[2] Cf. the merchant in Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre, viii. 2. “I can assure you that I never reflected on the State in my life. My tolls, charges, and dues I have paid for no other reason than that it was established usage” (cited from Wallace, Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind, p. cci.).
Bourgeois Society is the aspect of the social whole insisted on by the classical political economy, by which, as an achievement in the way of reducing complex appearances to principles, Hegel was much impressed. It is, again, the view of society embodied in the conception of the purely police State, and its principle is confused with that of the State proper by one set of theorists, as that of the family is by another.
It is the peculiarity of Hegel’s view—probably {274} the most definitely original, as it is the most famous, of all his political ideas—to contend that this aspect of society, with the form of consciousness belonging to it, is necessary to a modern State. According to his logic, indeed, it is inevitable that every true whole shall have an aspect of “difference,” of breaking up into particulars.
The principle of the ancient State, as concentratedly expressed in Plato’s Republic, was weak and undeveloped, and fell short of the true claims of intelligence, [1] just because it dared not really let the individual go—let him assert himself as himself. “Subjectivity” was a principle fatal to it. Not that there was an iron oppression in the States of antiquity. The individual was, for an onlooker, magnificently developed. His limitations were in him, and did not oppress him; but for all that, free choice and the career open to talents were not for him.
[1] “Was not ideal enough” (Hegel, Geschichte der Philosophie, ii. 254). The “notion” for him necessarily involves identity, differentiation, and re-integration; and in this respect the ancient State falls short of a true notion, while the modern realises it.
The modern demand—such is Hegel’s conception—is harder and higher. The individual’s life is not predetermined by his birth, but he is thrown face to face with economic necessity, which is a form of the universal end. He has to strip off his crudeness and vanity, and, of himself, mould himself into something which fulfils a want. This is a step without which there can be no true freedom—the giving one’s self by one’s own act a definite place in the region of external necessity, the “becoming something” or attaching oneself to {275} a definite class of service renderers. Thus, we are startled to find culture or education treated in general, and in respect of its indispensableness, under the head of the Bourgeois Society. For culture is the liberation from one’s own caprices, and the acceptance of a universal task. It is a severe process, and therefore unpopular, but it is a necessary one if we are to have true freedom. The criticism that such a world and temper is the world and temper of self-interest does not appeal strongly to Hegel. We shall have to treat of it more fully below. [1]
[1] See p. 291.
It may be noted in passing that the insecurity of life, which may seem to attach to dependence on the vast system of wants and work, is more and more seen, as modern economic relations develop, not to be insecurity at all, except in as far as “culture” in the form of industrial training is absent. There is, indeed, in modern life, nowhere any absolute and oyster-like stability. The highest stability to be anywhere attained is that due to fitness for service in the interdependent system of needs. [1]
[1] I may refer to The Standard of Life, by H. Bosanquet, essay on “Klassenkampf”.
Therefore, as Hegel saw, but in more ways than he saw, the system of Bourgeois Society—the economic and industrial world—is not a separate reality, but only an appearance within a larger system. The member of it is not so detached as he may seem, or think. He is within, and sustained by, the general life of the State, as the aims which are his motives in “business” or industry are within {276} and inseparable from the whole structure of his intelligence.