1.  Consciousness finds its concept in utility [VI.B.II.b. Enlightenment's truth §6.5 ff.].  ²Now, the concept here is still partly object, partly, precisely for that reason, purpose, and in these terms consciousness still does not have immediate possession of the concept.  ³Utility is still a predicate of the object, not subject itself, not its immediate and sole actual reality.  ⁴As in the last section [VI.B.II.b. Enlightenment's truth §7.9], being for itself has not yet proved itself to be the substance of the other moments, which would actually make utility the self of consciousness and hence put consciousness in possession of it.

– ⁵The fact is, however, that the retrieval of this form of objectivity, utility, has in itself already happened, which is what constitutes the inner upheaval from which the actual upheaval of reality, the new pattern of consciousness, absolute freedom, emerges.

2.  This is nothing more than an empty appearance of objectivity that separates self-consciousness from the possession.  ²All persistence and validity of the determinate members of the organization of the one world of reality and faith has returned back into its ground and spirit; but it is also true that that world no longer has anything of its own left for itself.  It is now just metaphysics, pure concept or essence of self-consciousness.  ³The being in and for itself of utility as an object now gives consciousness to understand that its being in itself is essentially being for another.  Being in itself as selflessness is in truth what is passive, what for another is self.  ⁴The object is now there for consciousness in this abstract form of pure being in itself, for consciousness is now the pure process of insight whose differences are there in the pure form of the concepts.

– ⁵Being for itself, however, into which being for another returns, the self, is not an independent self distinct from the ego, I, of what is called the object, for consciousness as pure insight is not a single self with the object confronting it as a self of its own.  In fact, being for itself here is the pure concept, the self's own gaze into the self, absolute double vision of itself.  Self-certainty is here the universal subject and its knowing concept is the essence of all actual reality.  ⁶When, then, utility was only the flux of the moments not returning back into its own unity [VI.B.II.b. Enlightenment's truth §6.5], it was still an object for knowledge.  Now the object ceases to be utility because knowledge is itself the motion of those abstract moments.  Knowledge is the universal self, self of itself as much as of the object and as a universal it is the unity of this motion returning into itself.

3.  We are now in the presence of mindful spirit as absolute freedom.  Now spirit/mind is self-consciousness grasping itself such that its own self-certainty is the essence of all spiritual/mental masses of the real as much as of the extrasensory world, or conversely, such that the knowledge of consciousness of itself is essence and actual reality.

– ²Consciousness is now aware of its pure personality and in that of all spiritual/mental reality and all reality is now spiritual/mental.  To consciousness the world is simply its own will and that will is universal will.  ³It's not a question of the empty thought of the will here either, silent or represented assent, but real, universal will and the will of single individuals as such.  ⁴For the will is in itself consciousness of personality, of each individual, and it should exist as this true, actual will, as the self-conscious essence of each and every personality, so that each always inseparably does everything and what appears as the action of the whole is the immediate and conscious action of each.

4.  This undivided substance of absolute freedom lifts itself up onto the throne of the world without any other power being capable of resisting it.  ²In truth, consciousness is the sole element in which the spiritual/mental essences or powers have their substance.  So their whole system, which organized and sustained itself through the division into masses, collapsed once the single individual consciousness grasped the object such that it has no other essence than self-consciousness itself, that it is absolutely the concept.  ³What made the concept into an existing object was its differentiation in separately persisting masses.  Now, however, that the object has become the concept there is nothing persisting left to it for negativity has thoroughly permeated all its moments.  ⁴This is how the object enters into existence as each single consciousness raises itself out of the sphere to which it was assigned, no longer finding its essence and its work in these specialized masses.  Instead it grasps its self as the concept of will, all masses as the essence of this will so that it can now only realize itself in a labour that is whole and complete.  ⁵All classes, all the stations, the spiritual/mental essences into which the whole articulates itself as into members or body parts, are thus abolished in this absolute freedom.  The single, individual consciousness that belonged to such a member and willed and acted in it has overcome, eliminated, its limitations: its purpose is the universal purpose, its language is universal law and its work is the universal work.

5.  Object and difference here have lost the significance of utility, which was a predicate of all real being.  Consciousness does not start its motion with the object as something alien, from which it first has to return into itself; rather, the object is now consciousness itself.  The opposition consists then solely in the difference between singular, individual, and universal consciousness.  Single individual consciousness here, however, is, even to itself, immediately what only wears the mask of opposition; in fact it is universal consciousness and will.  ²The beyond of this, its actual reality, floats over the corpse of the vanished independence of the real or believed being only as the vapour of a thin gas, of the empty être supême.

6.  All that's left after overcoming, eliminating, the differences in the spiritual/mental masses and the limitations on the lives of the individuals and their two worlds is just the motion of universal self-consciousness into itself as its mutual interaction in the form of universality, on the one hand, and personal consciousness, on the other.  Universal will goes into itself and is individual will, which is confronted by the universal law and work.  ²This single consciousness is immediately aware of itself equally as itself and as universal will.  It is well aware that its object is the law made by itself and the work completed by itself.  Transiting into activity and producing objectivity, it thus makes or does nothing of its own, but only laws and state actions.

7.  This motion is therefore the mutual interaction of consciousness with itself into which it releases nothing in the embodied form of a free object confronting it.  ²It follows from this that it cannot get to any positive work, not to universal works of language nor of actual reality, not to laws and universal institutes of conscious freedom, nor to acts and works of willing freedom.

– ³The work into which the freedom giving itself consciousness could make itself would consist in freedom making itself, as universal substance, into an object and persisting being.  ⁴This otherness would be the difference in freedom according to which it would divide itself into persisting spiritual/mental masses and the members, body parts, of distinct powers.  To some extent these masses would be the thought constructions of the separate powers of the legislature, the bench, and the executive; but they would also be the real essences that emerged in the real world of education and culture.  Indeed, when the content of universal action is looked at more closely, they would even be the specialized masses of labour, which might even be distinguished further into more specialized classes.

– ⁵Universal freedom that separated itself in this way into its members and hence into given, existing substance, would then be free of single individuality and would distribute the mass of individuals among its distinct members.  ⁶The action and being of personality would then find itself confined to a branch of the whole, limited to one kind of action and being.  Established in the element of being, it would acquire the significance of something determinate; it would cease to be in truth universal self-consciousness.  ⁷Self-consciousness, for its part, would not let itself be deceived out of actual reality with the image of obedience to self-made laws that assign it a part, nor through its representation in legislation.  It would not let itself be deceived out of the actual reality of giving itself the law and not to execute a single work, but only the universal work itself.  For where the self is only represented and imagined, it is not really actual there: where it is represented, replaced, it is not.

8.  Individual self-consciousness does not find itself in this universal work of absolute freedom as existing substance, nor in genuine acts and individual projects of absolute freedom's will.  ²For the universal to get to an act it must pull itself together into the one of individuality and set up an individual self-consciousness in the lead, for the universal will is only in a self that is one, an actual will.  ³This, however, excludes all other single individuals from the whole of this act, they have only a limited part of it, which means that the act would not be that of an actual universal self-consciousness.

– ⁴Thus, no positive work or act can produce universal freedom; all that remains to it is negative action for absolute freedom is only the fury of vanishing.

9.  Now, the highest reality confronting universal freedom, or better the only object that still comes into being for universal freedom is the freedom and singularity of actual self-consciousness itself.  ²For that universality that did not allow itself to get to the reality of organic articulation into members, holding on to the goal of maintaining itself in undivided continuity, also differentiates itself within itself because it is motion or consciousness as such.  ³In fact, given its own abstraction, it divides itself into extremes quite as abstract: simple, unyielding, cold universality and absolute, rigidly solid and stubbornly discrete pointedness of actual self-consciousness.  ⁴After completing the elimination of real organization and now persists for itself, this is its only object, an object that has no more content, possession, existence and external extension, but is only the knowledge of itself as the absolute, pure and free, single self.  ⁵It can only be grasped by its abstract existence as such.

– ⁶Each of these two is inseparable and absolute for itself, so neither could send a part into a midpoint through which they might link up.  So the relation between them is one of completely unmediated, pure negation.  Indeed, it is the negation of the single individual as given and existing in the universal.  ⁷The only work and act of universal freedom is thus death; indeed, a death without inner range and filling, for what is negated is the unfilled point of the absolutely free self.  It is thus the coldest, flattest death with no more meaning than cutting off a head of cabbage or taking a drink of water.

10.  In the flatness of this monosyllable [Tod, death] lies the wisdom of the government, the understanding of the general will, of how to implement itself.  ²The government is itself nothing other than the self-fixing point, the individuality, of the general will.  ³The government, a will and execution proceeding from one point, wills and executes definite regulations and actions.  ⁴In all this, the government excludes the other individuals from its act, while also constituting itself as a definite, specific will and hence one opposed to the general will, so it is impossible for the government to represent itself as anything other than a faction.  ⁵It's just that the victorious faction is called the government.  It is a faction and therein lies the necessity of its own downfall; conversely, the fact of being the government makes it into a faction and guilty.  ⁶When the general will insists that the government's actual action is a crime committed against it, then in contrast, the government has nothing definite and external to demonstrate the guilt of the will opposed to it, for against it as the actual universal will stands only the unreal, pure will, the intention.  ⁷'Under suspicion' therefore takes the place of, in fact takes on the meaning and effect of, 'being guilty' so that the external reaction against this reality lying in the simple inside of the intention consists in the dry elimination of this given, existing self from which nothing else can be taken but its own being itself.

11.  In this, its characteristic work absolute freedom becomes an object to itself and self-consciousness experiences what that freedom is.  ²In itself, that freedom is precisely this abstract self-consciousness that eliminates all difference and all persistence of difference within it.  ³In these terms absolute freedom is the object to itself; the terror of death is the intuition into this, its negative essence.  ⁴Absolutely free self-consciousness finds this, its reality, to be completely different from what absolute freedom's concept of itself was, that namely the general will was only the positive essence of personality, in which will personality knows itself only positively or as sustained.  ⁵As pure insight that self-consciousness divided its positive and negative essence into the predicate-free absolute, pure thinking, and pure material as such.  So what we have now for that self-consciousness is the absolute transition from the one into the other in its actual reality.

– ⁶The general will, absolutely positive, actual self-consciousness is this self-conscious reality intensified up to pure thinking or to abstract material, so it turns into the negative essence and proves itself to be likewise the process of overcoming of self-thinking, of self-consciousness.

12.  Being the pure self-identity of the general will is what endows absolute freedom with negation and with that also difference as such, which it proceeds to develop as the real difference.  ²Pure negativity has the element of persistence, substance that is, in the self-identical general will, in which the moments of pure negativity realize themselves.  Here negativity has the material that it can use in its own specific terms; and to the extent that this substance has shown itself to be the negative for single, individual consciousness, the organization of the spiritual/mental masses develops and establishes itself once again, and the many individual consciousnesses are given their assignments in them.  ³These feel the fear of their absolute lord, death, accept once again the negation and the differences, subordinate themselves to the masses, and return to a divided and limited work, but in that back to their substantial reality.

13.  Spirited mind would be thrown back from all this tumult to its starting point, the customary ethical and real world of education and culture, which is only refreshed and rejuvenated by the fear of the lord that has returned into the dispositions.  ²Mindful spirit would have to pass through this loop of necessity once again and constantly repeat it if the only result were the complete interpenetration of self-consciousness and substance.  This is the interpenetration in which self-consciousness wanted to experience the negative force of its own universal essence directed against itself and wanted to find and know itself not as this special particular, but only as a universal, which is also what makes it the interpenetration in which self-consciousness would have been able to withstand the objective reality of universal spirit/mind that excluded it as a particular.

– ³But in absolute freedom neither the consciousness immersed in diverse existence, fixing specific goals and thoughts for itself, nor the externally valid world, whether of actual reality or of thinking, were in mutual interaction.  Instead the interaction was between the world as such in the form of consciousness, i.e. as general will, on the one hand, and self-consciousness similarly pulled together from out of all extensive existence or diverse goals and judgement into the simple self, on the other.  ⁴Culture and education made it into mutual interaction with that essence and is for that reason the most sublime and the last to see the pure, simple reality of that essence immediately vanish and transit into the empty nothingness.  ⁵In the world of education and culture consciousness does not come to look upon its negation, its alienation, in this form of pure abstraction.  Rather, it's the fulfilled negation, either the honour or the wealth it gains in place of that self from which it alienated itself.  Or else it is the language of spirited mind and of insight reaching the consciousness that is torn apart; it can also be the heaven of faith or the utility of the Enlightenment.  ⁶All these terms are lost within the loss that the self suffers in absolute freedom.  Its negation is the meaningless death, the pure terror of the negative utterly devoid of anything positive or fulfilling.

– ⁷At the same time, however, in its reality this negation is not alien.  It is neither the universal necessity lying in that beyond into which the customary ethical world went under, nor is it the the single, isolated coincidence of one's own possession or the mood of the owner on which the torn apart consciousness sees itself dependent [VI.A.b. Customary ethical action etc. §9.7 and c. Legal status §1.6,7; VI.B.I.a Education and culture etc. §32.7-10 M].  In fact, it is the general will that has nothing positive in this its last abstraction and hence can give nothing back for the sacrifice; but then, it is precisely for this reason that it is unmediated as one with self-consciousness, i.e. the general will is the pure positive because it is the pure negative.  The meaningless death, the unfulfilled negativity of the self now turns in the inside of the concept into absolute positivity.  ⁸For consciousness, the immediate unity of itself with the general will, its demand to know itself as this definite, specific point within the general will, turns now into the directly opposite experience.  ⁹What disappears for consciousness in that is the abstract being, the immediacy of the substance-free point, and this vanished immediacy is the general will itself, as which it now knows itself to be, at least to the extent that it is immediacy overcome, to the extent that it is pure knowledge or pure will.  ¹⁰This is how it knows itself to be the will and itself as essence, but still not as the immediately given, existing essence, not that will as the revolutionary government nor as the anarchy that strives to constitute anarchy, and also not as the midpoint of these factions or that of those opposed to them.  The general will is its own pure knowing and willing, which is the general will as this pure knowing and willing.  ¹¹What it loses here is not itself, for pure knowing and willing is rather what it is as the atomic point of consciousness.  ¹²What we have here is the pure mutual interaction of pure knowledge with itself; pure knowledge as essence is the general will, but this essence is only the pure knowledge.  ¹³Self-consciousness is thus the pure knowledge of the essence as pure knowledge.  ¹⁴Further, self-consciousness as a single, individual self is only the form of the subject or of actual action, a form that is known to it as form; similarly for self-consciousness objective actual reality, being, is simply selfless form, for this would be what is not known.  This knowledge, however, knows the knowledge to be the essence.

14.  Absolute freedom thus has reconciled the opposition of universal and single, individual will with this freedom itself.  The self-alienated mindful spirit, pushed to the peak of its antithesis in which pure willing and the agent purely willing are still different, brings the antithesis down to transparent form and finds itself therein.

– ²Just as the realm of the actual world transited into that of faith and insight, so now absolute freedom transits out of its own self-destructive reality into another land of self-conscious spirited mind.  Here it stands in this unreal realm as the truth in whose thoughts it refreshes itself as long as it is thought and remains that.  As long as it knows this being enclosed within self-consciousness to be the complete and perfect essence.  ³The new pattern has emerged: moral spirit, moral mind.