| G. W. F, HEGEL
THE PHILOSOPHICAL
PROPAEDEUTIC
The object of this science is the Human will in its relations as the Particular Will to the Universal Will:
to the will which is Lawful and just or in accordance with reason.
As will the Mind stands in a practical relation to itself.
The practical way of acting [Verhalten],through which it brings determination into its determinateness
or opposes other determinations of its own in the place of those already existing in it without its cooperation,
is to be distinguished from its theoretical way of acting.
Consciousness, as such, is the relation of the Ego to an object; this object may be internal or external.
Our Knowing contains objects, some of which we obtain a knowledge of through Sensuous Perception;
others, however, have their origin in the mind itself. The former, taken together, constitute the Sensuous World;
the latter, the Intelligible World. Judicial [rechtlichen=legal], ethical and religious conceptions belong to the latter.
In the relation of the Ego and object to each other the Ego is (a) passive; in which case the object is regarded as the cause of the determinations in the Ego and the particular ideas [Vorstellungen] which the Ego has are attributed to the impression made upon it by the immediate objects before it. This is the Theoretical Consciousness. Whether it be in the form of perception or of the thinking activity its content is always a given and extant something. A content having existence independent of the Ego. On the contrary, (b) the Ego manifests itself as Practical Consciousness when its determinations are not mere 'ideas' and thoughts, but issue forth into external existence. In this process the Ego determines the given things or objects, so that the former is active and the latter are passive, i.e. the Ego is the cause of changes in the given objects.
Practical Ability [Vermögen] as such determines itself from within, i.e. through itself. The content of its determinations belongs to it and it recognizes that content as its own. These determinations, however, are at first only internal and, for this reason, separated from the external reality, but they are to become external and be realized. This is done through the [conscious] Act. By such an Act internal practical determinations receive externality: i.e. external Being. Conversely, this process may be regarded as the cancelling of an extant externality and the bringing of the same into harmony with the internal determination.
The internal determination of the Practical Consciousness is either Impulse [Trieb] or Will Proper [eigentlicher Wille]. Impulse is a natural self-determination which rests upon circumscribed feelings and has a limited finite end in view which it cannot transcend. In other words, it is the unfree, immediately determined. Lower Appetite [niedere Begehrungsvermögen] according to which man ranks as a creature of nature. Through Reflection he transcends Impulse and its limitations, and not only compares it with of its gratification but also compares these means one with another and the impulses one with another, and both of these with the objective and end of his own existence. He then yields to the decision of Reflection and gratifies the Impulse or else represses it and renounces it.
The Will Proper, or the Higher Appetite, is (a) pure indeterminateness of the Ego, which as such has no limitation or a content which is immediately extant through nature but is indifferent towards any and every determinateness. (b) The Ego can, at the same time, pass over to a determinateness and make a choice of some one or other and then actualize it. got it? |
