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Devotion (Andacht). Its thinking as such is no more than the discordant clang of ringing bells, or a cloud of
warm incense, a kind of thinking in terms of music, that does not get the length of notions, which would be
the sole, immanent, objective mode of thought. This boundless pure inward feeling comes to have indeed its
object; but this object does not make its appearance in conceptual form, and therefore comes on the scene as
something external and foreign. Hence we have here the inward movement of pure emotion (Gemeth) which
feels itself, but feels itself in the bitterness of soul-diremption. It is the movement of an infinite Yearning,
which is assured that its nature is a pure emotion of this kind, a pure thought which thinks itself as
particularity-a yearning that is certain of being known and recognized by this object, for the very reason that
this object thinks itself as particularity. At the same time, however, this nature is the unattainable "beyond"
which, in being seized, escapes or rather has already escaped. The "beyond" has already escaped. for it is in
part the unchangeable, thinking itself as particularity, and consciousness, therefore, attains itself therein
immediately,--attains itself, but as something opposed to the unchangeable; instead of grasping, the real
nature consciousness merely feels, and has fallen back upon itself. Since, in thus attaining itself,
consciousness cannot keep itself at a distance as this opposite, it has merely laid hold of what is un. essential
instead of having seized true reality. Thus, just as. on one side, when striving to find itself in the essentially
real, it only lays hold of its own divided state of existence, so, too, on the other side, it cannot grasp that other
[the essence] as particular or as concrete. That "other" cannot be found where it is sought; for it is meant to be
just a "beyond", that which can not be found. When looked for as a particular it is not universal, a
thought-constituted particularity, not notion, but particular in the sense of an object, or a concrete actual, an
object of immediate sense-consciousness, of sense certainty; and just for that reason it is only one which has
disappeared. Consciousness, therefore, can only come upon the grave of its life. But because this is itself an
actuality, and since it is contrary to the nature of actuality to afford a lasting possession, the presence even of
that tomb is merely the source of trouble, toil, and struggle, a fight which must be lost.(7) But since
consciousness has found out by experience that the grave of its actual unchangeable Being has no concrete
actuality, that the vanished particularity qua vanished is not true particularity, it will give up looking for the
unchangeable particular existence as something actual, or will cease trying to hold on to what has thus
vanished. Only so is it capable of finding particularity in a true form, a form that is universal.
In the first instance, however, the withdrawal of the emotional life into itself is to be taken in such a way that
this life of feeling, in its own regard, has actuality qua particular existence. It is pure emotion which, for us or
per se, has found itself and satiated itself, for although it is, no doubt, aware in feeling that the ultimate reality
is cut off from it, yet in itself this feeling is self-feeling; it has felt the object of its own pure feeling, and this
object is its own self. It thus comes forward here as self-feeling, or as something actual on its own account.
In this return into self, we find appearing its second attitude, the condition of desire and labour, which ensures
for consciousness the inner certainty of its own self (which, as we saw, it has obtained) by the process of
cancelling and enjoying the alien external reality, existence in the form of independent things. The unhappy
consciousness, however, finds itself merely desiring and toiling; it is not consciously and directly aware that
so to find itself rests upon the inner certainty of its self, and that its feeling of real being is this self-feeling.
Since it does not in its own view have that certainty, its inner life really remains still a shattered certainty of
B. FREEDOM OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: STOICISM: SCEPTICISM: THE UNHAPPY CONSCIOUSNE
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itself; that confirmation of its own existence which it would receive through work and enjoyment, is,
therefore, just as tottering and insecure; in other words, it must consciously nullify this certification of its
own being, so as to find therein confirmation indeed, but confirmation only of what it is for itself, viz. of its
disunion.
The actual reality, on which desire and work are directed, is, from the point of view of this consciousness, no
longer something in itself null and void, something merely to be destroyed and consumed; but rather
something like that consciousness itself, a reality broken in sunder, which is only in one respect essentially
null, but in another sense also a consecrated world. This reality is a form and embodiment of the
unchangeable, for the latter has in itself preserved particularity; and because, qua unchangeable, it is a
universal, its particularity as a whole has the significance of all actuality.
If consciousness were, for itself, an independent consciousness, and reality were taken to be in and for itself
of no account, then consciousness would attain, in work and enjoyment, the feeling of its own independence,
by the fact that its consciousness would be that which cancels reality. But since this reality is taken to be the
form and shape of the unchangeable, consciousness is unable of itself to cancel that reality. On the contrary,
seeing that, consciousness manages to nullify reality and to obtain enjoyment, this must come about through
the unchangeable itself when it disposes of its own form and shape and delivers this up for consciousness to
enjoy.
Consciousness, on its part, appears here likewise as actual, though, at the same time, as internally shattered;
and this diremption shows itself in the course of toil and enjoyment, to break up into a relation to reality, or
existence for itself, and into an existence in itself. That relation to actuality is the process of alteration, or
acting, the existence for itself, which belongs to the particular consciousness as such. But therein it is also in
itself; this aspect belongs to the unchangeable "beyond". This aspect consists in faculties and powers: an
external gift, which the unchangeable here hands over for the consciousness to make use of.
In its action, accordingly, consciousness, in the first instance, has its being in the relation of two extremes. On
one side it takes its stand as the active present (Diesseits), and opposed to it stands passive reality: both in
relation to each other, but also both withdrawn into the unchangeable, and firmly established in themselves.
From both sides, therefore, there is detached merely a superficial element to constitute their opposition; they
are only opposed at the surface, and the play of opposition, the one to the other, takes place there.
The extreme of passive reality is sublated by the active extreme. Actuality can, however, on its own side, be
sublated only because its own changeless essence sublates it, repels itself from itself, and hands over to the
mercy of the active extreme what is thus repelled. Active force appears as the power wherein actual reality is
dissolved. For that reason, however, this consciousness, to which the inherent reality, or ultimate essence. is
an "other", regards this power (which is the way it appears when active), as "the beyond", that which lies
remote from its self. Instead, therefore, of returning out of its activity into itself, and instead of having
confirmed itself as a fact for its self, consciousness reflects back this process of action into the other extreme, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]