Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/677

661 prosperity, and wealth in comparison with national self-esteem? When a national crisis occurs, we at once see the narrowness of the life summed up in the words, "I will pull down my barns and build greater." And war, as Hegel thinks, is the most powerful agent in keeping vividly before the nation's mind the high aim, to which it should at all times aspire. To pursue the high aim of preserving an absolutely rational society is the occupation of a true and complete man, who, by so doing, inevitably finds his own highest good. Such a purpose, it must be added, is in direct accord with the end found in the words, "Do all to the glory of God," since the state is, as Hegel likes to say, the path of God in the world. Who, then, is free? The question now almost answers itself. From the standpoint of religion, and the highest social morality, he is free who finds his interest in the public interest. As the public interests are the visible framework of the reason of the universe, to spend one's self for them is not to negate one's true being, but to enter into it. He who becomes one with a reasonable society in all its ramifications, becomes, also, one with the divine; and such a man is free.

In the light of this rapid and imperfect analysis of the Philosophy of Right, what are we to understand by the criticism urged against Hegel that his theory tends to destroy the freedom of human action, and that he cares little for the individual's weal or woe? To this question we are now in a position to give an answer which will be partly satisfying, and will also reveal the full extent of the problem.

In the first place, it is clear that Hegel certainly destroys human freedom, defined, as it is defined, in the writings of Hobbes, e.g., or Rousseau. "The liberty of man consisteth in this," writes Hobbes, "that he finds no stop, in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination to do." Hobbes argues that in any kind of social life such liberty, true though it be, is impossible, since it contains the disruption of all human relations. For this reason, so he proceeds, men have abandoned