Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/685

669 repeat, the individual is to be regarded as free, when he not only apprehends the reason in his objective relations, in the same way as a scientist might have a knowledge of a law of nature, but also in his conduct identifies himself with this realized reason, it is beyond dispute that Hegel not merely recognizes the individual's freedom, but is himself the author of this conception of freedom. But if, on the other hand, the individual is free only in so far as it is possible for him to create a higher reason or originate a higher spirit, and thereby, it may be, transform established political and social relations, then Hegel lends no countenance to such an interpretation of freedom, and, indeed, furnishes no criterion by which to distinguish such an act from personal whim or unreasoning enthusiasm. If the activity of will is not an originating activity, but only accepts and ratifies, or at best mounts guard, then freedom in the sense of ability to initiate a new and higher good, is an impossibility, spirit has done its work, and our only labor is now merely to enjoy the profits.

With Hegel's conception of freedom before them, it is little wonder that there arose amongst thinkers a desire to return to Kant, whose view that he alone is good who wills the good will seemed to restore to the individual the initiative, of which Hegel had deprived it. The desire came, doubtless, from an imperfect apprehension of the real position which Hegel holds with regard to Kant, since Hegel's conception of history, as the working out of the inner goodness of a universal reason, shows the insufficiency of the idea that humanity should now institute a paradise. Yet this return to Kant was not wholly unjustified, since it implied that a universal paradise is gained only by its being willed, and can be surpassed by the willing of a higher. For he who runs can read that humanity is not in its highest heaven, although it has in many respects outgrown Hegel's conception of society.

Nor is it a surprise that v. Hartmann himself, believing in the absolute development of reason, should have concluded that the underlying unconscious instinct or impulse of spirit, of which Hegel had spoken, is a permanent phase of spirit, and