PHENOMENOLOGY OFSPIRIT 911
moments of this complex must both be held carefully apart, and at the same time
taken and understood in this differentiation as not distinct, or always also in their
opposed sense. The double-sensedness of what is distinguished lies in the essence of
self-consciousness, of being infinite, or boundless, that is, immediately the contrary
of the determination in which it is established. The laying-apart of the concept of this
spiritual unity in its duplication presents to us the movement of acknowledging.
There is for self-consciousness another self-consciousness; it has come outside
itself.This has a twofold significance:first,self-consciousness has lost itself, for it finds
itself as anotherbeing; second,it has thereby done away with the other, for it does not
see the other either as the essential being, but it itselfin the other.
Self-consciousness must do away with this otherness ithas; this is the doing away
with of the first double-sense, and hence itself a second double-sense:first,it must set
out to do away with the otherindependent being in order thereby to become certain of
itselfas the essential being; second,in so doing it sets out to do away with itself,for this
other being is itself.
This double-sensed doing away with its double-sensed otherness is equally a double-
sensed return into itself;for,first,through doing away it gets itself back, for it becomes
once more equal to itself through doing away with itsotherness; second,however, it no less
gives back the other self-consciousness to the latter again, for it had itself in the other, it
does away with this being ithas in the other, thus letting the other go free again.
This movement of self-consciousness in its relation to another self-consciousness
has been presented in this way now, as the doing of the one;but this doing of the one has
itself the two-fold significance of being as much its doingas the doing of the other;for
the other is no less independent, shut up within itself, and there is nothing in it that is
not owing to itself. The first self-consciousness does not have the object before it as the
latter to begin with is merely for desire, but an independent object existing for itself,
over which therefore it has of itself no power, unless the object does with itself what
self-consciousness does with it. The movement is thus in all respects the double move-
ment of both self-consciousnesses. Each sees the other onedo the same as it does; each
does itself what it demands of the other, and so does what it does only inasmuch as the
other does the same; a one-sided doing would be unavailing, because what it is intended
should occur can come about only through both.
The doing is therefore double-sensed not only inasmuch as it is a doing as much
to itselfas to the other,but also inasmuch as it is undividedly as much the doing of the
oneas of the other.
In this movement we see the process repeat itself which presented itself as the
play of forces, but in consciousness. What in the earlier process was for us, is here
for the extremes themselves. The centre is self-consciousness, which puts itself apart
into the extremes; and each extreme is this exchanging of its determination and
absolute going over into the opposed extreme. But though, as consciousness, it does
indeed come out of itself,yet it is in its being-out-of-itself at the same time held back
within itself, is for itself,and its “outside-itself ” is for it.It is for consciousness that
it immediately isand is notanother consciousness; and, equally, that this other is
only for itself in doing away with itself as something being for itself, and only in the
being-for-itself of the other is for itself. Each is to the other the centre through which
each brings into relation and connects itself with itself, and each is to itself and to
the other an immediate entity existing for itself, which at the same time is thus for
itself only through this relating, or mediation. They acknowledgeone another as
mutually acknowledging one other.