, while the two are not the same, but set in opposition to each other, so unhappy consciousness takes one, the simple unchangeable one, as the essence, and the other, the highly variable side, to be inessential.  ²For the unhappy consciousness, the two are alien essences to each other.  Keenly aware of the contradiction between them, unhappy consciousness takes the side of variable consciousness and makes itself inessential to itself.  But wait!  It is consciousness of the unchangeable, of simple essence, and that forces it simultaneously to exert itself to free itself from the inessential, that is to free itself from itself!  ³For, while it may well be for itself highly variable with the unchangeable alien to it, it is also simple and, to that extent at least, invariable consciousness, which makes it aware of this as its own essence, but in such a manner that it is again not this essence for itself.  ⁴The status it confers on each cannot leave them indifferent to each other, i.e. not a matter of its own indifference to the invariable.  Rather, the unhappy consciousness is immediately itself both and for it the relationship between them is that of essential to inessential such that this latter must be overcome.  Now, it is unhappy because it has to take both as equally essential and therein lies its contradiction.  The unhappy consciousness is the contradictory motion in which the opposite does not come to rest in its opposite, but only regenerates itself within that as opposite.

13.  We have here a struggle against an enemy, in which victory is actually a defeat, or rather, ending up in either condition is really a matter of losing it in its opposite.  ²Consciousness of life, of its existence and action, is just the pain occasioned by its existence and action; in that all it has is the consciousness of its opposite as its essence together with its own nullity.  ³It transits from out of this up to the invariable.  ⁴But the elevation is still this consciousness; the rise is thus immediately consciousness of the opposite, namely of itself as singularity.  ⁵The invariable that emerges into consciousness is in the process also touched by singularity and is only present with it.  Far from eradicating singularity in the consciousness of the invariable, it emerges constantly there.

14.  What's interesting here is that in this motion, the unhappy consciousness experiences the emergence of singularity in the invariable and of the invariable in singularity.  ²Singularity in general emerges into being for it in invariable essence as does simultaneously its own singularity in that essence.  ³For the truth of this motion is precisely the oneness of this doubled consciousness.  ⁴This unity comes into being to it, but initially as one in which the difference between the two remains dominant.  ⁵This gives us the unhappy consciousness' three modes of linking singularity to the invariable.  For one, it re-emerges to itself in opposition to invariable essence and is thrown back to the start of the struggle, which remains the element of the whole relationship.  ⁶For another, singularity is inherent to the invariable for it; singularity is the pattern the invariable takes when the whole mode of existence moves over to it.  ⁷Thirdly, unhappy consciousness finds itself as the singular within the invariable.  ⁸The first invariable is for unhappy consciousness merely the alien essence condemning singularity and because the second involves a pattern of singularity like itself, that's what turns it in the third stage into spirit/mind.  This is when it has the joy of finding itself and becoming aware of the reconciliation between its own singularity and the universal.

15.  What here emerged as mode and relation of the invariable turned out to be the experience undergone by split self-consciousness in its unhappiness.  ²This experience is certainly not a one-sided motion of that unhappy, split self-consciousness, for it is invariable consciousness, which is now simultaneously individual, single consciousness, while the motion is by the same token motion of invariable consciousness, into which it enters just as single consciousness does.  The motion runs through these moments, once as invariable against the single individual as such, then itself single opposed to the other individual, and finally being one with it.  ³Now, this way of looking at the situation belongs to us and, as such, is premature here, for up to now we have only considered invariability as the invariability of consciousness, which means that the true invariability has not yet emerged, for it is still loaded with an antithesis.  Invariability in and for itself has not yet emerged, so we don't know yet how it will behave.  ⁴What has emerged is only this: in the consciousness that is our object here the features indicated above appear in the invariable.

16.  Invariable consciousness thus retains the character and foundation of divided being and being for itself against single, individual consciousness in its very structuring.  ²For single consciousness, it is only by chance that the invariable acquires the shape of singularity, just as it merely finds itself opposed to the invariable, for it has this relation from nature.  Ultimately finding itself in the invariable appears to it partly as brought about by itself or to happen just because it is single; but that also it is part of this unity because it belongs to the invariable after the emergence of the unity as well as simply because it is.  The antithesis remains in this unity itself.  ³In fact, in structuring the invariable, the moment of the beyond not only remains, it is even more firmly in place.  For if on the one hand the shape of singular reality appears to have brought the beyond closer to the invariable, on the other hand from now on the beyond stands against that as an opaque, sensuous one with the full obstinacy of something quite real.  The hope of becoming one with it must remain a hope, without fulfilment and reality, for between that hope and its fulfilment stands absolute chance, the immovable indifference that lies in the structuring itself, what justifies the hope.  ⁴Given the nature of the existing one, the reality it has donned, the beyond has in fact necessarily disappeared from time, while in space, the beyond has been present just as necessarily, but far away in the distance and it remains simply distant.

17.  The basic concept of split consciousness initially defined itself as a striving to overcome itself as single consciousness in order to become the invariable kind [§20 above M].  But from now on that striving is about overcoming split consciousness' relation to the pure shapeless, unstructured invariable and assuming a relation to the patterned invariable.  ²For the single individual's oneness with the invariable is from now on its essence and object just as in the concept only the formless, abstract invariable was the essential object.  This condition of the concept, being absolutely split, is now what it has to turn away from.  ³Split consciousness must elevate its initially external relation to the patterned invariable as an alien reality up to a process of becoming absolute oneness with it.

18.  The motion in which inessential consciousness strives to achieve this oneness is threefold according to the threefold relation it will have to its patterned beyond.  First, as pure consciousness; second, as a single individual, relating to reality through desire and labour; and third, as consciousness of its being for itself.

– ²We shall now consider how these, its three modes of being, are present and determined in that general relation.

19.  How does the unhappy consciousness, being inessential, look at first then, as pure consciousness?  For pure consciousness, the patterned invariable initially appears to be present in and for itself.  ²But we recall that how it is in and for itself has not yet emerged [§15 above].  ³This invariable can only become that in consciousness by its own efforts; this is not to be accomplished by consciousness.  Thus, its presence is only given one-sidedly through consciousness here, which is why it is not complete and true, for it remains loaded with imperfection, with an antithesis.

20.  Although the unhappy consciousness does not enjoy this presence, it is certainly over pure thinking, at least the pure thinking of stoicism, abstract and looking away from singularity as such, just as it is over the merely restless thinking of scepticism.  Scepticism represents no more than singularity as an unconscious contradiction and its restless motion.  Unhappy consciousness has moved beyond both of these.  It brings pure thinking and singularity together and holds them together, but it has not yet risen to that thinking for which singularity of consciousness is reconciled with pure thinking itself.  ²It stands rather in this midpoint, in which abstract thinking comes into contact with the singularity of consciousness as singularity.  ³Unhappy consciousness is this contact: unity of pure thinking and singularity.  For it, it is this thinking singularity, pure thinking, and the invariable itself is essentially singularity.  ⁴However, what is not given for it is that the unhappy consciousness' object, the invariable, which it sees essentially in the pattern of singluarity, is itself; nor that it itself is the singularity of consciousness.

21.  Clearly, the unhappy consciousness is not thinking in relation to its object in this first mode of pure consciousness.  It is pure thinking singularity in itself and its object is that too, but the relationship between the two is not itself one of pure thinking.  Consequently, as one might say, it only moves towards thinking.  It is devotion, prayer.  ²Its thinking as such remains the disembodied ringing of the church bells or a warm cloud in the head, a musical thinking that doesn't make it to the concept, which would be the only immanent and objective mode.  ³This infinite, pure, inner feeling does indeed get its object; but that is not conceptually comprehended in its emergence, which means it only emerges as something alien.  ⁴Here we have the internal motion of the pure heart, of pure feeling, which does feel itself, but is broken and racked with pain.  This is the motion of an infinite longing certain that its essence is such a pure heart, pure thought thinking itself as singularity; certain that its longing will be recognized and acknowledged by this object precisely because it thinks itself as singularity.  ⁵Still the unattainable beyond, this essence slips away as it is grasped; or rather in the grasping is already gone.  ⁶Already gone, because it is partly the invariable that thinks itself as singularity and, for that reason, in it consciousness arrives immediately at itself standing opposed to the invariable.  Instead of grasping the essence, it can only feel and has fallen back into itself.  In attaining its goal it cannot restrain itself from being this opposite, so it fails to grasp the essence and grasps only what is inessential.  ⁷On one side, in striving to find itself in the essence, it only takes hold of its own separated reality, so on the other side, it cannot grasp the other as singular, as actual.  ⁸Where it is sought, it cannot be found, for it is supposed to be a beyond, something that cannot be found.  ⁹When sought as a single individual, it is not a universal or thought singularity, not concept, but a single individual as an object, something real, an object of immediate sense certainty.  That's exactly why it is only sought as something that has already vanished.  ¹⁰Thus, only the tomb of its life can become present to consciousness.  ¹¹But a grave is at least something actual and conferring lasting possession would go against its nature, so this presence of the grave is only the struggle of a project doomed to failure.  ¹²Still, it has undergone this experience that the grave of its actual, invariable essence has no reality at all, that the lost singularity is not the true singularity because it is lost; it will abandon its search for invariable singularity as something real, its effort to hold on to what has vanished.  This, at last, will make it capable of finding true, universal singularity.

22.  At first, however, the return of the heart of feeling into itself is understood as meaning that it is actual as a single individual.  ²It is the pure heart which, for us or in itself has found itself and is inwardly satiated, because although for it in its feeling, essence splits off from it, still in itself this feeling is a feeling of self; it has felt the object of its pure feeling and that is itself.  It emerges from that then as a feeling of self; and that as actually existing for itself.  ³Its second relation, that of desire and labour, has emerged for us in this return into itself, which gives consciousness the inner self-certainty it has already attained for us.  That happens through the overcoming and enjoyment, consumption of that alien essence in the form of independent things.  ⁴Unhappy consciousness, however, only finds itself as desiring and labouring.  For it, there is no awareness that finding itself as such requires inner self-certainty as the foundation and that its feeling of essence is precisely this feeling of self.  ⁵It does not possess this feeling for itself, so its interiority remains rather its broken self-certainty.  The confirmation it would attain through labour and consumption is also just such a broken confirmation.  What this means is that it must destroy this confirmation in such a manner that it does find confirmation therein, but only the confirmation of what it is for itself, i.e. split.

23.  The actual reality against which desire and labour are directed is no longer something inherently null and void for this consciousness, merely to be overcome and consumed.  Now it is something like itself, broken in two, only null on one side, on the other, however, a sanctified world.  This world is the pattern of the invariable, for it has acquired inherent singularity and as the invariable, it is the universal, so its singularity as such has the meaning of all actual reality.

24.  If consciousness were for itself independent consciousness and reality were in and for itself null and void, then consciousness would achieve the feeling of its independence in labour and in enjoyment by virtue of itself being the one overcoming reality.  ²In fact, however, it regards that reality as the pattern of the invariable, so it can't overcome it on its own.  ³Rather, achieving the destruction of reality and enjoying it in fact happens essentially for it because the invariable itself gives up its form and leaves itself open to be enjoyed.

– ⁴Consciousness enters here as something similarly actual, if still internally broken with a split appearing in its labour and enjoyment as it breaks up into a relation to reality as being for itself confronting a being in itself over there.  ⁵That first relation to reality is transformation, action, the being for itself belonging to single consciousness.  ⁶Nevertheless, it remains in all this in itself and this side belongs to the invariable beyond.  It consists of the faculties and powers, a gift from elsewhere, which the invariable makes use of by leaving them to consciousness.

25.  In its action, consciousness is now in the relation of two extremes: active here and now on the one side and, confronting that, a passive reality.  While the two stand in relation to each other, they have also both returned into the invariable, holding fast to themselves.  ²Thus, from both sides all that happens is that a surface breaks off and enters into the moving interplay of their mutual opposition.

– ³The reality extreme is overcome by the active extreme.  In fact, the reality side can only really be overcome because its invariable essence overcomes it itself, repelling itself from itself and abandoning the result to the active side.  ⁴Active force appears as the power into which actual reality resolves itself.  Thus, for the consciousness whose in itself or essence lies in another, this power, as which this consciousness asserts itself in activity, is the beyond of itself.  ⁵Instead of returning into itself from its action, securing itself for itself, it rather reflects this motion of action back into the other extreme, which thereby is represented as the pure universal, as the absolute power from which this motion began and radiated out in all directions.  Moreover, this power is the essence of both extremes in the split of their first appearance as well as that of the whole flux itself.

26.  Invariable consciousness relinquishes its patterned form.  In contrast, single consciousness gives thanks, i.e. denies itself the satisfaction of an awareness of its independence, rejects its own claim to the essence of its action and assigns it to the beyond.  From these two moments of mutual resignation of the two parts its unity with the invariable does indeed emerge to consciousness.  ²Nevertheless, this unity is also loaded with separation, broken in itself once again with the opposition of universal and single individual emerging from it.  ³For consciousness appears to renounce satisfaction of its feeling of self, but achieves the actual satisfaction; it has, after all, been desire, labour and enjoyment; as consciousness, it has willed, acted and enjoyed.  ⁴Its expression of thanks too, in which it overcomes itself recognizing the other extreme as essence, is its own action counterbalancing the action of the other extreme, confronting the self-sacrificing good deed with the same kind of action.  When the former leaves its surface to it, it gives thanks too and in fact does more than the other when it relinquishes its action, i.e. its essence, for that other only repels a surface from itself.  ⁵The whole motion is not only reflected in actual desiring, labouring and enjoying, but even in the expression of thanks itself, where the opposite appeared to happen in the extreme of singularity.  ⁶Consciousness feels itself therein as this singular extreme and does not get deceived by the show of its act of renunciation, for the truth of that action is that it has not renounced itself.  What has emerged is just the double reflection in the two extremes. The result is the renewed split into the antithesis of consciousness of the invariable and consciousness of willing, accomplishing, enjoying and self-renouncing, i.e. of singularity being for itself as such.

27.  We have now arrived at the third mode of the motion of this consciousness.  It emerged from the second by truly testing its independence through willing and doing.  ²In the first mode, pure consciousness, it was only the concept of actual consciousness, inner feeling, not yet actual in action and pleasure.  The second, particular individual, was the realization of that pure consciousness as external action and pleasure.  Returned now from out of this, it has experienced itself as actual and effective consciousness, for which being in and for itself is true.  ³Here we have found the enemy in his most characteristic form.  ⁴In the struggle of the heart, single consciousness is only a musical, abstract moment; in labour and in enjoyment – the realisation of such a being devoid of essence – it can forget itself immediately and conscious idiosyncrasy is eliminated in this reality by the recognition of its expression of thanks.  ⁵This elimination is in truth a return of consciousness into itself, indeed into itself as the actual reality true for it.

28.  This third mode, where the true reality is just the one extreme, is the relation of that true reality to universal essence as to something null and void.  We shall now consider the motion of this relation.

29.  First, the opposite relation of consciousness, in which its reality is immediately null, has its actual action in a null action and its enjoyment in a feeling of its unhappiness.  ²Action and enjoyment lose all general content and meaning, for they would give it being in itself and being for itself, but both of these withdraw into the singularity to which consciousness is oriented in its struggle to overcome them.  ³Consciousness is aware of itself as this actual single individual in the animal functions.  ⁴These can no longer be carried out naturally and without embarrassment, as something in and for itself trivial, incapable of gaining any real importance or essential significance for the spirit and the mind.  Now they are the forms in which the enemy shows himself in his most characteristic form, so they are objects of very serious concern, indeed they become the most important.  ⁵This enemy regenerates himself in defeat so consciousness, which fixes him for itself, instead of getting free of him must remain with him constantly, regarding itself as perpetually polluted.  This goes for both the content of its striving, which is not something essential, but rather the most base, not the universal but the most singular, the meanest particular, so what we really see is just someone restricted to itself and its petty action, brooding over itself, a personality as unhappy as it is impoverished.

30.  Still, the awareness of its unity with the invariable remains linked to both the feeling of its unhappiness and the poverty of its action.  ²For the attempted immediate destruction of its actual being is mediated by the thought of the invariable and happens within this relation.  ³The intermediate relation constitutes the essence of the negative motion in which it directs itself against its singularity, which is, however, as a relation just as inherently positive and will produce this, its unity, for itself.

31.  This intermediate relation is thus a syllogism, in which the singularity initially fixed in its opposition to the in itself is only bound together with this other extreme through a third term.  ²This is the midpoint through which the extreme of invariable consciousness is given for inessential consciousness.  At the same time, inessential consciousness includes the fact that it is similarly given for the former only through this midpoint.  The midpoint is thus something both extremes present to each other as the servant of each in relation to the other.  ³This midpoint is itself a conscious essence, a conscious being, for it is an action mediating consciousness as such.  The content of this action is that destruction of its singularity sought by consciousness.

32.  In this midpoint, then, consciousness liberates itself from action and enjoyment as its own, repelling from itself as the being for itself extreme the essence of its willing, throwing the idiosyncrasy and freedom of decision onto the midpoint, onto the servant, and along with that the guilt of its action.  ²This mediator, standing in immediate relation to invariable essence, serves with his advice on what is right.  ³The activity, as the execution of an alien decision, ceases to be its own on the side of the action or the will.  ⁴Inessential consciousness still has the objective side of this midpoint, namely the fruit of its labour and its enjoyment.  ⁵Consciousness similarly repels this enjoyment from itself, renouncing the actual reality contained in its labour and enjoyment, just as it did its will.  It does that partly as renunciation of the achieved truth of its self-conscious independence, imagining talking about something completely alien and senseless to it; and partly by renouncing it as external property, by relinquishing something from the property it has acquired through its labour; and finally, partly by renouncing the enjoyment it has already had, i.e. by completely denying it in fastings and mortifications of the flesh.

33.  Through these moments of the abandonment of its own power of decision, then of property and pleasure, and finally the positive moment of conducting an activity it does not understand, it truly and completely deprives itself of the consciousness of inner and outer freedom, of actual reality as its being for itself.  It has the certainty of having truly divested itself of its ego, its I, and of having made its immediate self-consciousness into a thing, into an objective being.

– ²It could only prove renunciation of self through this actual sacrifice, for only in that does the deception vanish, the deception lying in the inner acknowledgement of thanks from the heart, in sentiment and the spoken word.  In that acknowledgement it certainly divests itself of the whole power of being for itself, ascribing it all to a giving from above, while retaining external idiosyncrasy in the possessions it does not abandon and inner idiosyncrasy in the consciousness of the decision it makes itself as well as in that of its own self-determined content, which it has not exchanged for an alien one satisfying it without sense or meaning.

34.  Implicit to the actually accomplished sacrifice is that his unhappiness leaves him; which happens in the same way as consciousness overcomes, erases, the action as his own doing.  ²This removal is implicit or in itself and in fact only comes about by the action of the other extreme of the syllogism, namely of the essence existing in itself.  ³That sacrifice of the inessential extreme was no one-sided action; it contained the action of the other within it.  ⁴For giving up one's own will is only negative on one side; in itself or in terms of its concept, however, it is also positive in the assertion of the will as that of another and specifically as the universal, not the single, particular will.  ⁵For this consciousness, this positive significance of the negatively asserted single, individual will is the will of the other extreme, which, precisely because it is another to it, becomes for him advice coming not from himself, but rather from the third party, the mediator.  ⁶Thus, for this consciousness its will becomes the universal will existing in itself, but this consciousness is not that in itself.  Renunciation of his will as a single individual is not for him the positive side of universal will according to the concept.  ⁷Similarly, his renunciation of property and pleasure only has this negative significance and the universal that comes into being for him through this is not his own action.  ⁸This unity of objectivity and being for itself lies in the concept of the action and for that reason comes into being for consciousness as essence and object.  Just as that unity is not the concept of his action, so too he is not aware that it comes into being as an object for him immediately and through himself; instead he lets the mediating servant give voice to the broken certainty that is his consciousness, that this unhappiness is only in itself the inverse thereof, namely the self-satisfaction of his action, blessed pleasure.  His pathetic action is likewise only in itself the inverse thereof, absolute action; according to the concept, only the action of a single individual is really action as such.  ⁹Still, the action stands for itself and his actual action remains but a pathetic one, his enjoyment only pain, a pain only overcome in the positive sense of a beyond.  ¹⁰In this object his own action and being are those of this given single consciousness and as such they are action in itself and being in itself.  In this object he has acquired the image of reason, consciousness' certainty of being in its singularity absolute in itself, its certainty of being all reality.