THE REALIZATION OF RATIONAL SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH ITS OWN ACTIVITY

[[Translator's comments: In this section we have the second form in which rational experience is realized. In "observation" mind is directly aware of itself as in conscious unity with its object: it makes no effort of its own to realize this unity: it finds the unity by looking on, so to say. But it may have the same experience by creating through its own effort an object constituted and determined solely by its self. Here it does not find the unity of itself and its object; it makes the object at one with itself by moulding the character and content of the object after its own nature. As contrasted with observation, which may be called the operation of "theoretical" reason, this new way of having a rational experience may be called the operation of "practical" reason. In the first we have reason in the form of knowledge and science, in the second, reason in the sense of rational action and practice.

It is this second way of establishing the experience of reason which is analysed in the following sections. The immediately succeeding section describes the experience in its general features. We have here the sphere of conscious purpose and the foundation of moral and social life.]]