1.  The spirit of this world is the spiritual/mental essence sodden with a self-consciousness that knows itself to be this self-consciousness, existing for itself and immediately present, and knows the essence to be a reality confronting it.  ²But the existence of this world, just like the actual reality of self-consciousness, is founded on the motion in which self-consciousness externalizes its personality, thereby generating its own world, and then behaves towards it as something alien such that its only option is to dominate it.  ³Now, the renunciation of its being for itself is itself the generation of the reality it uses directly to secure that control.

– ⁴This is another way of saying that self-consciousness is only something, it only has reality, to the extent that it alienates itself.  This is its universality, what makes it valid and real.  ⁵This equality with everything is clearly not that equality of law, not that immediate recognition and validity of self-consciousness quite simply because it is.  No, it is only valid, it only has recognized authority, by virtue of the alienated mediation of having brought itself into conformity with the universal.  ⁶The spiritless, soulless universality of law accepts within itself every natural mode of character and of existence, correcting, justifying them [VI.A.c. State of law §§2-4 M].  ⁷The universality valid here, however, is one that has emerged into being, that has become, and that's what makes it actually real.

2.  What gives the individual validity or authority and reality here is education and culture, which also includes science.  ²His true original nature and substance is the spirit of alienation of natural being.  ³This externalization is thus just as much his purpose as his existence.  It is the means, i.e. the transition simultaneously of thought substance into reality and, conversely, of determinate individuality into the condition of essence [V.C.a. Spirit/mind animal kingdom §§1-5 M].  ⁴This individuality educates, forms itself into what it is in itself; indeed, only then is it really in itself and has actual existence.  As much education and culture as it has, that's how much reality and power it has.  ⁵Although the self, as this self, knows itself to be real here, in fact its actual reality consists solely in overcoming its natural self.  This is why the original determinate nature reduces down to the inessential difference of magnitude, greater or lesser energy of will.  ⁶Purpose and content of that, however, belong solely to the universal substance itself and can only be universal.  The particular character of a nature that becomes purpose and content is impotent, ineffective, unreal.  It is a species of particularity that is a way of vainly trying to get down to work, but one that only makes itself a laughing stock; the contradiction of giving to the particular an effective reality that is immediately the universal.  ⁷If then individuality is falsely assigned to the particular factors in nature and character, then there would be no individualities and characters in the real world at all; the individuals would rather have an equal existence for each other.  That putative individuality is nothing more than the fancied existence that has no persistence in this world, where only what externalizes itself, and is thus universal, acquires reality.

– ⁸The putative individuality thus counts for what it is: a species.  ⁹Species here is not exactly the same as what the French mean by espèce: "the most dreadful of all epithets, for it designates mediocrity and expresses the highest degree of contempt." [Diderot, Rameaus Neffe (Rameau's nephew), Hegel quotes from Goethe's translation, Goethe: Werke v. 1,45, p.128 M]   ¹⁰Art, kind, way or species, and in seiner Art gut sein, being good in his own way, this is a German expression that only adds the honourable appearance, as if it is not meant to be so bad, i.e. it does not yet really include an awareness of what species and what education, culture and effective reality are.

3.  What appears as his education in relation to the single individual is the essential moment of substance itself, namely the immediate transition of substance's thought universality into actual reality, the simple soul of substance that makes the in itself something recognized with existence.  ²The motion of self-educating, self-forming individuality is then immediately its process of development as that of universal, objective essence, i.e. the development of the actual world.  ³This world, although individuality powers its emergence into being and its development, is something immediately alienated for self-consciousness and has for it the form of a solid reality that is not displaced in any way.  ⁴But of course, this world is the substance of self-consciousness, which sets out to dominate it and achieves power over it through education, culture and science.  In these terms, they appear to enable self-consciousness to bring itself into conformity with reality, at least as far as the energy of original character and talents allow.  ⁵What here appears as the power of the individual, under which substance should fall and thereby be overcome, is in fact the same as the realization of substance.  ⁶For the power of the individual consists in its ability to conform to substance, i.e. that it externalizes its own self, establishing itself as existing, objective substance.  ⁷Its education and culture, its own reality, is thus the realization of substance itself.

4.  The self is only actually real to itself when overcome.  ²That's why the self does not constitute for it the unity of consciousness of itself and object, for the object is just its own negative.

– ³Through the self as the soul then substance is educated and cultured in its moments such that each of the opposed sides infuses spirit into the other, each giving and taking: giving, through own its alienation, the other persistence and taking it from the other too.  ⁴At the same time, each moment has its definite character as an insurmountable authority, a fixed reality, against the other.  ⁵Thought fixes this difference in the most general way through the absolute antithesis of good and bad, which, fleeing from each other, can in no way become the same.  ⁶In fact, the soul of their fixed being is the immediate transition into the opposite; existence is really more about the inversion of any definite character into its opposite and only this alienation is the essence and maintenance of the whole.  ⁷This realizing motion and infusion of spirit into the moments must now be considered; the alienation will alienate itself and the whole will take itself back into its concept as a result.

5.  Let's look first at the simple substance itself in the immediate organization of its existing moments that have not yet been infused with spirit.

– ²Nature divides itself into the universal elements.  Air is the persistent, purely universal and transparent essence.  Water is the essence that is always sacrificed.  Fire is the unity giving them all soul, the unity that always dissolves their antithesis just as it divides their integral simplicity.  Finally, earth is the firm knot of all this separation into members and the subject of these essences, just as it is the subject of their processes, their passage out and their return.  In just this way the inner essence, the simple spirit of self-conscious actual reality, articulates itself with similarly universal, but now spiritual/mental, masses into a world.  The first of the masses is the in itself universal, self-identical spiritual/mental essence.  The second is the self-sacrificing and submissive essence, being for itself that has become inherently unequal to itself.  The third mass, self-consciousness, is subject with the force of fire immediately within itself.  In the first, essence is aware of itself as being in itself.  In the second, it has the becoming of being for itself from sacrificing the universal.  ³Spirit/mind itself, however, is the being in and for itself of the whole that splits itself into substance as persistent and substance as self-sacrificing, taking itself back again into its unity.  It is at once the suddenly bursting flame consuming substance and the enduring form of substance.

– ⁴We see that these essences correspond to the community and the family of the customary ethical world [VI.A.a. Customary ethical world §§2-5 M], without however possessing that spirit of home they have [VI.A.b. Customary ethical action §9.7 M].  On the other hand, if fate is unknown to that home spirit, at least self-consciousness is, and knows itself here to be, the real power behind family and community.

6.  These components must be considered both as they initially are within pure consciousness as thoughts or as being in itself and as they are thought of in actual consciousness as objective essence.

– ²In that form of simplicity the first, the self-identical, immediate and unchangeable essence of all consciousness, is the good: the independent spiritual/mental power of the in itself, compared to which the motion of the consciousness that is for itself is no more than an accompaniment.  ³The other, in contrast, is the passive spiritual/mental essence, the universal in so far as it abandons itself while letting the individuals take their consciousness of their singularity from it; it is the null essence, the bad.

– ⁴This absolute dissolution process of essence is itself enduring.  The first essence was foundation, starting point and result for the individuals, which are pure and universal in all that.  In contrast, the second is, on the one hand, the self-sacrificing being for another and, on the other, precisely for that reason its constant return back to itself as singular and the enduring process of becoming for itself of the individuals.

7.  These simple thoughts of good and bad, however, are just as immediately self-alienated.  They are actually real and objective moments in real consciousness.  ²Thus, the first essence is state power and the other is wealth.

– ³State power is, just like simple substance, the universal work, the absolute matter itself, in which the individuals find their essence expressed and their singularity is just consciousness of their universality.  It is at once the work and the simple product from which this, the fact that it results from the action of state power, vanishes.  It remains the absolute foundation and persistence of everything the state does.

– ⁴This simple ethereal substance of its life is, through this character of its unchangeable self-identity, being, but for that reason only being for another.  ⁵This is thus immediately the opposite of itself, wealth.  ⁶It may well be passive, the null, but it is nevertheless universal spiritual/mental essence, no less the result of labour and the kind of action of all that tends to be enduring, just as it again dissolves in the pleasure of all.  ⁷In pleasure, the individuality becomes for itself, a single individual, but this pleasure is itself a result of the universal action just as wealth produces both mutually: the general labour and the pleasure of all.  ⁸Actual reality has eminently the spiritual/mental meaning of being immediately universal.  ⁹It fancies in this moment that every single individual acts according to self-interest; for it is the moment in which the individual becomes aware of being for itself, which is why it does not take reality as something with spirited mindfulness.  In fact, even viewed only externally, it turns out that in their pleasure, everyone ensures everyone else gets enjoyment too and in its labour, similarly, everyone works for all just as much as for himself, as they all do for him.  ¹⁰The individual's being for itself is thus in itself universal and self-interest is only something meant, intended, that cannot get to the point where it can really do what it intends, i.e. to do something that does not benefit all.

8.  In both these spiritual/mental powers then self-consciousness recognizes its substance, content and purpose.  It sees its own double essence therein, in the one its being in itself, in the other its being for itself.

– ²As spirit and mind, however, it is simultaneously the negative unity of its persistence and the separation of individuality from the universal, of actual reality and the self.  ³Lordship and wealth are thus present for the individual as objects, i.e. as things from which he knows himself to be free, fancying he can choose either or neither.  ⁴Free and pure consciousness, he confronts the essence as something that is only for him.  ⁵Then he has the essence as essence within him.

– ⁶In this pure consciousness, self-consciousness regards the thoughts of good and bad not state power and wealth as the moments of substance.

– ⁷Self-consciousness is, moreover, the relation of its pure consciousness to its actual kind, of what is in the form of thought to objective essence: it is essentially the judgement, the proposition.

– ⁸Their immediate definitions have shown for both sides of actual essence which is the good and which the bad; the former is state power and the latter is wealth.  ⁹Unfortunately, this first judgement cannot be regarded as a spiritual/mental proposition.  In it, as has been determined, only the one side is being in itself, the positive, and only the other is being for itself, the negative [§6.2 - 4 above M].  ¹⁰But as spiritual/mental essences, each is the interpenetration of both moments and thus not exhausted in those characterizations and the self-consciousness that relates to them is in and for itself.  For this reason it must relate to each doubly so that their nature of being self-alienated terms will emerge clearly.

9.  Self-consciousness now sees that object to be good and in itself in which it finds itself, but that to be bad in which it finds its own opposite.  Goodness is the identity of objective reality with it and badness is their non-identity.  ²At the same time, what is for it good and bad is good and bad in itself; it is precisely that in which both these moments of being in itself and being for it are the same.  Self-consciousness is the actual mindful spirit of the objective essences and the proposition, the judgement, is the proof of that spirit's power in them, the power that makes each of them into what it is in itself.  ³Not the way they are immediately in themselves identical or non-identical, i.e. the abstract being in itself or being for itself, is their criterion and truth, but what they are in the relation of spirited mind to them; their equality or inequality with mindful spirit.  ⁴Its relation to them, which were initially established as objects and become in itself through this spirit, simultaneously becomes each's reflection in itself by which they acquire real spiritual/mental being so their mindful spirit emerges.  ⁵But just as their first immediate definition is different from the relation of spirited mind to them, just so will the third, their own mindful spirit, be different from the second [§§16 ff., 30 ff., 33.11 ff. below M].

– ⁶Their second in itself, which emerges from the relation of mindful spirit to them, must turn out differently from the immediate in itself, for this mediation of spirit/mind shifts the immediate definiteness and turns it into something quite different.

10.  The consciousness existing in and for itself thus finds in state power its simple essence and duration, but not its individuality as such; it finds its being in itself there, but not its being for itself.  In state power it finds action denied as single action and subjugated into obedience.  ²The individual reflects itself into itself when it confronts this power.  This power is the oppressing essence for it and is the bad: instead of being what is equal to individuality, simply unequal to it.

– ³In contrast, wealth is the good; it is committed to general enjoyment, lets itself be made use of and provides everyone with the consciousness of his own self.  ⁴Wealth is inherently, in itself, universal good action.  If it declines to do a particular good deed and fails to meet everyone's needs, this is no more than accidental and does not detract from its general need to transmit itself to all individuals and to be a giver with a thousand hands.

11.  Both these judgements or propositions give the thoughts of good and bad a content that is the opposite of what they had for us.

– ²But self-consciousness has only incompletely connected itself with its objects, only by the standard of being for itself.  ³Now, consciousness too is an essence existing in itself and must take this as its criterion too; indeed, only when this is done is the spirit/mind proposition complete.  ⁴It is in these terms that state power declares its essence to self-consciousness; it is partly static law and partly government and command, originating the single motions of the general action.  The one is the simple substance itself, the other is the action animating and maintaining itself and everyone else.  ⁵The individual thus finds therein his ground and essence expressed, organized and activated.

– ⁶Conversely, it does not expereience its universal essence through the enjoyment of wealth.  From that it obtains only the transient consciousness and the enjoyment of itself as a singularity existing for itself and of the inequality with its essence.

– ⁷Now the concepts of good and bad acquire here the opposite content to what they formerly had.

12.  Both of these modes of judgement each finds an equality and an inequality.  The first judging consciousness finds state power unequal, the enjoyment of wealth equal to it.  The second consciousness, conversely, finds the former equal and the latter unequal to it.  ²It's a question of judgements of a doubled equality and a doubled inequality, an antithetical relation to the two real essences.

– ³We have to judge these different kinds of judgement-making ourselves and to that end we have to apply the established standard.  ⁴The relation of consciousness with the equality judgement is then the good, that with inequality, the bad, and these two modes of the relation must now be fixed as distinct patterns of consciousness.  ⁵They behave in different ways, so consciousness itself falls under the terms of differentiation of being either good or bad not according to whether it has being for itself or pure being in itself for its principle, for both are equally essential moments.  This doubled judging regards the principles as separate and thus contains only abstract modes of judgement formation.  ⁶Actual consciousness has both principles within it and the difference falls exclusively into its essence, namely in its own relation to what is real.

13.  The mode of this relation is antithetical.  The one is the relation of state power and wealth as equals and the other as unequals.

– ²The consciousness of the former, equal relation, is magnanimity, noble consciousness.  ³In public power it finds that equal to itself which has its simple essence, along with the effective action of its essence, in that public power, relating to it in service, real obedience, and inner respect.  ⁴Similarly, wealth gives it the consciousness of its other essential side, being for itself, so that it also regards wealth as essence in relation to itself, recognizes the source of its enjoyment as benefactor, and acknowledges its gratitude.

14.  The consciousness of the other relation, in contrast, is base, the one that insists on the inequality of the two essences.  In the power of lordship it sees only the chains and oppression of being for itself, so it hates the lord, only obeys reluctantly and is always ready to jump to rebellion.  Even in wealth, through which it reaches the enjoyment of its being for itself, it sees only inequality with the enduring essence.  That's the only way it becomes aware of singularity and of transient pleasure, so it's a love/hate relationship, and with the disappearance of pleasure, i.e. of what inherently disappears anyway, it believes its relation to the rich man has vanished along with it.

15.  These relations express initially only the proposition, the judgement, a determination of precisely what each of the two essences is as an object for consciousness, but not yet as each is in and for itself.  ²To some extent reflection as thought of in the form of the proposition is only initially for us an assertion of the one or the other term and thus the same overcoming of both, not yet reflection of that for consciousness itself.  ³They are also initially immediate essence; they have not become this nor are they inherently self-consciousness.  That for which they exist is not yet their animation; they are predicates which are not yet themselves subject.  ⁴With this separation, the whole of spiritual/mental judgement-making falls apart into two consciousnesses, each of which falls under a one-sided term.

– ⁵The two sides of alienation are the in itself of pure consciousness, namely the determinate thoughts of good and bad, on the one hand and its existence as state power and wealth on the other.  They overcame their initial indifference by raising themselves to the relation between them, to the judgement, the proposition.  Now the external relation here must similarly elevate itself to inner unity, or to the relation of thought to actual reality, thereby allowing the mindful spirit of the two patterns of the judgement, of the proposition, to emerge.  ⁶This happens when the proposition turns into the syllogism, into that mediating motion in which the necessity and midpoint of the two sides of the judgement emerge.

16.  This is how noble, magnanimous consciousness finds itself in the proposition standing against state power, which is not yet a self, but initially the universal substance, of which that consciousness is, however, aware as its purpose and absolute content.  ²Relating thus positively to state power, it relates negatively against its own purpose, its particular content and existence, and lets it disappear.  ³It is the heroism of service – the virtue that sacrifices individual being to the universal in order to bring this into existence – the person who of himself relinquishes possession and pleasure and acts for the powers that be and is actually real.

17.  This motion logically binds the universal together with existence as such in the same process in which given consciousness educates and forms itself into its essential character through this alienation, this renunciation.  ²What this alienates itself from in service is the immersion of its consciousness in existence.  Self-alienated being is in fact just the in itself, so this education earns it respect for itself as well as from the others.

– ³State power, on the other hand, which was only initially the thought universal, the in itself, turns precisely through this motion into the existing universal, into actual power.  ⁴It is this only with the actual obedience it receives when self-consciousness makes the judgement that it, state power, is the essence and then sacrifices itself freely.  ⁵This action logically binding the essence together with the self produces the doubled actual reality, namely the self that is truly real on the one hand and state power as the truth with real force on the other.

18.  This alienation has not yet made state power into a self-consciousness that knows itself to be state power.  Only its law, its in itself, has real authority; it does not yet have any particular will, for servile self-consciousness has not yet renounced its pure self infusing spirit into state power with it.  Initially, it does that only with its being, i.e. it has only sacrificed its existence to state power, not its being in itself.

– ²This self-consciousness counts as a kind that is congruent with the essence.  It is recognized for of its being in itself.  ³The others find their essence activated in it, but not their being for itself – their thinking or pure consciousness is fulfilled, but not their individuality.  ⁴This is why it has authority in their thoughts and does enjoy honour.  ⁵It is the proud vassal, active for state power as long as it does not have a will of its own but is something even more essential than that, only valid in terms of this honour, only in the essential thinking of general opinion, not in the gratitude of individuality, for the vassal did not help individuality to obtain its being for itself.  ⁶Its language, if being for itself were relating to state power's own will, which has not yet come into being, would be the advice the vassal gives for the general good.

19.  State power still has no will to oppose the advice and cannot decide between the different opinions on the general good.  ²It is not yet government and hence not yet in truth actual state power.

– ³The being for itself, the will that is not yet sacrificed as will, is the inner, cut-off mindful spirit of the orders, the classes; which spirit reserves its particular well-being for itself, excluding it from its talk of the general good, and is inclined to make this idle talk on the general good into a surrogate for real action.  ⁴The sacrifice of existence that happens in service is certainly complete when it goes all the way to death.  When the danger of death has been faced and survived, however, the result is a very specific existence, and with that a particular for itself, that renders the advice for the general good ambiguous and suspicious and that really does keep its own opinion and particular will back from state power.  ⁵Inequality thus determines its behaviour towards the state and it falls under the aspect of the base consciousness of always being ready to leap to outrage.

20.  This contradiction, which it must overcome, takes the form of the inequality between being for itself and the universality of state power.  This includes the form of the unreconciled opposite resulting when that renunciation of existence becomes itself something existent and does not return back into consciousness.  Consciousness becomes that unreconciled opposite when the renunciation is completed in death, when consciousness does not survive it and is not in and for itself.  ²Thus the true sacrifice of being for itself is solely that in which it gives itself as completely as in death while preserving its life in this renunciation.  This is what makes it actually what it is in itself, the identical unity of itself and its own opposite.  ³The cut-off, inner, mindful spirit, the self as such, emerges and alienates itself; simultaneously with this, state power is elevated into a self of its own.  Without this alienation the actions of honour, of noble consciousness and the suggested advice of its insight would retain the ambiguity lying in that potentially treacherous reserve of particular intention and self-will, cut-off, waiting in ambush.

21.  But this alienation happens solely in the language, which here emerges in its characteristic meaning.

– ²In the world of customary ethics, law and command, in the world of actual reality, at first advice, language has the essence for its content and is that content's form.  Here, however, language receives this form, itself, as its content and has authority simply as language.  It is the force of speaking as something that simply does what is to be done.  ³For it is the existence of the pure self as self.  In language the singularity existing for itself of self-consciousness as such steps into existence making it for another.  ⁴I , the ego is not in any other way present as pure I; in every other expression it is immersed in an actual reality and in a pattern from which it can withdraw itself.  There it is reflected out of its action – as out of its physiognomic expression – and casts such dispirited, incomplete existence aside, which is incomplete because it always has too much and too little, and both to the same degree [V.A.c. Physiognomy and phrenology §4.3-9].  ⁵Language, however, contains it in its purity.  Only language utters the I itself.  ⁶This its existence is as existence an objectivity that has its true nature inherent to it.  ⁷I, ego, is this I – but just as much universal; its appearance is at once immediately the renunciation and disappearance of this I and hence its persistence in its universality.  ⁸The I that utters itself is heard; it is a contagion, transiting directly into unity with those for whom it is there and is universal self-consciousness.

– ⁹Being heard is precisely the moment in which the I's existence immediately fades away, this existence, its otherness, is pulled back into itself.  This process is its existence as a self-conscious now : as it is here, to be not here, and to be here by virtue of this disappearance.  ¹⁰The disappearance is thus itself simultaneously its own persistence.  It is its own knowledge of itself and its knowledge of itself as one that has transited into another self, that has been heard and is universal.

22.  Spirited mind acquires this reality here because the extremes, whose unity it is, are simultaneously directly determined as actual realities for themselves.  ²Their unity is broken down into fixed opponents, of which each is for the other a real object excluded from it.  ³This is why the unity emerges as a midpoint distinguished, indeed excluded, from the cut-off, self-enclosed reality of the two sides.  This also gives the midpoint an actual objectivity distinguished from that of the sides, an objectivity that is for it, i.e. the midpoint is an existence in its own right.  ⁴This is spiritual/mental substance and it steps into existence only once it has obtained self-consciousnesses for its sides that know this pure self to be immediately valid, actual reality and just as immediately know themselves to be this only through the alienating mediation.  ⁵The former is what makes of the moments the category [V. Certainty and Truth of Reason §§5 - 8] that knows itself and hence, purified up to this point, moments of mindful spirit, which through the latter enters into existence as spirited mindfulness.

– ⁶Now, while this makes spirit/mind as such the midpoint that presupposes those extremes and is generated by their existence, it is no less the spiritual/mental whole bursting forth between them, splitting itself into them, and generating each of them into the whole according to its principle first through this contact.

– ⁷It's the fact that each extreme is already in itself overcome and broken down that produces their unity and this is the motion that logically binds both together, exchanging their characteristics and tying them together also within each extreme itself.  ⁸With this the mediation establishes the concept of each one of the two extremes in its actual reality, i.e. the mediation turns what each is in itself into its own mindful spirit.

23.  The two extremes, state power and noble consciousness, are both broken down in this way.  State power splits into the abstract universal that is obeyed and the will existing for itself that the abstract will did not yet possess.  Noble consciousness breaks itself down into the obedience of the existence already overcome, i.e. in the being in itself of self-respect and honour, on the one hand, and the pure being for itself that has not yet been overcome, that treacherous will still hiding in ambush, on the other.  ²The two moments to which both sides have been cleansed, which makes them now moments of language, are the abstract universal called the general good and the pure self that renounced its consciousness in the service immersed in various existences.  ³Both are in concept the same thing, for pure self is precisely the abstract universal, which makes it their unity established as their midpoint.  ⁴Now, the self is only actually real in the extreme of consciousness, the in itself only in the extreme of state power.  Consciousness misses the reality in the transition of state power into it, for the state only does that as honour.  Conversely, state power misses the will, itself being the decisive self when it is merely obeyed as the so-called general good.  ⁵The unity of the concept in which state power still stands, indeed, to which consciousness has purified itself, becomes actual in this mediating motion, whose simple existence, as the midpoint, is language.

– ⁶However, for its sides language as the midpoint still does not have two selves present as selves; state power still has to be infused with spirit in order to become a self.  This language is thus not yet spirited mind as it knows itself completely and expresses itself as such.

24.  Noble consciousness, precisely because it is the extreme of the self, appears as the one from which language starts and through which the sides of the relation shape themselves into wholes with souls.

– ²The heroism of silent service turns into the heroism of flattery.  ³This reflection of service spoken out loud constitutes the spiritual/mental, self-dividing midpoint and reflects not only its own extreme into itself, but also the extreme of universal violence back into itself, making this, which is initially in itself, into being for itself and the singularity of self-consciousness.  ⁴Through all this the spirit of this power becomes unlimited, a power that is precisely the unlimited monarch; unlimited because the language of flattery elevates the power into its purified universality.  The moment as product of language, which is existence purified into mindful spirit, is itself a cleansed self-identity: a monarch.  This also elevates singularity to its peak: what the noble consciousness divests itself of according to this side of simple spiritual/mental unity is the pure in itself of its thinking, its ego, I, itself.  ⁵More precisely it elevates singularity, which is otherwise only something intended, fancied, into its own existing purity by giving the monarch his own name.  It is, after all, only the name in which the difference of the single individual from all others is not just meant, but is really actually realized by everyone.  In the name the single individual counts as pure individual no longer only in its consciousness, but in the consciousness of all.  ⁶The name, then, ensures that the monarch is as such separated from everyone else, taken out and left lonely; in the name he is the atom that cannot communicate anything of its essence; there's nothing else like it.

– ⁷This name is thus the reflection into itself, actual reality that has the universal power inherently within it.  The name ensures that power is the monarch.  ⁸It also ensures that he, conversely, this single individual, knows himself to be the universal power so that the nobles are not only prepared for service to the state power, they clamour around the throne as decorations and constant reminders to him, who sits on the throne, of exactly what he is.

25.  This all makes the language of their praise the spirit in the power of the state that logically binds the two extremes [king and court] together.  It reflects the abstract power in it and gives that power the moment of the other extreme, the willing and deciding being for itself and therewith self-conscious existence.  It all brings this single, actual self-consciousness to the point where it knows itself to be the power with certainty.  ²This language is the point of the self in which renunciation of inner certainty has run the many points together.

– ³Now, state power's own spirit consists in the fact that its actual reality and its sustenance lie in noble consciousness' sacrifice in action and thought, so this makes it self-alienated independence.  Noble consciousness, the extreme of being for itself, receives the extreme of actual universality in exchange for its renunciation of the universality of thinking; the power of the state has passed over to it.  ⁴State power is first activated in it; in its being for itself state power ceases to be the idle essence it appeared to be in the extreme of abstract being in itself.

– ⁵In these terms, in itself, saying that state power is reflected into itself, i.e. has become mindful spirit, means nothing other than that it has become a moment of self-consciousness, that it exists only as something overcome.  ⁶Now it is an essence whose spirit it is to be sacrificed and abandoned, i.e. it is wealth.

– ⁷At the same time it maintains a real existence opposed to the wealth into which, according to the concept, it is constantly changing.  The concept of that reality, however, is precisely this motion of passage through service and honour, from which it derives its existence, into its opposite, the renunciation of power.  ⁸For itself then, throwing away noble consciousness makes that peculiar self, its own will, into the universality that renounces itself, into a perfect singularity and contingency completely exposed to each and every powerful will; and what remains to it of universally recognized and incommunicable independence is the empty name.

26.  When noble consciousness defined itself as that which related to universal power on an equal footing [§13.2 above M], the truth of that lies rather in holding on to its own being for itself in service to that power; but the genuine renunciation of its personality is what makes it the actual overcoming of universal substance, literally tearing it to shreds.  ²Its spirit is the relation of complete inequality of on the one hand holding on to its will within its sense of honour, while on the other giving its will up.  This latter it does partly to alienate its own inwardness from itself in order to find the peak of inequality with itself; but also partly to submit to universal substance in this, rendering substance completely unequal to itself.

– ³Clearly, this ensures that the characterization given it in the judgement opposing what was called base consciousness disappears taking that base consciousness with it [§14 above M].  ⁴The latter has achieved its goal, namely to bring the universal power under being for itself.

27.  Enriched by the universal power, self-consciousness exists as the universal good act, i.e. it is the wealth that is itself again an object for consciousness.  ²It is that as the subjugated universal which, however, has not yet absolutely returned back into itself through this first overcoming.

– ³The self does not yet have itself as self for its object; rather, its object is only the universal essence that has been overcome.  ⁴Since this has only just come into being, the relation of consciousness to this object is immediate and consciousness has not yet determined its inequality with it.  It is the noble consciousness maintaining its being for itself in the universal that has become inessential, so it recognizes it and is grateful to the benefactor.

28.  Wealth already has within itself the moment of being for itself.  ²Wealth is not the selfless universal of state power, nor the unprejudiced, inorganic nature of mindful spirit.  It is rather that nature in defending itself by an exertion of will against the one who wants to control it for its own enjoyment.  ³It only has the form of essence, so wealth only has a one-sided being for itself that is not in itself as such, but only the in itself overcome, the return of the individual back into itself which, in its enjoyment is devoid of essence.  ⁴This is why wealth needs to be animated and the motion of its reflection consists in developing its being for itself into being in and for itself; the wealth that is only essence overcome must become essence itself.  This is how it develops its own mindful spirit within itself.

– ⁵Since we have already described the form of this motion in detail, here it will suffice to determine its content.

29.  Noble consciousness clearly does not relate here to the object as essence as such; it is just being for itself, something alien to it.  This consciousness literally finds its self as such pre-existing, already alienated, an objective, fixed, actual reality it has to receive from another fixed being for itself.  ²The noble's object is being for itself, precisely what is his own.  Being object, however, makes it simultaneously an alien reality with its own being for itself, its own will; i.e. the noble sees his self in the power of an alien will with the power to determine whether to relinquish his own self to him.

30.  Self-consciousness can abstract from each individual side and so retains within association to any one of them its recognition and intrinsic validity as an essence existing for itself.  ²Here, however, it sees itself from the side of its pure and most characteristic reality, from the standpoint of its ego, I, outside itself, belonging to another.  It sees its personality dependent on the whim of another's personality, on the chance of a fleeting moment in time, on arbitrary or otherwise completely indifferent circumstance.

– ³In legal status, what lies in the power of objective essence appears as a contingent content from which it is possible to abstract, so the self as such is not subjected to power, but is acknowledged, recognized [VI.A.c. Legal status §4.7 ff. M].  ⁴Unfortunately, here it sees the certainty of itself as such as being most devoid of essence, the pure personality as the absolute lack of personality.  ⁵The spirit of its gratitude is thus the feeling engendered by its most abject condition: it feels the greatest rage.  ⁶The pure ego, I, sees itself beside itself and strife-torn; and in this strife everything that has continuity and universality, everything called law and good and right, has all come apart and been destroyed.  Everything equal is broken, dissolved and now the purest inequality obtains, the absolutely essential has become absolutely inessential, being for itself is now outside itself.  The pure I itself has absolutely disintegrated.

31.  When this consciousness at least gets the objectivity of being for itself back from wealth and overcomes that objectivity, like the previous reflection it is not incomplete only according to its concept, but is unsatisfied on its own account too.  The self receives itself as something objective, so the reflection is the immediate contradiction asserted within the pure I.  ²As self though it is also immediately over this contradiction.  It is the absolute elasticity of the self that again overcomes its overcome state.  Rejecting that abjectness in which its being for itself becomes something alien to it, it is outraged over the outrage of such a reception of itself and, even in receiving itself, is for itself.

32.  The relation of this consciousness is thus tied to absolute strife, its specific difference, i.e. that between noble and base, disappears from its spirit and now both are the same.

– ²The spirit of benevolent wealth can now be distinguished from that of the consciousness receiving that benevolence and must be considered separately.

– ³That spirit was being for itself devoid of essence, the abandoned essence.  ⁴Communicating itself, however, made it in itself.  In fulfilling its destiny and sacrificing itself, it overcomes the singularity of enjoyment only for itself and as singularity overcome it is universality or essence.

– ⁵What it communicates, what it gives to others, is being for itself.  ⁶It does not just dedicate itself as a selfless nature, as the unprejudiced condition of life abandoning itself, but as self-conscious essence sustaining itself for itself: it is not the inorganic power of the elements, known by the receiving consciousness to be inherently transitory, but the power over the self that knows itself to be independent and arbitrary and that simultaneously knows that what it gives is the self of another.

– ⁷Wealth thus shares the abjectness with the client, but exuberance replaces outrage.  ⁸For wealth knows that, on the one side, like the client, that being for itself is a contingent thing.  But wealth itself is this contingency, in whose power personality stands.  ⁹In this exuberance, fancying that from a meal it has acquired an alien I, an alien self, and thereby has obtained its submission from its innermost essence, it overlooks the inner outrage of the other.  Wealth overlooks the fact that all chains have been thrown off and the resulting state of pure strife.  The self-identity of being for itself has become non-identical and everything equal and all persistence has disintegrated, undermining most of all the opinion and the perspective of the benefactor.  ¹⁰The benefactor stands immediately before this innermost abyss, before this bottomless pit, in which all substance and support has vanished.  In this pit he sees nothig but an ordinary thing, a plaything of his moods, an accident of his caprice.  His spirit is opinion [sense-certainty] completely devoid of essence, nothing but a surface abandoned by spirit.

33.  Self-consciousness had its language for state power just as spirit/mind emerged as the actual midpoint between these extremes [§§21, 22 above].  In exactly the same way self-consciousness has its language for wealth; and how much more does its outrage have its own language too.  ²The former, which gives wealth the consciousness of its essential character and thereby subjugates it, is similarly the language of flattery, but the ignoble kind [§24.3-8 above M].  For it knows that what it declares to be essence has been abandoned, that it is not essence existing in itself.  ³The language of flattery is, however, as noted above, still one-sided spirit/mind [§25.1-§26.1 above M].  ⁴Its moments are the self purified through the education of service to pure existence and the being in itself of power.  ⁵Unfortunately, the pure concept, in which the simple self and the in itself, the former that pure ego, I, and the latter pure essence or thinking, are the same – this unity of the two sides, joined in reciprocal interaction, is not there in the consciousness of this language.  The object for this consciousness is still the in itself in opposition to the self, not simultaneously its self as such.

– ⁶The language of lacerating strife, however, is the complete language and the truly existing spirit of this whole world of education and culture.  ⁷This self-consciousness, which has the outrage that rejects its own abjectness, is immediately absolute self-identity in absolute strife, the pure mediation of pure self-consciousness with itself.  ⁸It is the equality of the identical judgement, the identical proposition, in which one and the same personality is both subject and predicate.  ⁹But this identical judgement is simultaneously the infinite proposition, for the personality here is absolutely divided, subject and predicate are just mutually indifferent existences that have nothing to do with each other and lack any necessary unity.  In fact, each has the power of a personality all its own.  ¹⁰Being for itself has its being for itself as its object, something simply other and simultaneously just as immediate as itself.  It has itself as another, which does not mean that this has a different content.  No, the content is the same self in the form of absolutely antithetical and indifferent existences all to themselves.

– ¹¹Here we have the mindful spirit of this real world of education and culture in its full truth and conscious of its concept.

34.  This spirit is the absolute and universal inversion and alienation of actual reality and of thought, pure education.  ²What is experienced in this world is that neither the actual essence of power and of wealth, nor its determinate concepts, good and bad, or the consciousness of good and bad, of nobility and baseness, have any truth.  Rather, all of these moments are inverted, each in the other, and each is the opposite of itself.

– ³Substance, the universal power, achieves its own spirited mindfulness through the principle of individuality and so receives its own self only as its own name.  Consequently, it has actual power rather as the powerless essence that sacrifices itself.

– ⁴But this abandoned selfless essence, the self that has become a thing, is in fact the return of essence into itself; it is being for itself existing for itself, the existence of mindful spirit.

– ⁵Likewise the thoughts of these essences, of the good and the bad, replace each other in this motion.  What is defined as being good is bad and what as bad is good.  ⁶The consciousness of each and every one of these moments, judged as being noble or base consciousness, are in their truth again in fact the reverse of what they should be.  Nobility turns into baseness and abjectness, just as this turns into the nobility of the most highly cultivated freedom of self-consciousness.

– ⁷Everything is thus, formally considered, outwardly the inversion of what it is for itself and again, what it is for itself is not what it is in truth, but something other than what it wants to be.  Being for itself is really the loss of its self, while the alienation of itself is in fact self-preservation.

– ⁸What we have is this: all moments exercise a general justice towards each other and each of them inwardly alienates itself as much as it insinuates itself into its opposite in order to invert it.

– ⁹True spirit/mind is, however, precisely this unity of what is absolutely separated.  It finds its way into existence through the free, actual reality of these selfless extremes, namely as their midpoint.  ¹⁰Its existence is the universal discussion and disruptive judging dissolving all those moments that should count as essence and real, articulated members of the whole.  Indeed, it is this game of self-dissolution with itself.  ¹¹This judging and discussion is thus all-conquering, true and invincible; which is to say it is all that really matters in this real world.  ¹²At least it ensures that every part of this world has its turn at having its spirit stated or that it is spoken of with spirit, that it is declared to be just exactly what it is.

– ¹³Honest consciousness takes each moment as a persisting essence and is the uneducated thoughtlessness of not knowing that it simultaneously does the opposite.  ¹⁴Disrupted consciousness, however, is the consciousness of the inversion and, indeed, of absolute inversion.  The concept is dominant in it; the concept that brings the thoughts together that lie far apart for honesty.  This is what ensures its language is spirited and intelligent.

35.  The content of mindful spirit's speech by and about itself is thus the inversion of all concepts and realities, the general deception of others, and even of itself, and the shamelessness in uttering this deception in what is precisely for that reason the greatest truth.  ²This speech is the madness of the musician "who piled on and mixed up thirty arias – Italian, French, tragic, comic – of all kinds of characters; now with a deep base he goes down into hell, then he pulled his throat together and with a falsetto he tore into the heights of the air, alternately speeding/calming, imperious/contemptuous" [Diderot, Rameaus Neffe, Rameau's nephew in Goethe's translation of 1805, Werke v. 1,45, p. 118 M].

– ³For calm consciousness, honestly setting the melody of the good and the true in the equality of tones, i.e. in one single note, this speech appears to be "a rant of wisdom and madness, a mixture of just as much skill and ignominy, of ideas as correct as they are false, of such a complete inversion of feeling, such total shamefulness, that it is complete openness and truth.  ⁴It cannot fail to enter into all these tones and the whole scale of feelings from the deepest contempt and dismissal to the highest admiration and tenderness, running up and down.  There will be a laughable aspect blended into this, determining their nature for them." [ibid. p. 33 M].  In their openness these tones will have a reconciliatory aspect, in their shuddering depth, an omnipotent one, lending them spirit.

36.  This confusion is clear to itself and we shall now consider the speech of that simple consciousness of truth and goodness confronting the speech of confusion.  It turns out that, up against the open and self-conscious eloquence of the spirit of education and culture, the speech of that simple consciousness can come up with nothing more than monosyllables.  It is incapable of telling that spirit of confusion anything it does not already know and says itself.  ²If it goes beyond its monosyllabic speech, then it says just what that spirit says and is even foolish enough to add the claim that it has something new and different to say.  ³Its own monosyllables, shameful and base, are already this foolishness, for it says these things about itself.  ⁴The spirit in its speech can invert everything monotone claiming that the self-identical is only an abstraction, while in its actual reality it is the inversion inherent to itself.  Straight consciousness can then, against this, defend the good and noble, i.e. what preserves its self-identity in its expression, in the only way possible here, namely with the plea that it should not lose its value because it is supposedly linked to the bad or mixed with it, for this is its condition and necessity and herein, it claims, lies the wisdom of nature.  In fact, however, this consciousness, in fancying it contradicts itself, has really only reduced the content of the spirited speech to a trivial summary.  This is thoughtless, since it makes the opposite of the noble and good into a condition and necessity for the noble and good.  Moreover, it fancies it says something other than this, namely that what is called noble and good in its essence is the inversion of itself just as, conversely, the bad is really excellent.

37.  If simple consciousness replaces this mindless thought with the actual reality of excellence by presenting this in an example of a fake case or even produces a true anecdote showing that it is no empty name, but is actually present, then the universal reality of the inverted action of the whole real world stands against it, in which that example is completely isolated, constituting an espèce [VI.B.I.a. Education and culture etc. §2.9].  Presenting the existence of the good and noble in a single anecdote, fake or true, is the most unpleasant thing that can be said about it.

– ²If simple consciousness demands finally the dissolution of this whole world of inversion, it can still not demand that the individual distance himself from it, for even Diogenes in his tub is bound by it.  Anyway, the demand on the individual is exactly what is considered bad, i.e. to look out only for oneself, as an isolated individual.  ³When this demand for distance is directed at universal individuality, however, it cannot mean that reason, now the intellectually educated consciousness, should be given up, sink the extended wealth of its moments back into the simplicity of the natural heart and fall back to the wilds, to a closeness to animal consciousness, also known as nature and even innocence.  No, the demand for this dissolution can only be placed on the spirit of education and culture itself, that it, as spirit, return back into itself from out of its confusion and achieve a yet higher consciousness.

38.  In fact, mindful spirit has already accomplished this in itself.  ²The self-conscious and self-assertive strife of consciousness is derisive laughter at existence, as it is at the confusion of the whole and at itself.  Nevertheless, it is still listening to itself as the whole confusion fades.

– ³This vanity of all actual reality and of all determinate concept listening to itself is the double reflection of the world into its very self.  Once in this self of consciousness as in this and once again in the pure universality of the same, i.e. in thought.  ⁴In terms of the former side, the spirit that has come home to itself has turned its gaze into the world of actual reality and has penetrated into its purpose and immediate content.  From the other side, however, its gaze is only directed into itself and is negative against that world; but it is also partly turned away from it towards heaven – the beyond of heaven is its object.

39.  In terms of that return into the self the vanity of all things is its own vanity, i.e. it is just plain vain.  ²It is the self existing for itself that knows not only how to judge everything and to chatter about it, but knows how to express with great spirit the fixed essence of actual reality as well as the fixed terms set by the judgement in their contradiction.  This contradiction is their truth.

– ³Considered in terms of form, it knows everything to be alienated from itself: being for itself separated from being in itself ; what is meant, intended, and purpose separated from the truth and being for another separated from both of them; what is pre-existing separated from the genuine opinion and the true matter and intention.

– ⁴It knows correctly how to express each moment against the other, in fact the inversion of all.  Indeed, it knows better what each thing is no matter how it is or how it defines itself.  ⁵It knows the substantial under the aspect of disunion and conflict, which it unites within it, but not from the standpoint of this unification as such.  This enables it to judge the substantial very well, although it has lost the ability to grasp it.

– ⁶This vanity needs here the vanity of all things in order to give itself from them the consciousness of the self, so it generates them itself and is the soul that carries them.  ⁷Power and wealth are the highest goals of its striving.  It knows that it educates and develops itself to the universal through renunciation and sacrifice, acquiring it as a possession and in this possession enjoys universal validity.  They are the actually recognized powers.  ⁸But this its validity is itself vain and precisely by mastering them itself, it knows they are not beings with a self and knows itself rather as their power; that power, however, is vain.  ⁹It now explains in the richly inspired, spirited language how it is in this possession over it too, which makes this language its highest interest and the truth of the whole.  In it this self, as this pure self, belonging neither to the real conditions, nor to the conditions of thought, becomes itself the spirited and truly, universally valid self.  ¹⁰It is the nature of all relations that tears itself apart and the conscious tearing up of the same.  But it only knows its own fragmented condition as outraged self-consciousness and this knowledge is what elevates it immediately above that.  ¹¹In that vanity, all content becomes something negative that can no longer be positively grasped.  The positive object is only the pure ego, I, itself and the torn consciousness is in itself  this pure self-identity of self-consciousness returned back to itself.