Hegel's Philosophy of Mind — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
Georg Hegel · en
A man is said to be heartless and unfeeling
when he looks at things with self-possession and acts according to his
permanent purposes, be they great substantial aims or petty and unjust
interests: a good-hearted man, on the other hand, means rather one who is
at the mercy of his individual sentiment, even when it is of narrow range
and is wholly made up of particularities. Of such good nature or goodness
of heart it may be said that it is less the genius itself than the
_indulgere genio_.
§ 406. (ββ) The sensitive life, when it becomes a _form_ or _state_ of the
self-conscious, educated, self-possessed human being is a disease. The
individual in such a morbid state stands in direct contact with the
concrete contents of his own self, whilst he keeps his self-possessed
consciousness of self and of the causal order of things apart as a
distinct state of mind. This morbid condition is seen in _magnetic
somnambulism_ and cognate states.
In this summary encyclopaedic account it is impossible to supply a
demonstration of what the paragraph states as the nature of the remarkable
condition produced chiefly by animal magnetism—to show, in other words,
that it is in harmony with the facts. To that end the phenomena, so
complex in their nature and so very different one from another, would have
first of all to be brought under their general points of view. The facts,
it might seem, first of all call for verification. But such a verification
would, it must be added, be superfluous for those on whose account it was
called for: for they facilitate the inquiry for themselves by declaring
the narratives—infinitely numerous though they be and accredited by the
education and character of the witnesses—to be mere deception and
imposture. The _a priori_ conceptions of these inquirers are so rooted
that no testimony can avail against them, and they have even denied what
they had seen with their own eyes. In order to believe in this department
even what one sees with these eyes, and still more to understand it, the
first requisite is not to be in bondage to the hard and fast categories of
the practical intellect. The chief points on which the discussion turns
may here be given: