A. INDEPENDENCE AND DEPENDENCE OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

[[Translator's comments: The selves conscious of self in another self are, of course, distinct and separate from each other. The difference is, in the first instance, a question of degree of self -assertion and self-maintenance: one is stronger, higher, more independent than another, and capable of asserting this at the expense of the other. Still, even this distinction of primary and secondary rests ultimately on their identity of constitution; and the course of the analysis here gradually brings out this essential identity as the true fact. The equality of the selves is the truth, or completer realization, of self in another self ; the affinity is higher and more ultimate than the disparity. Still, the struggle and conflict of selves must be gone through in order to bring out this result. Hence the present section.

The background of Hegel's thought is the remarkable human phenomenon of the subordination of one self to another which we have in all forms of servitude--whether slavery, serfdom, or voluntary service. Servitude is not, only a phase of human history, it is in principle a condition of the development and maintenance of the consciousness of self as a fact of experience.]]