119. The external embodiment of an act is composed of many parts, and may be regarded as capable of being divided into an infinite number of particulars. An act may be looked on as in the first instance coming into contact with only one of these particulars. But the truth of the particular is the universal. A definite act is not confined in its content to one isolated point of the varied external world, but is universal, including these varied relations within itself. The purpose, which is the product of thought and embraces not the particular only but also the universal side, is intention.
Note.— Intention (in German, “a looking away from”) implies, according to its etymology, an abstraction, which has in part the form of universality, and partly is the extraction of a particular side of the concrete thing. The attempt to justify oneself by the intention consists, in general, in asserting that one special isolated phase is the subjective essence of the act.—To pass judgment upon an act simply as an external deed, without qualifying it as right or wrong, imparts to it a universal predicate; it is killing, arson, etc.—When the parts of external reality are taken one by one, their connection must naturally be external. Reality may be, in the first instance, touched at only a single point. Arson, e.g., may be directly concerned with only a small piece of wood, a statement which is merely a proposition, but not a judgment. But this single point has a universal nature, which involves the extension of it. In life the separate part is not a mere part, but directly an organ, in which the universal is really present. Hence in murder it is not a separate piece of flesh, but the life itself which is destroyed. On one side subjective reflection, in its ignorance of the logical nature of the particular and the universal, permits of a dissection into mere particulars and their consequences. On the other side, the act in its finite and casual character naturally breaks up into separate parts.—The invention of the dolus indirectus is due to this way of thinking.
Addition.— Manifestly more or fewer circumstances may be included in an act. In the case of arson, e.g., the fire may not take effect, or it may spread farther than the agent intended. Yet in neither case is the result due to good or bad fortune, since man in acting must deal with externality. An old proverb rightly enough says, “A stone flung from the hand is the devil’s.” In acting I must expose myself to misfortune; that also has a right to me, and is the manifestation of my own will.
120. The right of intention is that the universal quality of the act should not only be implicitly present, but should be known by the agent, and be part and parcel of his subjective will. Conversely the right of objectivity of action, as it may be called, is to maintain that it be known and willed by a subject in his character as thinking.
Note.— This right to this insight involves that children, imbeciles, and lunatics are completely, or almost completely, irresponsible for their actions. Just as actions on the side of their external reality include accidental results, so also the subjective reality contains an indeterminate element, which depends upon the strength of self-consciousness and prudence. But this uncertain element needs to be reckoned with only in the case of imbecility, lunacy, or childhood. These are the only conditions of mind which supersede thought and free will, and permit us to take an agent otherwise than in accordance with his dignity as free and rational.
121. The universal quality of action is in general the manifold content reduced to the simple form of universality. But the subject turned back into himself is particular, in opposition to the particulars of the objective world. He has in his end his own particular content, which constitutes the essential soul of his act. In the execution of this particular content of the act consists his subjective freedom in its concrete character. This is the subject’s right to find in the act his satisfaction.
Addition.— I, as independent and self-referred, am particular, and opposed to the external side of the act. Its content is decided by my end. Murder and arson, e.g., are quite general and not the positive content of me, a subject. When anyone has committed a crime, we ask why he has done it. Murder is not done for the sake of murder. There must be besides a particular positive end. If delight in murder were the motive of the crime, it would be the positive content of the subject as such, and the deed would be the satisfaction of his desire. The motive of a deed contains the moral element, which has the twofold signification of the universal in purpose and of the particular in intention. In modern times we are at pains to ask after the motive. Formerly the question was merely, Is this man just? Does he do his duty? Now we scrutinize the heart, and fix a gulf between the objective side of conduct and the internal subjective side, or motive. No doubt the subject’s own determination must be con-sidered. What he wills has its ground within him; he wills to satisfy a pleasure or gratify a passion. But right and good are also precisely such a content, due, however, not to nature but to my reason. To make my own freedom the content of my will is a pure characteristic of my freedom itself. Hence the higher moral phase is to find satisfaction in the act, not to harp upon a breech between the objectivity of the deed, and the selfconsciousness of man. This defective mode of interpretation has its epochs as well in worldhistory as in the history of individuals.
122. By virtue of the particular element the act has for me subjective value or interest. In contrast with this end, whose content is the intention, the direct act in its wider content is reduced to a means. This end, as far as it is finite, can again be reduced to a means for a wider intention, and so on indefinitely.
123. The content of these ends is only (a) formal activity, that is, the subject’s interest or aim is to be effected by his agency. Men desire to be themselves actively interested in whatever is or ought to be their own. (b) Further definite content is found for the still abstract and formal freedom of subjectivity only in its natural subjective embodiment, as inclinations, passions, opinions, whims, etc. The satisfaction of this content is well-being or happiness in its particular as also in its universal features. In this satisfaction consist the ends of finitude generally.
Note.— This is the standpoint of relation (§108). The subject at this stage emphasizes his distinctive and particular nature. Here enters the content of the natural will (§11). But the will is not in its simple and direct form, since the content belongs to a will which is turned back into itself, and raised to the level of a universal end, namely, well-being or happiness.
Addition.— In so far as the elements of happiness are externally provided, they are not the true elements of freedom. Freedom truly is itself only in an end constituted by itself, i.e., the good. Here the question may be raised, Has man a right to set up for himself ends which are not free, and depend simply on his being a living thing? But life in man is not a mere accident, since it accords with reason. Man has. so far a right to make his wants an end. There is nothing degrading in one’s being alive. There is open to us no more spiritual region, in which we can exist, than that of life. Only through the exaltation of what is externally provided to the level of something self-created do we enter the higher altitude of the good. But this distinction implies no intolerance of either side of man’s nature.
124. Since the subjective satisfaction of the individual, the recognition for example of oneself as honoured or famous, is involved in the realization of absolutely valid ends, the demand that only subjective satisfaction should appear as willed and attained, and also the view that in action subjective and objective ends exclude each other, are empty assertions of the abstract understanding. Nay, more, the argument becomes a positive evil when it is held that, because subjective satisfaction is always found in every finished work, it must be the essential intention of the agent, the objective end being only a means to the attainment of this satisfaction. The subject is the series of his acts. If these are a series of worthless productions, the subjectivity of the will is also worthless; if the acts are substantial and sound, so likewise is the inner will of the individual.
Note.—The right of the subject’s particular being to find himself satisfied, the right, in other words, of subjective freedom, constitutes the middle or turning-point between the ancient and the modern world. This right in its infinite nature is expressed in Christianity, and has been made the universal active principle of a new form of the world. The more definite manifestations of this principle are love, romance, the hope of the eternal salvation of the individual, morality also, and conscience. It includes, moreover, various other forms, which will be, in a measure, introduced in the sequel as the principle of the civic society, and as elements of the political constitution, but partly, however, appear in history generally, especially in the history of art, the sciences, and philosophy. This principle of particularity is now, indeed, one side of the contradiction, and, in the first resort, is at least quite as much identical with the universal as distinct from it. But abstract reflection fastens upon this element in its difference from and opposition to the universal, and propounds the view that morality must carry on a continued warfare against the satisfaction of oneself, demanding of us—
“Mit Abscheu zu thun was die Pflicht gebeut.”[5]
The same abstract standpoint lies at the root of that psychological view of history, which seeks to disparage all great deeds and persons. It emphasizes the particular side, which it has already decreed to be evil, considers as the chief factor in the act the honour and glory, which may accrue to the agent, and transforms and converts the inclinations and passions, whose satisfaction was only one element of the total result, into the agent’s main intention and active principle. This same abstract point of view asserts that because great acts, and the real result brought to pass by a series of them, have produced a great effect upon the world, and have naturally resulted to the agent in power, honour, and renown, therefore there belongs to the individual not the greatness, but merely these particular and external results. The reason assigned is that the particular consequence, since it was admittedly an end, must be the sole end. Such abstract thinking sees only the subjective side of great men, the side which constitutes its own essence. In its selfconstituted vanity it overlooks their real nature. It takes the view of the “psychological valet for whom there are no heroes, not because there are no heroes, but because he is only a valet.”
Addition.— The sentence, In magnis voluisse sat est, is right, if it means that one should will something great. But he should also carry it put, otherwise his volition is vain. The laurels of mere willing are dry leaves, which have never been green.
125. The subjective, whose concern is with the particular content of well-being, is, when it becomes infinite by being turned back into itself, at the same time brought into relation with implicit or general will. This new element, established, in the first instance, in particularity itself, is the well-being of others; in its complete but quite empty character it is the well-being of all. The well-being of many other particular persons is therefore an essential end or right of subjectivity. But since the absolute universal, which is distinguished from this particular content, is here defined simply as right, the ends of the particular will may or may not be in real accordance with the universal.
126. My own particularity, and likewise the particularity of others are, however, a right, only in so far as I am free. They cannot maintain themselves in opposition to their real basis. An intention to further my well-being or that of others, rightly called a moral intention, cannot justify a wrong act.
Note.— It is one of the most corrupt maxims of our day which, originating in the pre-Kantian period of the good heart, and furnishing the quintessence of some well-known touching dramas, undertakes in the case of wrong acts to excite interest in the so-called moral intention. It pictures bad persons as having hearts filled with good intentions and desires for their own well-being, and perhaps for that of others as well. A heightened form of this theory has been vamped up in our own time. Inner inspiration and feeling, the very soul of particularity, have been made the criterion of what is right, reasonable, and excellent. Crime has been pronounced right, reasonable, and excellent, as also have the thoughts which led to it, merely on the ground that they proceeded from inspiration and feeling, though they may have been in fact the most hollow and commonplace whims and most foolish opinions (§140, note).— Observe further that here under right and well-being we are considering the formal right and particular well-being of the individual. The so-called general welfare, the well-being of the state, the right of the real, concrete spirit is quite another region, in which formal right and the particular well-being or happiness of the individual are subordinate elements. It has already been remarked that it is one of the most frequent misconceptions of the abstract intellect to set up private right and private well-being as absolutely valid in opposition to the universal principle of the state.
Addition.— We may quote here the celebrated retort given to the libeller, who excused himself with the remark, “Il faut donc que je vive.” “Je n’en vois pas la necessité,” was the reply. Life is not necessary against the higher fact of freedom. When the holy Crispinus steals leather to make boots for the poor, his act, though moral, is not right, and cannot be justified.
127. The particular interests of the natural will, viewed as a simple whole, constitute personal reality or the life. In the final resort, life, when in collision with another ’s rightful ownership, can claim the right of necessity, not on the ground of equity but of right. Observe that on the one side is placed the infinite destruction of our outer existence, and therefore the complete loss of rights; on the other side an injury to only a particular and limited embodiment of one’s freedom. A slight injury to a particular possession does not violate the injured man’s right, as such, or his capacity for right.
Note.— Prom this right of need flows the benefit of competence (beneficium competentice), by virtue of which there is allowed to the debtor some of his tools, implements, clothes, and means generally, all of which are of course the property of the creditor. The allowance covers so much as is deemed sufficient for the possible maintenance of one in the debtor ’s class.
Addition.— Life, or the totality of ends, has a right against abstract right. For instance, by the theft of a loaf of bread a property is doubtless injured. Still, if the act was the means of prolonging life, it would be wrong to consider it as ordinary theft. If the man whose life is in danger were not allowed to preserve himself, he would be without rights; and, since his life is refused him, his whole freedom is denied to him also. Many things, it is true, must go to secure life, especially if we regard the future. But to live now is all that is necessary; the future is not absolute, and remains exposed to accidents. Hence only the need of the immediate present can justify a wrong act. Yet the act is justified, because the agent, abstaining from it, would commit the highest wrong, namely, the total negation of his realized freedom. The beneficium competentice implies the right to ask that no man shall be wholly sacrificed to mere right.
128. Need reveals the finite and contingent character of both right and well-being, that is to say, of that abstract embodiment of freedom, which is not the existence of any particular person, and also of the sphere of the particular will, which excluded the universality of right. The onesidedness or ideality of these phases is found in the conception itself. Right has already been embodied as the particular will (§106); and subjectivity, in the whole range of its particularity, is itself the embodiment of freedom (§127), and also, in its character as the infinite reference of the will to itself, is it implicitly the universal side of freedom. These two elements in their truth and identity, although, in the first instance, only in relative reference to each other, are on the one hand the good, as the fulfilled and absolutely definite universal, and, on the other hand, conscience, or.an infinite subjectivity, which is aware of itself, and determines in itself its content.