This subjectivity is already contained in the fact that moral reality, expressed as virtue, thereby immediately presents the appearance of being present only as a quality of the individual. This virtue, as such, in as far as only the moral reality of the individual is indicated, cannot attain to happiness in and for itself, even though happiness, regarded in the light of realization, were only the realization of the individual. For this happiness would be just the enjoyment of the individual as the harmony of existence with him as individual; but with him as individual true happiness does not harmonize, but only with him as universal man. Man must likewise not in the least desire that it should harmonize with him as individual man, that is, he must be indifferent to the individuality of his existence, and to the harmony with the individual as much as to the want of harmony; he must be able to dispense with happiness just as, if he possesses it, he must be free from it; or it is only a harmony of him with himself as a universal. If merely the subjective conception of morality is therein contained, its true relationship is yet thereby expressed; for it is this freedom of consciousness which in its enjoyment rests in itself and is independent of objects,—what we expressed above (p. 264) as the special characteristic of the Stoic morality. Stoic self-consciousness has not here to deal with its individuality as such, but solely with the freedom in which it is conscious of itself only as the universal. Now could one call this happiness, in distinction to the other, true happiness, happiness would still, on the whole, remain a wrong expression. The satisfaction of rational consciousness in itself as an immediate universal, is a state of being which is simulated by the determination of happiness; for in happiness we have the moment of self-consciousness as an individuality. But this differentiated consciousness is not present in that self-satisfaction; for in that freedom the individual has rather the sense of his universality only. Striving after happiness, after spiritual enjoyment, and talking of the excellence of the pleasures of science and art, is hence dull and insipid, for the matter with which we are occupied has no longer the form of enjoyment, or it does away with that conception. This sort of talk has indeed passed away and it no longer has any interest. The true point of view is to concern oneself with the matter itself and not with enjoyment, that is, not with the constant reflection on the relation to oneself as individual, but with the matter as a matter, and as implicitly universal. We must take care besides that things are tolerable to us as individuals, and the pleasanter the better. But no further notice or speech about this is requisite, nor are we to imagine that there is much that is rational and important within it. But the Stoic consciousness does not get beyond this individuality to the reality of the universal, and