vidualizes itself, is in its reality interlaced with the action of all. The work of the individual for his needs is a satisfaction of the needs of others as much as of his own; and he attains the satisfaction of his own only through the work of the others. The individual in his individual work thus accomplishes an universal work—he does so here unconsciously; but he also further accomplishes it as his conscious object: the whole as the whole is his work for which he sacrifices himself, and from which by that very sacrifice he gets again his self restored.—Here there is nothing taken which is not given, nothing wherein the independent individual, by and in the resolution of his atomic existence, by and in the negation of his self, fails to give himself the positive significance of a being which exists by and for itself. This unity—on the one side of the being for another, or the making oneself into an outward thing, and on the other side of the being for oneself—this universal substance speaks its universal language in the usages and laws of his people: and yet this unchanging essence is itself nought else than the expression of the single individuality, which seems at first sight its mere opposite; the laws pronounce nothing but what every one is and does. The individual recognizes the substance not only as his universal outward existence, but he recognizes also himself in it, particularized in his own individuality and in that of each of his fellow-citizens. And so in the universal mind each one has nothing but self-certainty, the assurance of finding in existing reality nothing but himself.—In all I contemplate independent beings, that are such, and are for themselves, only in the very same way that I am for myself; in them I see existing free unity of self with others, and existing by virtue of me and by virtue of the others alike. Them as myself, myself as them.[1]
- ↑ Let me illustrate from our great poet:—
So they loved, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one ;
Two distincts, division none :
Number there in love was slain.Hearts remote yet not asunder ;
Distance, and no space was seen——
So between them love did shine. . . .
Either was the other’s mine.Property was thus appalled,
That the self was not the same ;
Single nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was called.Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together :
To themselves yet either neither
Simple were so well compounded,That it cried, How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one !
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.—(The Phœnix and the Turtle.) Surely philosophy does not reach its end till the ‘reason of reason’ is adequate to the ‘reason of love.’
