Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/676

660 in taking our own way regardless of consequences. Such is the view of freedom implied in the second part of Hegel's philosophy of right.

In the third part, named the social or ethical system, the author is concerned to show in some detail what are the precise lineaments of a truly rational state and constitution. He establishes the family as the social relation, which, from the standpoint of thought, is primary, because it contains the rational social principle in the elementary form of a universal feeling, love. The state contains this social principle as it finds expression in the thinking spirit. The individual who seeks his ideal in the family is higher than he who roams about in solitude 'like a rhinoceros,' however exalted the purpose of his single life may be. Onward from this point in the development the individual, who is, as Hegel thinks, a male, rises above the atmosphere of feeling into the region of the civic community, the key-word to whose nature, in general, is business. Trade and commerce are, in Hegel's thought, of this character, that the individual devoting himself to them, though seeking his own prosperity, seeks also the public welfare. Out of what seems to be a hurly-burly of self-seeking arises the general happiness; the spirit in its generosity giving 'gold for brass and silver for iron.' But the civic community does not explicitly embrace the very highest interests of the state, as the state cannot live by bread alone. Country and city, rich and poor, must see beyond their differences, and be comprised under the unity of that idea which will put in the foreground interests truly national. Hence, by necessary stages, we arrive at the state in its universal functions of legislation and administration. Here, again, we may put on seven-league boots, and merely observe that Hegel regards constitutional monarchy as the only rational form of government, and also justifies war, not as a necessary evil, so conceived by some modern apologists for war, but as a necessary good, as that factor in history which most tellingly exhibits the inferiority of the civic community and its ideals to the larger principle of national welfare. What, he asks, are peace,