Thus, the first form which the spirit assumes is that of the Orient. This world is based on the immediate consciousness, on substantial spirituality; its knowledge is no longer a matter of individual arbitrariness – for the sun has now risen – but of an essential will which exists independently and autonomously for itself and to which the will of the individual subject responds primarily with an attitude of faith, trust, and obedience. In more concrete terms, it is a patriarchal relationship. Within the family, the individual is a totality in his own right, but he is also a moment within the whole; he partakes of a common purpose which, since it is common to all, has its own separate existence whereby it also becomes an object of the individual consciousness. This consciousness is embodied in the head of the family, who is the will of the whole; he acts in the interests of the common purpose, cares for the individuals, directs their activity towards the common end, educates them, and ensures that they remain in harmony with the universal end. Their knowledge and desires do not go beyond this end and its embodiment in the head of state. This is necessarily the first mode of national consciousness.
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The second phase, which comprehends the world of Greece, may be likened to the period of adolescence. It is characteristic of the Greek world that it witnesses the rise of numerous states. It is the realm of beautiful freedom, and it is in the context of immediate ethical existence that individuality develops within it. The principle of individuality, of subjective freedom, has its origin here, although it is still embedded in the substantial unity. As in Asia, morality is a principle, but it is also associated with individuality, so that it is identical with the free will of individuals. The two extremes of the Oriental world – subjective freedom and substantiality – are now combined; the kingdom of freedom – not that of unrestrained and natural freedom but of ethical freedom – is now realised. Its end is not arbitrary or particular but universal, for it takes the universal end of the nation as the object of its will and its knowledge. But it is merely the realm of beautiful freedom, and its union with the substantial end is natural and unreflecting. It is the union of the ethical with the subjective will, in which the Idea is united with a plastic form: it does not exist abstractly for itself, but is immediately bound up with the real, just as the sensuous bears the stamp and expression of the spiritual in a beautiful work of art. It is not yet morality, but merely unreflecting ethical existence; for the individual will of the subject intuitively adopts the customs and habits laid down by justice and the laws. The individual is therefore unconsciously united with the universal end. Accordingly, this kingdom is truly harmonious; like a lovely but ephemeral and quickly passing flower, the Greek world is a most serene yet inherently unstable structure, in that it is destined to forfeit its purity under the influence of reflection; and since the unity between its two principles is merely an immediate one, it constitutes the greatest of contradictions within itself. The two principles of the Oriental world – those of substantiality and of subjective freedom – are here united. But their unity is purely immediate, so that they are in the highest degree self-contradictory. In the Orient, the contradiction lies in two opposite extremes which come into conflict with one another. In Greece, however, these are united, but their union cannot survive in the form it assumes in Greece. For the aesthetic existence of Greece cannot be equated with true ethical life. It has not been reborn from the struggle through which subjective freedom is itself reborn, but remains at the earliest stage of subjective freedom; as such, it still bears the mark of natural ethicality instead of being born anew to the higher and purer form of universal ethical life. The ethical life of Greece will therefore be an unstable one which works towards its own dissolution; and the reflection of its extremes within themselves must bring about the downfall of the entire realm. In this way, a new and higher form is developed, bringing with it the third phase in history. Inwardness and reflection, in their incipient stages, are indeed present as a moment within the Greek world; and the next step is taken when this inner reflection, i.e. thought and the activity of thought, liberates itself and presses forward, so preparing the way for a new universal end.
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