It is this phase of social life, and the temper or disposition corresponding to it, which Hegel indicates by the expression Bourgeois Society. [1] It presents itself to him as the opposite extreme of life and mind to that embodied in the family. It is an aggregate of families--for the units of the Bourgeois Society are heads of households--as seen from the outside, in the great system of industry and business, where a man has to find his work and do it. It is, in mind, the presence of definite though limited aims, calculation and self-interest. [2] [1] _Bürgerliche Gesellschaft_. “Society,” Wallace points out, is here opposed to “community,” and indicates a looser phase of union. [2] Cf. the merchant in Wilhelm Meister’s _Lehrjahre_, viii. 2. “I can assure you that I never reflected on the State in my life. My tolls, charges, and dues I have paid for no other reason than that it was established usage” (cited from Wallace, _Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind_, p. cci.). Bourgeois Society is the aspect of the social whole insisted on by the classical political economy, by which, as an achievement in the way of reducing complex appearances to principles, Hegel was much impressed. It is, again, the view of society embodied in the conception of the purely police State, and its principle is confused with that of the State proper by one set of theorists, as that of the family is by another. It is the peculiarity of Hegel’s view--probably {274} the most definitely original, as it is the most famous, of all his political ideas--to contend that this aspect of society, with the form of consciousness belonging to it, is necessary to a modern State. According to his logic, indeed, it is inevitable that every true whole shall have an aspect of “difference,” of breaking up into particulars. The principle of the ancient State, as concentratedly expressed in Plato’s _Republic_, was weak and undeveloped, and fell short of the true claims of intelligence, [1] just because it dared not really let the individual go--let him assert himself as himself. “Subjectivity” was a principle fatal to it. Not that there was an iron oppression in the States of antiquity. The individual was, for an onlooker, magnificently developed. His limitations were in him, and did not oppress him; but for all that, free choice and the career open to talents were not for him. [1] “Was not ideal enough” (Hegel, _Geschichte der Philosophie_, ii. 254). The “notion” for him necessarily involves identity, differentiation, and re-integration; and in this respect the ancient State falls short of a true notion, while the modern realises it.