[24] See vol. iii, pp. 427-430.
[25] Unmittelbaren Individualität. Hegel means the individuality that is abstract, not soldered into the substance of concrete human life.
[26] Das Göttliche.
[27] In Gegentheil seiner. Hegel means, apparently, that the principle asserts itself positively rather than as the mere negation of the finite, as in exclusive asceticism.
[28] Das Sittliche, i.e., concrete ethical condition.
[29] Hegel appears to understand by pathos here little more than a psychological state.
[30] Element, i.e., apparently, "this primitive impulse of realization."
[31] Hegel's language, wenn sie itzt aber wirklich, seems to go as far as my translation. The difficulty of the entire passage, and it is no doubt considerable, is primarily due to the fact that Hegel is here importing into the notion of classic divinities the profounder significance of what he calls sittlichen Mächte. By doing this he can more readily shelve the problem how we are to regard the nature of their existence as potential forces of the Divine Being; that is, apart from their operative energy in human life, as also the modus operandi of such Divine energy in its original participation with a real world. He avoids, no doubt, one of the most disputed aspects of his philosophy. But if it is urged in criticism that at least in part his present exposition tends rather to vagueness, or at least to accept a certain measure of symbolism rather than remain severely on the ground of genuine philosophical method and thought, to associate itself rather with Plato than Aristotle, in the present context, at any rate, I am inclined to agree with it.
[32] Der Gewalt des Anundfürsichseyenden. Lit., of that which is or becomes explicit on its own account, i.e., essentially. Hegel refers, of course, to the ethical forces in the process of life.
[33] Hegel here uses the word einig rather in its secondary sense than in its primary one of unique.