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actuality of the process of individuality.
1. Here the individual's own universal nature (his own good and true) has to control his private feelings and
desires.
2. Here, by contrast with (1), the only real discipline is to subdue the entire personality to the "course of the
world" (i.e., the good and true in it.)
C. INDIVIDUALITY, WHICH TAKES ITSELF TO BE REAL IN AND FOR
ITSELF
[[Translator's comments: The following section gives a general description of individuality which seeks to
realize itself, not in the one-sided ways analysed in the three preceding sections, but as a complete concrete
whole. Here individuality does not regard itself abstractedly, and hence does not treat the sphere of its
realization as in any way alien to itself. It is completely one with the objective world where it carries out its
ends, and finds both itself adequate to its own realization, and the world sufficient and all-sufficient for the
embodiment of its ends. In this sphere we have, as it were, the very antithesis of the preceding state of mind.
C. INDIVIDUALITY, WHICH TAKES ITSELF TO BE REAL IN AND FOR ITSELF 138
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND
There the good was opposed to the course of the "world", the latter being dependent for its goodness on
individual effort. Here it is as if the "world" were made up of the activity of individuals and were wholly
adequate to satisfy and embody all their ends. The real life of the individual is found simply in
"self-expression". Naturally therefore individuals take themselves here to be "real just as they are", and have
merely to express or develop their own content in order to objectify their ends. The objective world is their
activity realized, is themselves "externalized".
This condition of individuality is the immediate preparation for the social order of the life of a free spiritual
community, and is the anticipation of that community-a community where the individual is universalized
through union with the whole, and the whole particularized in the individual.]]
INDIVIDUALITY, WHICH TAKES ITSELF TO BE REAL IN AND FOR ITSELF
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS has now grasped its own principle, which at first was only our notion of it, viz.
the notion that, when consciously certain of itself, it is all reality. Its purpose and nature henceforward consist
in the interpenetration of the universal (its "gifts" and capacities") and individuality. The individual moments
of this process of complete concrete permeation preceding the unity into which they have now coalesced,
were found in the purposes hitherto considered. These have now vanished--as being mere abstractions and
chimeras, which belong to those first shallow modes of mind's self-consciousness, and which have their truth
merely in the illusory "being" of the "heart", fancy and rhetoric, and not in reason. This reason is now sure of
its own reality as it stands (an und fer sich), and no longer views itself as an ideal purpose which it seeks to
realize from the outset in opposition to immediately existent (sensible) reality, but, on the contrary, has the
category as such as the object of its consciousness.
This means that the character of being for itself on its own account (fer sich), or of negative
self-consciousness, with which reason started, is cancelled. This self-consciousness at that stage fell in with
a reality which was supposed to be its own negative, and by cancelling which it was to realize its purpose.
Now that purpose and inherent nature (Ansichseyn) have proved to be the same as objective existence for
another and the given reality, [objective] truth is no longer divided from [subjective] certainty--no matter
whether the proposed purpose is taken as certainty of self and the realization of that purpose as the truth, or
whether the purpose is taken for the truth and reality for certainty. The essential nature and purpose as it
stands (an und fer sich) constitute the certainty of immediate reality itself, the interpenetration of the inherent
implicit nature (ansich), and the explicit distinctive nature (fersich), of the universal and individuality. Action
is per se its truth and reality, and the manifestation or expression of individuality is its purpose taken just as it
stands.
With the attainment of such a conception, therefore, self-consciousness has returned into itself and passed
from those opposite characteristics which the category presented, and which its relation to the category had,
when it was "observing" and when it was "active". Its object is now the category pure and simple; in other
words, it is itself the category become conscious of itself. Its account with its previous forms is now closed;
they lie behind it in the forgotten past; they do not come forward against it as its world found ready to hand,
but are developed solely within itself as transparent moments. Yet they still fall apart within its consciousness
at this stage as a movement of distinct moments, which has not yet got combined into its own substantial
unity. But throughout all these moments self-consciousness holds firmly to that simple unity of self with
objective existence which is its constitutive generic nature.
Consciousness has in this way cast away all opposition and every condition limiting its activity. It starts anew
from itself, and is occupied not with something external, but with itself. Since individuality is in itself
actuality, the material of operation and the purpose of action lie in the action itself. Action consequently has
the appearance of the movement of a circle, which moves itself within itself freely in vacuo, which,
unimpeded, now enlarges and then contracts, and is quite content to play simply within itself and with itself.
C. INDIVIDUALITY, WHICH TAKES ITSELF TO BE REAL IN AND FOR ITSELF 139
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND
The element in which individuality manifests and displays its form and shape, is simply the day, in whose
light consciousness wants to display itself. This element-the daylight-means nothing but the simple
assuming of the form of individuality. Action alters nothing, opposes nothing; it is the mere form of
translation from a condition of being invisible to one of being visible, and the content, brought thus to
daylight, and laid bare, is nothing else than what this action already is implicitly (an sich). It is implicit - that
is its form as unity in thought: and it is actual - that is its form as unity in existence: while it is itself content
merely in virtue of maintaining this character of simplicity in spite of its aspect of process and transition.
a. INTRODUCTORY NOTE: SELF-CONTAINED INDIVIDUALS
ASSOCIATED AS A COMMUNITY OF ANIMALS, AND THE DECEPTION
THENCE ARISING: THE REAL FACT
[[Translator's comments: The title of this section sounds unfamiliar; but the purpose of the analysis is plain,
and the argument is essential as a stage in the unfolding of what rational self-contained individuality implies.
It also, with the immediately succeeding sections, prepares the way for the constructive interpretation of
organized society. Indeed, without individuals constituted as rational self-conscious units, each
self-contained, a free self-conscious community could not exist. They form the component separate cells of
the "organism" of a society, the elements out of which the compact structure of a society is made. In the first
instance and as an abstract aspect of associated life, they can be regarded, and for certain purposes are in fact
regarded, as merely distinct and detached units living together. Each functions as an individuality, endowed
with certain powers and capacities for self-expression, pursuing his ends for his own interest, spontaneously
putting forth his energies without being clearly aware of or concerned with any universal result which his
essentially universal nature must bring about. In realizing his individuality he goes out of himself in one
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