that is Brahm." To secure unity with God, is to
shut out all thought of externality. The spirituality
308 THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
of the Brahmins is not pure freedom, because it has
no inward reflection in contrast with nature. Brahm
is pure unity of thought, the substantial unity of all.
The Hindoo cannot think a thing because he has
not the ability to reflect by rational attributes.
The activity of the Indian is due to external usage,
rather than to personality and subjectivity. They
are said to be tender, mild and beautiful, but
lacking rectitude, morality and spiritual freedom.
As freedom is wanting, there can be no state, for:
"A state is a realization of spirit, such that in it, the self-con-
scious being of spirit, the freedom of the will is realized as law."
There is, therefore, no morality, no true religion
and nothing that may be called historical truth.
That which the Indian gains through imagination
may be the opposite truth gained by intellectual
reflection.
Buddhism. ā The elevation of spirit to subjec-
tivity takes place negatively through the doctrine
of nothingness and affirmatively by a union of
spirit in human form.
According to the dogma of Buddhism nothing-
ness is the principle of all things. All things come
from nothingness and all things pass into nothing-
ness. The various forms of the phe-
Nothingness i' n j.-
nomenal world are mere modmcations
of a process. Beyond finite existence, beyond the
reach of the human mind is a region of Abstract
Nothingness called the ''Supreme Being." ''This
real principle of the universe is, it is said, in eternal
THE SPIRITUAL PROCESS: MIND 309
repose, and in itself unchangeable. Its essence
consists in the absence of activity and volition.
For Nothingness is abstract unity with itself. To
obtain happiness, therefore, man must seek to
assimilate himself to this principle by continued
victories over himself; and for the sake of this, do
nothing, wish nothing, desire nothing." To obtain
perfection it is necessary to free one's self from all
activity and to attain a state of pure passivity.
To attain this condition is to harmonize one's self
with Foe.
Buddhism also sets forth the theory that the
spirit, immersed in the objective attains unity with
the Absolute in an affirmative manner. Spirit is
not understood in the pure subjectivity of thought,
but as an immediate unreflected form of humanity.
They worship the spirit of man, the spirit of a
departed teacher or the living spirit of the grand
Lama. In the Lamaistic worship it is the universal
spirit in man that is revered and not the individual,
objective, concrete being.
Persia. ā The dualism of spirit and nature now
develops into light and darkness. The principle
of conscious development of activity, of life begins
with the doctrine of Zoroaster. The universal is
not recognized as spirit and truth, but is manifest
as light. Ormuzd or light has within it
the elements of the good and true, of ^'^^*
knowledge and choice. Ahriman or darkness implies
the evil, the bad, the wicked. Light involves not
310 THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
only a universal physical element, but also the
spiritual purity, the Good.
"Man sustains a relation to light, to the Abstract Good, as to
something objective which is acknowledged, reverenced and evoked
to activity by his will."
It is the nature of thought to be dualistic. This
dualism in Persian thought has not yet been over-
come, because spirit has not completely realized
itself. There is still recognized a struggle between
light and darkness, natural and spiritual, ideal and
real. In the progress of the consciousness of free-
dom in Chinese thought, in Indian thought and in
Persian thought we are now brought face to face
with the universal, but only as light. Spirit has not
yet realized itself, has not yet overcome its duality
and has not yet attained its freedom. This same
dualistic principle is seen in Syrian life and thought,
not as light and darkness, but as pain and pleasure.
Pain is an element of worship, and a means by
which man realizes his subjectivity.
Judea. ā In Jewish thought there is still a struggle
between the spiritual and the natural, the ideal
and the real.
"Spirit descends into the depths of its own being, and recognizes
the abstract fundamental principle as the spiritual. Nature,
which in the East is the primary and fundamental existence, is now
depressed to the condition of a mere creature; and Spirit now
occupies the first place."
The Persian light has developed into the Jewish
Jehovah. The spiritual, which in early thought
THE SPIRITUAL PROCESS: MIND 311
was dishonored, now frees itself of the sensuous,
attains its true dignity and position, while nature
is merely the robe of glory and has its existence and
origin in the spiritual.
The individual has not yet attained his true
freedom, '^because the Absolute itself is not com-
prehended as concrete spirit" (Christ). The sub-
jective feehng has been developed, the concrete
pure heart, repentance, devotion, but the ^^'"*
concrete individual does not recognize himself as
the polar opposite of Christ, because the spirit
has not yet been made flesh. The Jews have not
attained pure freedom, because their God is an
exclusive unity, one people recognize one God.
Individuality, personality, thought, righteousness
and morality now begin to dawn upon the human
mind, and there is a distinct progress in the con-
sciousness of freedom.
Egypt. ā In Egyptian civilization there is a
continuous development and amplification of the
dualistic thought, of the natural and spiritual, the
human and the brute, the ideal and the real. Egypt
is the land of the mysterious, 'Hhe riddle of the
universe," the home of the sphinx, an ambiguous
being, half brute and half human. The sphinx is
the symbol of spiritual development, existing at
this time in the history of the world.
"The human head looking out from the brute body, exhibits
spirit as it begins to emerge from the merely natural ā to tear itself
loose therefrom and already to look more freely around it; without,
however, entirely freeing itself from the fetters nature had imposed."
312 THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
The sphinx is the problem solver of the world,
and illustrates how spirit, bound as it were, with
iron bands around its forehead, is struggling to
free itself from the natural. The Egyptian spirit
is trying to untangle itself from the natural, and to
solve the problem of freedom. This problem
involves two elements; spirit sunk in nature, and
the impulse to liberate it.
The land of Egypt, with its houses half below
and half above the ground, represents that phase
of civilization in which freedom has not yet been
realized. It gives an exhibition of spirit, com-
pressed, imbruted, so to speak, but still struggling
to unloosen itself, and to utter itself. The Egyp-
tians attained a reflective intelligence which is clearly
seen in the construction of their pyramids and
works of art. G. W. F. Hegel in speaking of the
progressive development of Egyptian spirit writes:
"It is that African imprisonment of ideas combined with the
infinite impulse of the spirit to reahze itself objectively, which we
find here. "
Egypt attempts to solve the problem of the
spiritual; namely, that spirit is embedded in nature
and there is an impulse to liberate itself. In Egyp-
tian thought there is a sharp antithesis
Egyptian bctweeu naturc and spirit. In China
there is absolute unity between these
two principles. By the Jews, nature is considered
a manifestation of spirit. In Egypt spirit is em-
bruted, but is struggling to free itself.
THE SPIRITUAL PROCESS: MIND 313
"The spirit never rises to the universal and higher, for it seems
to be Wind to that; nor does it ever withdraw into itself; yet it
symbolizes freely and boldly with particular existence, and has
already mastered it."
While the Egyptians worshipped animals, they
did not worship the material animal, but the in-
comprehensible principle slumbering in brute crea-
tion. They ''worship the soul as still shut up within,
and dulled by the physical organization." The
Egyptian spirit is a mighty task-master, and at-
tempts to solve the problem, ''I am that which is,
that which was, and that which will be; no one has
lifted my veil." It also proposes for solution the
final problem of the world ā that the inner essence
of nature is thought.
Greece. ā In Greek thought, in Greek life, in
Greek civilization, there is still progress in the
consciousness of freedom. The Greek freedom is
limited to the natural and there still Freedom in
continues the struggle between the natural '^^^ Natural
and the spiritual, the real and the ideal, the mind
and the world objective to itself.
"Man regards nature only as excitement to his faculties, and
only the spiritual which he has evolved from it can have any in-
fluence over him."
The Greek people were a divided people, geo-
graphically speaking. This threw them back upon
their own subjective life and thought. They de-
pended upon nature for the basis of their reflection,
and formed surmises and inquiries concerning the
meaning and significance of nature. It is a dictum
314 THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
of Greek thought that wonder and presentiment
are the fundamental and essential categories of
human thinking. Pan was subjective rather than
objective, for he represented the soul thrilled by
contact with nature. The Greeks listened to the
murmuring and rippling fountains and interpreted
them not objectively, but subjectively. The song
of the Muse, is not an objectification of the fountain,
but a creative and spiritual interpretation of its
meaning. The noise of the rippling waters in the
cave of Trophonius was heard and interpreted by
the thinking, comprehending human spirit.
"It must also be observed, that these excitements of the spirit
are in the first instance external, natural impulses. Succeeding
them are internal changes taking place in the human being himself."
The Greek spirit transmutes the sensuous into
the intellectual, the natural into the spiritual.
The fundamental principle in Greek thought,
is the fact that its freedom is conditioned by and
has an essential relation to some stimulus supplied
by nature. Greek thought is created by objec-
tivity, and its activity consists in translating the
external world into the internal world. Spirit is
not yet entirely free, not self-produced, not self-
stimulating.
"The activity of spirit does not yet possess in itself the material
and organ of expression, but needs the excitement of Nature and
the matter which Nature supplies: it is not free,
Se/f-produced self-determining spirituality, but mere naturalness
formed to spirituality ā spiritual individuality. The
Greek spirit is the plastic artist forming the stone into a work of
art. In this formative process the stone does not remain mere
THE SPIRITUAL PROCESS: MIND 315
stone, ā the form being only superinduced from without; but it
is made an expression of the spiritual, even contrary to its nature
and thus transformed. Conversely, the artist needs for his spiritual
conceptions, stone, colors, sensuous forms to express his idea.
Without such an element he can no more be conscious of the idea
himself, than give it an objective form for the contemplation of
others; since it can not in thought alone become an object to him. "
The central thought in Greek life and character
is individuality conditioned by beauty. This idea
in realizing itself assumes the forms: the subjec-
tive work of art ā the culture of the man
Beauty
himself; the objective work of art ā the
shaping of the world of divinities; the political work
of art ā the formation of the constitution and the
relations of the individuals composing it.
The Subjective Work of Art. ā This process con-
sists in such a development of the body that it
becomes a perfect organ of mind. The external,
objective, physical body is made to harmonize with
the internal, free activity of spirit. In games and
aesthetic displays nature is wrought into spirit and
the corporal is made to harmonize with the will.
The outer corporal individual moves in tune with
the inner spiritual being.
The Objective Work of Art. ā This is a proc-
ess of shaping the divinities and making the idea
assume an objective existence. The essence of the
Greek divinity is spirit, not absolute spirit, but
spirit dependent upon outer conditions. The divin-
ity is a specialized form of existence and manifests
itself in the sensuous world. The Greek gods were
personalities imaged in stone, in human form.
316 THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
They were manifested in human form because no
other form can represent so well the spiritual. It
is the essential nature of all existence to manifest
Greek itsclf iu a form similar to itself. The
Religion Greek religion was defective, because its
gods were a permanent manifestation of the spirit-
ual, while the Christian God (Christ) is a temporary
phase of the divine. Christ died, but the Greek
gods were permanent in marble, wood and metal.
God did not appear to the Greeks, for spirit had not
yet attained its ultimate freedom.
"One element of spirit is that it produces itself ā makes itself
what it is : and the other is, that it is originally free ā that freedom
is its nature and its idea. "
But as the Greeks had not attained absolute
freedom, they did not realize spirit as a universal
principle. Since mere subjectivity was not under-
stood by the Greeks and since the human spirit
had not attained its true position, the Greek spirit
was involved in fate and oracles.
The Political Work of Art. ā The State is not
a subjectively developed and beautified physical
existence, nor an objectively created deity. ''It is
here a living, universal spirit, but which is at the
same time a self-conscious spirit of the individuals
composing the community." In Grecian political
life the individual has not attained that degree of
freedom in which the subjective, social unit has
become dependent upon the state. In Roman
civilization an abstract sovereign power rules the
THE SPIRITUAL PROCESS: MIND 317
people. The Greek constitution is founded The
upon a customary morality rather than ^***Ā®
upon a subjective, reflective conviction and dis-
position. The abstract state was alien to the
Greeks and they, therefore, lived in accordance to
established manners and customs. The Sophists
introduced subjective reflection and thinking, and
declared that man is the measure of all things.
Socrates taught that thinking is a guide to morality
and true living; Plato, that the good can be realized
only in the state, and Aristotle, that the final pur-
pose of education is to reproduce in the soul the
institutional world.
This awakening of the inner man was antago-
nistic to the gods, destroyed the state founded upon
custom and wont, and inaugurated a new civiliza-
tion based upon inner subjective condi- The
tions. The social unit now destroys the ^^^'^^ ^^'*'
customary moral life, and sets up a state dominated
by thought and freedom. The disintegrating prin-
ciple in Greek life is:
"Subjectivity obtaining emancipation for itself. ... In
short, subjectivity comprehending and manifesting itself, threatens
the existing state of things in every department. . . . Thought,
therefore, appears here as the principle of decay of substantial
morality; for it introduces an antithesis, and asserts essentially
rational principles."
Rome. ā The duality of life and thought, running
through racial development now approaches recon-
ciliation and freedom. Greek freedom was condi-
tioned by the natural, but in Roman thought,
318 THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
spirit retreats inward upon itself, rethinks itself and
externalizes itself in the form of an abstract political
constitution, which governs the concrete individual.
Inner This abstract principle creates a personal-
subjectmty '^^ vBTsus Universality and establishes the
fundamental principle of legal right and personal
property. The two principles of Roman civiliza-
tion are political universality and abstract free-
dom. The social units are now sacrificed for the
abstract universal principle of the state which
dominates and rules the concrete individual. The
repellent units composing the nation are held
together by that abstract freedom, that abstract
state which rules with iron power. To compensate
for this severity of governmental power, the Roman
was permitted to exercise a like control over his
family.
Roman religion was something constrained, some-
thing concealed, as the etymology of the term
religion would indicate. This inner secret of mind,
Roman "^hls iuucr struggle of soul, this stupid
Religion subjectivity of life, this melancholy con-
dition of the world, this era of hopelessness and
despair, misery and dejection, oppression and decay,
pictures the fulness of time, when God sent his Son,
when spirit was made flesh, and when peace and
reconciliation came to the world.
Christianity. ā In the progress of the conscious-
ness of freedom, self-consciousness has now arrived
at that stage of development in which it realizes
within itself the idea of spirit. The essential nature
THE SPIRITUAL PROCESS: MIND 319
of spirit is that it produces itself and in its second
phase (Christ) it separates itself from itself.
'^Christ has appeared, ā a Man who is God, ā God who is Man."
This implicit unity between the first and second
person in the trinity exists not only for the ''think-
ing speculative consciousness" but it must also
exist for the "sensuous representative conscious-
ness." This sensuous manifestation of Spirit had
a temporary existence and after death, Christ
himself says:
" When I am no longer with you, the Spirit will guide you
into all truth."
Through the second person in the trinity The
the church was established. Tnmty
"It has been already remarked that only after the death of Christ
could the Spirit come upon his friends; that only then were they
able to conceive the true idea of God, viz., that in Christ man is
redeemed and reconciled: for in him the idea of eternal truth is
recognized, the essence of man acknowledged to be spirit, and the
fact proclaimed that only by stripping himself of his finiteness and
surrendering himself to pure self-consciousness, does he attain
the truth. "
In human development finite freedom has been
annulled in order that Infinite Freedom may be
realized. Christianity not only harmonizes finite
mind with the Infinite Mind, but it affords
Ihe
a fundamental principle for the foundation Religious
. . Consciousness
and explanation of secular relations. I he
religious consciousness now penetrates all civic life,
organizes the State, creates laws and establishes
320 THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
constitutions. Christianity harmonizes nature, mind
and God and gives depth and meaning to every
process in education.
"It was then through the Christian rehgion that the Absolute
Idea of God, in its true conception, attained consciousness. Here
man, too, finds himself comprehended in his true nature, given in
the specific conception of 'the Son.' Man, finite when regarded
for himself, is yet at the same time the image of God and a fountain
of infinity in himself. He is the object of his own
"^^ . existence, has in himself an infinite value, an eternal
Religion" destiny. Consequently he has his true home in a
super-sensuous world ā and infinite subjectivity, gained
only by a rupture with mere natural existence and volition, and
by his labor to break their power within him. This is religious
self -consciousness. "
In and through the subjective inwardness of the
Roman world and in and through the principles of
Christianity, rapid progress was made in the con-
sciousness of freedom. These Christian principles
must now penetrate secular affairs, the State, the
nation, the school and spiritual freedom, as such,
must now be studied and explained, as evolved
and developed in the German world.
The German World. ā The dualism (the objec-
tive and the subjective) inherent in the develop-
ment of civilization, now becomes reconciled in
Dualism ^ud through the principle of spiritual
Reconciled freedom. The Germans possessed this
idea, as a basis of their religion, and attempt now
to make it free and concrete in their civilization.
'^The Greeks and Romans had reached maturity
within ere they directed their thoughts and energies
outwards.'^ The Germans absorbed foreign principles
THE SPIRITUAL PROCESS: MIND 321
and converted them into their own life. In Chris-
tianity the individual has realized his true being in
and for itself, but it is in German thought that we
have the free spirit, the new spirit, the spirit The Free
of modern times. The free spirit is the ^^^"^
central energy of the world, out of which are evolved
thought and reason, and those norms essential to
the construction of the State and its constitution.
Since the spirit of Christianity is the great civil-
izing force and the most important factor in human
freedom, it will be interesting to study
thoroughly the doctrine of the church:
"The essence of the Christian principle has already been un-
folded; it is the principle of Mediation. Man realizes his Spiritual
essence only when he conquers the Natural that attaches to him.
This conquest is possible only on the supposition that the human
and the divine nature are essentially one, and that Man, so far as
he is spirit, also possesses the essentiality and substantiality that
belongs to the idea of Deity. The condition of the mediation in
question is the consciousness of this unity, and the intuition of this
unity was given to man in Christ. The object to be attained is,
therefore, that man should lay hold on this consciousness, and that
it should be continually excited in him. "
The Crusaders undertook to find the present and
definite existence of deity. They took possession
of the holy places, but found no corporal relics of
Christ. The principle of religion is not ^he
found in the sensuous, in the corporal, in Cmsaders
the grave, but in the living spirit itself. The Cru-
saders arrived at the fact that the essential nature
of mankind is not to be found in the external, but
in the internal, thinking consciousness. The most
21
322 THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
profound principle of the world is that man is a
self-conscious thinking being. Two principles of
life grew out of the Crusades; self-reliance and
spontaneous activity.
Spirit in its final evolution must be estranged in
the external that it may return to the internal and
thus attain its freedom. Art spiritualizes by
Evolution transforming the internal into the ex-
of Spirit ternal. It is by means of this outer
manifestation that spirit holds communion with
spirit, and soul is brought in contact with soul.
Spirit further craves union with itself and seeks to
become acquainted with its otherness, in discoveries,
in the Fine Arts and in the Revival of Learning
which have been called by Hegel ''the hlush of
dawn^^ and ''the day of universality."
The Reformation. ā While some were attaining
freedom in art, some freedom in commerce, and
some freedom in learning, Martin Luther set forth
the doctrine that deity is embodied in subjectivity
and spirituality, and that true unity with God is
obtained by faith and spiritual enjoyment. Faith
is not a belief in the sensuous, but a subjective
assurance of Eternal Truth. The subjective thinking
soul of man receives unto itself this Eternal Energy.
"The development and advance of spirit from the time of the
Reformation onwards consists in this, that spirit, having now
gained its consciousness of its freedom, through that
MediaTion process of mediation which takes place between man
and God ā that is, in the full recognition of the objec-
tive process as the existence of the divine essence ā now takes it
up and follows it out in building up the edifice of secular relations. "
THE SPIRITUAL PROCESS: MIND 323
The central doctrine of this book is:
"By nature man is not what he ought to be; only through a
transforming process does he arrive at truth. "
The Eclaircissement. ā The central thought in this
great illuminating period of the world's history is:
"Man is not free, when he is not thinking; for except when
thus engaged he sustains a relation to the world around him as to
another, an alien form of being. This comprehension