1.  Self-consciousness found the thing to be itself and itself a thing, i.e. the fact that self-consciousness is in itself objective reality is now given for it.  ²No longer the immediate certainty of being all reality, now self-consciousness is a kind of certainty for which immediacy has the form of something overcome; the objectivity of self-consciousness is now no more than a surface covering an inside and essence that is self-consciousness itself.

– ³The object to which self-consciousness positively refers is thus a self-consciousness.  It is present in the form of a thing, i.e. it is independent; but self-consciousness is certain that this independent object is not alien for it and so it knows that it is implicitly recognized by it.  Self-consciousness is the spirit certain that its unity with itself lies in doubling itself into two and in that both are independent.  ⁴This certainty must now elevate itself to self-consciousness' truth.  What holds for it in itself internally as certain must emerge into consciousness and become for it.

2.  Realization here breaks down into the series of stations emerging from comparison with the previous path.  ²The category [V. Certainty and Truth of Reason §§5 - 8] was the element for observing reason's rerun of that initial motion of consciousness through sense certainty, perception and understanding.  It will also pass through the double motion of self-consciousness eventually transiting out of independence into its freedom [V.B.a. Pleasure and necessity, V.B.b. Virtue and way of the world M].  ³At first, this active reason is only aware of itself as that of an individual, which must demand and produce its actual reality in the other [compare V.C. a. Spiritual/mental animal kingdom §1-§5, §12-§16 and V.C.b. Law-making reason §2-§6; VI. Mindful Spirit §2.3-§6 M].  Next, its consciousness rises to universality becoming universal reason, aware as reason of already being recognized in and for itself in uniting all that is self-consciousness within its pure consciousness.  It is the simple spiritual/mental essence, which, in becoming aware, becomes directly the real substance into which the earlier forms return.  It is their ground and they turn into individual moments of its development.  They break away from it appearing in their own forms.  In fact, however, they are carried by the ground and as such have existence and reality, but they only have truth to the extent that they are and remain within that ground.

3.  The goal is the concept that has emerged to us, namely a self-consciousness recognized and certain of itself in another free self-consciousness, in which certainty lies its truth.  Let us accept this goal in its reality.  We can do this by teasing out the still inner spirit, which is the substance that has already blossomed into its existence, and lo: within this concept the realm of customary ethical life opens up.  ²For this is nothing other than the absolute spiritual and mental unity of the essence of the individuals in their independent, actual reality.  It is a kind of self-consciousness universal in itself, which sees itself as so real in another consciousness that this other has complete independence, i.e. this other is a thing for it.  This is precisely what gives it an awareness of its unity with the other.  In fact, only when it finds this unity with that objective being is it really self-consciousness.  ³In the abstraction of universality this customary ethical substance is only law in the form of thought, which in no way diminishes its reality as immediately actual self-consciousness, i.e. custom.  ⁴Conversely, single, individual consciousness is only this given one by being aware that universal consciousness in its singularity is its being, i.e. in that its action and existence is the general custom.

4.  The concept of the realization of self-conscious reason consists in seeing complete unity with the other in his own independence, i.e. I accept the free thinghood of another I find pre-existing – that thinghood being the negative of my own self – as my own being for myself and embrace this as my object.  This concept has its complete, fulfilled reality in the life of a people.  ²Reason is here present as the fluid universal substance; unchangeable, simple thinghood; and just as light explodes into those countless points shining independently we call stars, so does reason flow and shine through so many fully independent beings.  Not only in itself is each and everyone of them immersed in simple independent substance, it is also for itself therein.  They have their awareness of being these single, independent beings through sacrificing their singularity and accepting this universal substance as their soul and essence, just as this universal is their own actions as single individuals, the work they bring forth.

5.  Each single action as well as the more general activity of the individual refers directly to the needs he has as a natural being, as a given single individual.  ²That even these most common functions are not frustrated but are effective and real is down to the universal sustaining medium, the might of the entire people.

– ³This universal substance not only gives enduring form to the individual's activity, but content too.  What he does is the skill and custom of all.  ⁴Even as it completely singularizes, individualizes itself, this content is only real by being woven into the action of all.  ⁵The labour of the individual for his needs is just as much about satisfying the needs of others; indeed, he only achieves the satisfaction of his needs through the labour of others.

– ⁶Just as the single individual in his own labour already unconsciously performs universal labour, he also actually performs universal labour as his conscious object.  The whole is his product as a whole, for which he sacrifices himself and only in this way gets himself back from that whole.

– ⁷There is nothing here that is not mutual; nothing in which the independence of the individual is not the positive significance of simply being for itself emerging from its own negation, i.e. from the dissolution of that being for itself.  ⁸This unity of being for another – of making himself into a thing – and being for itself, this universal substance speaks its universal language in the customs and laws of his people.  Established and unchangeable as essence, it is in fact nothing other than the expression of the very individuality that appears to be opposed to it.  The laws declare what each individual is and does.  The individual knows them not only as his own universal objective thinghood; he knows himself in them or knows them singularized, particularized in his own individuality and in that of each of his fellows.  ⁹In the universal spirit/mind then, each is required only to find his own certainty and nothing else in the given, actual reality; he is as certain of the other as he is of himself.

– ¹⁰I see it in all of them: for himself, each is just the same independent being as I am.  I see the free unity with the others in them and see that it only exists because of me just as it only exists because of the others.  I see them as me and me as them.

6.  Reason is thus truly realized in a free people.  Reason is present as the living spirit in which the individual finds his definition, i.e. his universal and individual essence.  He finds it not only expressed and present as thinghood, he is himself this essence; he has achieved his definition.  ²Thus the wisest men of the ancient world said that wisdom and virtue lie in living in harmony with the customs of one's own people.

7.  However, this self-consciousness, initially merely immediate and only in its concept mindful spirit, has departed from the happiness of having achieved its definition and of living accordingly.  In fact, one can say with equal justice that self-consciousness has not yet achieved this happiness at all.

8.  Reason must depart from this happiness, for the life of a free people is only immediately, in itself, real customary ethical life.  As such, it is a given and that makes this universal spirit also itself single and the whole of customs and laws a specific, determinate customary ethical substance.  First in the higher moments, in the consciousness of its essence, does it discard the limitation and only in this process of knowledge does it have its absolute truth, not immediately in its being.  For in its being it is limited, but that absolute limitation consists precisely in this: that spirited mind is present in the form of being.

9.  Moreover, this makes single consciousness, in its immediate existence in real customary ethical life, i.e. in the people, a solid trust.  Spirit/mind has not resolved itself into its abstract moments for this consciousness, which thus also does not know itself as pure singularity existing for itself.  ²When it gets to this thought, however, as it must, then its immediate unity with spirit/mind, its being therein, its trust, is lost.  Isolated for itself, it is now its own essence, not universal spirit/mind.  ³The moment of this singularity of self-consciousness is still there in universal spirit itself, but only as a vanishing magnitude, which, like singularity, emerges for itself, just as immediately dissolves into spirit, and only comes into consciousness as trust.  ⁴Fixing himself thus – and every moment, being a moment of essence, must come to present itself as essence – is how the individual confronts the laws and customs.  They amount to no more than a thought that has no absolute essential character, an abstract theory without actual reality.  The individual, in contrast, this ego, I, is his own living truth.

10.  Self-consciousness has not yet attained the happiness of being ethical substance, the spirit of a people.  ²For, returned back from observation, the spirit as such is initially not realized through itself; it is only established as inner essence or as abstraction.

– ³Spirit/mind may otherwise be initially immediate; immediately given, it is single, just an individual.  He is then practical consciousness striding into the world he finds around him with the goal of doubling himself in this specific character of being a single individual, generating himself as a this, his existing counterpart, and to become conscious of this unity of his actual reality with objective essence.  ⁴He's now a practical consciousness certain of this unity.  He thinks the unity is in itself, that this harmony between himself and thinghood is already present and all that remains is for it to become so for him through his own efforts, that his making it is also a matter of finding it.  ⁵This unity is called happiness, so the individual is sent out into the world by his spirit to find his happiness.

11.  If, then, for us the truth of this rational self-consciousness is customary ethical substance, for self-consciousness it's just the start of its experience of the world of customs and ethics.  ²[a] To the extent that self-consciousness has not yet become customary ethical substance, the motion of this experience presses on towards it and what is preserved in it are the single moments, which were isolated for self-consciousness.  ³They have the form of an immediate willing, a natural instinct, that finds its satisfaction only for this satisfaction itself to become the content of a new instinct.

– ⁴[b] To the extent, however, that self-consciousness has lost the happiness of being in substance, these natural instincts are bound together with consciousness of their goals as their true specific and essential character.  Customary ethical substance has sunk to the level of a selfless predicate.  The living subjects of this selfless predicate are the individuals who have to fulfil their universality by their own action and have to fashion their specific characters by themselves. 

– ⁵In [a] those patterns or moments constitute the process of emergence and development of customary ethical substance and as such they precede it.  In [b] they follow it revealing to self-consciousness exactly what its specific character is.  In the first case, the immediacy or rawness of instincts gets lost in the motion in which their truth is experienced, while their content rises to a higher stage.  In the second case, however, the false image of consciousness that projects its specific character into them gets lost.  ⁶Moreover, in [a] the goal the moments achieve is the immediate customary ethical substance, while in [b] it's the consciousness of that; indeed, a consciousness knowing that substance to be its own essence.  In that sense this latter motion would be the emergence and development of morality, a higher form than the former.  ⁷In fact, however, these patterns constitute only one side of morality's emergence and development, namely the one that lies in being for itself, in which consciousness preserves its own goals; none of that relates to the emergence of morality from substance.  ⁸Since these moments cannot yet have the significance of being turned into goals in opposition to the lost ethical life, they are valid here in terms of their impartial content and the goal they pursue is customary ethical substance.  ⁹Now, since the manner in which they appear after consciousness has lost its customary ethical life and repeats those forms in the search for it lies nearer our time, they may perhaps be better approached in this way.

12.  The self-consciousness that is initially only the concept of mindful spirit enters on this path quite specifically regarding its essence to be a single, individual, spirit/mind, whose goal is to achieve its realization as an individual through its own efforts and to enjoy itself as an individual in the process.

13.  Essence to himself as something being for itself makes him the negativity of the other.  In his consciousness the individual emerges as the positive against something that certainly is, but which has the significance of being not given in itself for him.  Consciousness appears to be split into this pre-existing reality and the goal it accomplishes through overcoming, and thereby replacing, that reality.  ²Its first goal, however, is its immediate abstract being for itself, to see itself as this single individual in another or to see another self-consciousness as itself.  ³The experience of what the truth of this goal is places self-consciousness on a higher level, where it is then its own goal to the extent that it is simultaneously universal and has law immediately within it.  ⁴In executing this law of its heart, it learns, however, that the single, individual being does not maintain itself in this way, but that rather the good can only be accomplished through the sacrifice of the individual; an experience that turns it into virtue.  ⁵The experience virtue has can be none other than learning that its goal is already implicitly accomplished, that happiness is immediately there in the action itself and that the action itself is the good.  ⁶The concept of this whole sphere, that thinghood is the being for itself of spirit/mind, emerges to self-consciousness within the motion of this experience.  ⁷In finding it, self-consciousness knows itself to be reality as individuality directly expressing itself.  It finds no more resistance in an opposing reality and it only has this self-expression itself as object and goal.