The World's Greatest Books — Volume 14 — Philosophy and Economics

Part 1

Produced by Kevin Handy, John Hagerson, Greg Bergquist and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS

JOINT EDITORS

ARTHUR MEE Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge

J. A. HAMMERTON Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia

VOL. XIV

PHILOSOPHY (CONTINUED)

ECONOMICS

WM. H. WISE & CO.

Table of Contents

PORTRAIT OF PLATO Frontispiece

PHILOSOPHY (continued)

HEGEL, G.W.F. PAGE The Philosophy of History 1

HUME, DAVID Essays, Moral and Political 13

KANT, IMMANUEL The Critique of Pure Reason 24 The Critique of Practical Reason 34

LEWES, GEORGE HENRY A History of Philosophy 45

LOCKE, JOHN Concerning the Human Understanding 56

MONTAIGNE Essays 64

PLATO The Apology, or Defence of Socrates 75 The Republic 84

SCHOPENHAUER The World as Will and Idea 99

SENECA, L. ANNÆUS On Benefits 109

SPENCER, HERBERT Education 120 Principles of Biology 133 Principles of Sociology 145

SPINOZA, BENEDICT DE Ethics 160

ECONOMICS

BELLAMY, EDWARD Looking Backward 173

BENTHAM, JEREMY Principles of Morals and Legislation 186

BLOCH, JEAN The Future of War 199

BURKE, EDMUND Reflections on the Revolution in France 212

Part 2

COMTE, AUGUSTE A Course of Positive Philosophy 224

GEORGE, HENRY Progress and Poverty 238

HOBBES, THOMAS The Leviathan 249

MACHIAVELLI, NICCOLO The Prince 261

MALTHUS, T.R. On the Principle of Population 270

MARX, KARL Capital: A Critical Analysis 282

MILL, JOHN STUART Principles of Political Economy 294

MONTESQUIEU The Spirit of Laws 306

MORE, SIR THOMAS Utopia Nowhere Land 315

PAINE, THOMAS The Rights of Man 324

ROUSSEAU, JEAN JACQUES The Social Contract 337

SMITH, ADAM Wealth of Nations 350

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A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end of Volume XX.

Acknowledgment

Acknowledgment and thanks for permission to use the following selections are herewith tendered to Houghton, Mifflin & Company, Boston, for "Looking Backward," by Edward Bellamy; to Ginn & Company, Boston, for the International School of Peace, for "The Future of War," by Jean Bloch; and to Doubleday, Page & Company, New York, for "Progress and Poverty," by Henry George.

Philosophy

HEGEL

The Philosophy of History

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born on August 27, 1770, at Stuttgart, the capital of Würtemburg, in which state his father occupied a humble position in government service. He was educated at Tübingen for the ministry, and while there was, in private, a diligent student of Kant and Rousseau. In 1805 he was Professor Extraordinarius at the University of Jena, and in 1807 he gave the world the first of his great works, the "Phenomenology." It was not until 1816 that Hegel's growing fame as a writer secured for him a professorship at Heidelberg, but, after two years, he exchanged it for one at Berlin, where he remained until his death on November 14, 1831. On October 22, 1818, he began his famous lectures. "Our business and vocation," he remarked to his listeners, "is to cherish the philosophical development of the substantial foundation which has renewed its youth and increased its strength." Although the lectures on the "Philosophy of History" and on the "Philosophy of Religion" (Vol. XIII) were delivered during this period, they were not published until a year after his death, when his collected works were issued.

I.--In the East Began History

Universal or world-history travels from east to west, for Europe is absolutely the end of history, Asia the beginning. The history of the world has an east in an absolute sense, for, although the earth forms a sphere, history describes no orbit round it, but has, on the contrary, a determinate orient--viz., Asia. Here rises the outward visible sun, and in the west it sinks down; here also rises the sun of self-consciousness. The history of the world is a discipline of the uncontrolled natural will, bringing it into obedience to a universal principle and conferring a subjective freedom. The East knew, and to this day knows, freedom only for one; the Greek and Roman world knew that some are free; the German world knows that all are free. The first political form, therefore, that we see in history is despotism; the second democracy and aristocracy; and the third monarchy.

The first phase--that with which we have to begin--is the East. Unreflected consciousness--substantial, objective, spiritual existence--forms the basis; to which the subjective will first sustains a relation in the form of faith, confidence, obedience. In the political life of the East we find realised national freedom, developing itself without advancing to subjective freedom. It is the childhood of history. In the gorgeous edifices of the Oriental empires we find all national ordinances and arrangements, but in such a way that individuals remain as mere accidents. These revolve round a centre, round the sovereign, who as patriarch stands (not as despot, in the sense of the Roman imperial constitution) at the head. For he has to enforce the moral and substantial; he has to uphold those essential ordinances which are already established; so that what among us belongs entirely to subjective freedom, here proceeds from the entire and general body of the state.

The glory of the Oriental conception is the one individual as the substantial being to which all belongs, so that no other individual has a separate existence, or mirrors himself in his subjective freedom. All the riches of imagination and nature are appropriated to that dominant existence in which subjective freedom is essentially merged; the latter looks for its dignity not in itself but in the absolute object. All the elements of a complete state--even subjectivity--may be found there, but not yet harmonised with the grand substantial being. For outside the one power--before which nothing can maintain an independent existence--there is only revolting caprice, which, beyond the limits of the central power, moves at will without purpose or result.

Accordingly we find the wild herds breaking out from the upland, falling upon the countries in question and laying them waste, or settling down in them and giving up their wild life; but in all cases lost resultlessly in the central substance.

This phase of substantiality, since it has not taken up its antithesis into itself and overcome it, directly divides itself into two elements. On the one side we see duration, stability--empires belonging, as it were, to mere Space (as distinguished from Time); unhistorical history, as, for example, in China, the state based on the family relation. Yet the states in question, without undergoing any change in themselves, or in the principle of their existence, are constantly changing their opinion towards each other. They are in ceaseless conflict, which brings on rapid destruction. The opposing principle of individuality enters into these conflicting relations; but it is itself as yet only unconscious, merely natural universality--light which is not yet the light of the personal soul. This history, too, is for the most part really unhistorical, for it is only the repetition of the same majestic ruin.

The new element which, in the shape of bravery, prowess, magnanimity, occupies the place of the previous despotic pomp goes through the same cycle of decline and subsidence. And this subsidence, therefore, is not really such; for through all this restless change no advance has been made. History passes at this point--and only outwardly, that is, without connection with the previous phase--to Central Asia. To carry on the comparison with the individual man, this would be the boyhood of history, no longer manifesting the repose and trustfulness of the child, but boisterous and turbulent.

II.--Greece, Rome and Christianity

Part 3

The Greek world may, then, be compared to the season of adolescence, for here we have individualities shaping themselves. This is the second main principle in human history. Morality is, as in Asia, a principle, but it is morality impressed on individuality, and consequently denoting the free volition of individuals. Here, then, is the union of the moral with the subjective will, or the kingdom of beautiful freedom, for the idea is united with a plastic form. It is not yet regarded abstractly, but intimately bound up with the real, as in a beautiful work of art; the sensible bears the stamp and expression of the spiritual. The kingdom is consequently true harmony; it is a world of the most charming but perishable, or quickly passing, bloom; it is the natural, unreflecting observance of what is becoming--not yet true morality. The individual will of the subject adopts without reflection the conduct and habit prescribed by justice and the laws. The individual is, therefore, in unconscious unity with the idea--the social weal.

The third phase is the realm of abstract universality (in which the social aim absorbs all individual aims); it is the Roman state, the severe labours of the manhood of history. For true manhood acts neither in accordance with the caprice of a despot nor in obedience to a graceful caprice of its own. It works for a general aim, one in which the individual perishes and realises his own private object only in that general aim. The state begins to have an abstract existence and to develop itself for a definite object, in accomplishing which its members have indeed a share, but not a complete and concrete one (calling their whole being into play). Free individuals are sacrificed to the severe demands of the national ends, to which they must surrender themselves in this service of abstract generalisation. The Roman state is not a repetition of such a state of individuals as was the Athenian polis. The geniality and joy of soul that existed there have given place to harsh and rigorous toil. The interest of history is detached from individuals.

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