Because the moral principle of the Stoics remains at this formalism, all that they treat of is comprised in this. For their thoughts are the constant leading back of consciousness to its unity with itself. The power of despising existence is great, the strength of this negative attitude sublime. The Stoic principle is a necessary moment in the Idea of absolute consciousness; it is also a necessary manifestation in time. For if, as in the Roman world, the life of the real mind is lost in the abstract universal; the consciousness, where real universality is destroyed, must go back into its individuality and maintain itself in its thoughts. Hence, when the political existence and moral actuality of Greece had perished, and when in later times the Roman Empire also became dissatisfied with the present, it withdrew into itself, and there sought the right and moral which had already disappeared from ordinary life. It is thus herein implied, not that the condition of the world is a rational and right one, but only that the subject as such should assert his freedom in himself. Everything that is outward, world, relationships, &c., are so disposed as to be capable of being abrogated; in it there is thus no demand for the real harmony of reason and existence; or that which we might term objective morality and rectitude is not found in it. Plato has set up the ideal of a Republic, _i.e._ of a rational condition of mankind in the state; for this esteem for right, morality and custom which is to him the principal matter, constitutes the side of reality in that which is rational; and it is only through a rational condition of the world such as this, that the harmony of the external with the internal is in this concrete sense present. In regard to morality and power of willing the good, nothing more excellent can be read than what Marcus Aurelius has written in his Meditations on himself; he was Emperor of the whole of the then known civilized world, and likewise bore himself nobly and justly as a private individual. But the condition of the Roman Empire was not altered by this philosophic emperor, and his successor, who was of a different character, was restrained by nothing from inaugurating a condition of things as bad as his own wicked caprice might direct. It is something much higher when the inward principle of the mind, of the rational will, likewise realizes itself, so that there arises a rational constitution, a condition of things in accordance with culture and law. Through such objectivity of reason, the determinations which come together in the ideal of the wise man are first consolidated. There then is present a system of moral relationships which are duties; each determination is then in its place, the one subordinated to the other, and the higher is predominant. Hence it comes to pass that the conscience becomes bound (which is a higher point than the Stoic freedom), that the objective