HEGEL'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM.
A SENTENCE from Schwegler and another from von Hartmann will serve to open up the question which I desire to discuss. Schwegler writes:[1] "Hegel was the first to regard the history of philosophy in the unity of a single process; but this fundamental idea, though true in principle, has been perhaps overstrained by him, in a manner that tends to destroy the freedom of human action." v. Hartmann says:[2] "Hegel degrades the individual to the level of a mere tool in the hands of the idea, and thinks that for the individual's weal or woe philosophy has no concern"; a moment later he adds: "Hegel demands that the individual should be sacrificed to the teleology of the absolute idea." It may not be useless to outline Hegel's conception of freedom, and then ask if there is any force in these criticisms.
Before giving Hegel's conception of freedom I may perhaps be allowed to make use of a distinction between psychological and moral freedom. Free will is, as we are told, the identification of ourselves with a conceived end. To such a definition no objection need be urged, so long as it is considered to be a matter of indifference whether this end, aimed at by the free agent, is good or bad. Manifestly the goodness or badness of an end does not interfere with the abstract possibility of its being freely chosen and realized. Accordingly freedom, in that use of the term, includes no moral quality; the agent may be free, though he is in the bonds of iniquity. When we set aside the moral character of the end, we consider merely the agent's capacity to follow out his purpose, and this capacity is freedom, regarded, as we may venture to say, psychologically.
On. the other hand, we may rightly speak of a person as at least not yet free, but in bonds, if he harbors a low ideal. He is not hopelessly in bondage, unless he is incapable of realizing
