rinciple,
but it is morality impressed on individuality, and consequently denoting
the free volition of individuals. Here, then, is the union of the moral
with the subjective will, or the kingdom of beautiful freedom, for the
idea is united with a plastic form. It is not yet regarded abstractly,
but intimately bound up with the real, as in a beautiful work of art;
the sensible bears the stamp and expression of the spiritual. The
kingdom is consequently true harmony; it is a world of the most charming
but perishable, or quickly passing, bloom; it is the natural,
unreflecting observance of what is becoming--not yet true morality. The
individual will of the subject adopts without reflection the conduct and
habit prescribed by justice and the laws. The individual is, therefore,
in unconscious unity with the idea--the social weal.

The third phase is the realm of abstract universality (in which the
social aim absorbs all individual aims); it is the Roman state, the
severe labours of the manhood of history. For true manhood acts neither
in accordance with the caprice of a despot nor in obedience to a
graceful caprice of its own. It works for a general aim, one in which
the individual perishes and realises his own private object only in that
general aim. The state begins to have an abstract existence and to
develop itself for a definite object, in accomplishing which its members
have indeed a share, but not a complete and concrete one (calling their
whole being into play). Free individuals are sacrificed to the severe
demands of the national ends, to which they must surrender themselves in
this service of abstract generalisation. The Roman state is not a
repetition of such a state of individuals as was the Athenian _polis_.
The geniality and joy of soul that existed there have given place to
harsh and rigorous toil. The interest of history is detached from
individuals.

But when, subsequently, in the historical development, individuality
gains the ascendant, and the breaking up of the community into its
component atoms can be restrained only by external compulsion, then the
subjective might of individual despotism comes forward to play its part.
The individual is led to seek consolation for the loss of his freedom in
exercising and developing his private rights. In the next place, the
pain inflicted by despotism begins to be felt, and spirit, driven back
into its utmost depths, leaves the godless world, seeks for a harmony in