PHENOMENOLOGY OFSPIRIT 915
wisdom,” consciousness in this fear is for its self,not being-for-itself.Through work,
however, it comes to itself. In the moment which corresponds to desire in the con-
sciousness of the master, the facet of the inessential relation to the thing seemed to have
fallen to the consciousness that serves, inasmuch as in this relation the thing retains its
independence. Desire has reserved to itself the pure negating of the object and thereby
the unmixed feeling-of-self. This satisfaction is on that account, however, itself just a
vanishing, for it lacks the facet of the object,or permanency.Work by contrast is
containeddesire,arrestedvanishing, or work improves.The negative relation to the
object turns into the formof the object and into something enduring,precisely because
to the worker the object has independence. This negativecentre, or the activitythat
forms, or fashions, is at the same time the particularity,or the pure being-for-self of
consciousness, which now in work steps out of consciousness into the element of
permanency; the consciousness that works therefore attains as a consequence a view
of independent being as itself.
The fashioning has not only this positive significance, however, that in it the con-
sciousness that serves has itself as pure being-for-itselfbecome something existent;but
also a negative significance as against its first moment, the fear. For, in the improving of
the thing, the consciousness which serves has its own negativity, its being-for-itself,
become object only by doing away with the opposed existent form.But this objective,
negativething is precisely the alien being before which it trembled. Now, however, it
destroys this alien negative thing, sets itselfas something negative into the element of
permanency, and thereby comes to be for itself,something existing-for-itself.In the
master it has being-for-self as an other,or as merely for it;in the fear being-for-self is
in the consciousness itself that serves;in the improving being-for-self comes to be for
the consciousness that serves as its own,and the latter becomes conscious that it itself is
in and for itself. Through being set outside,the form does not become to the conscious-
ness that serves something other than the consciousness itself; for it is precisely the
form that is its pure being-for-itself, which thereby to consciousness becomes the truth.
Through this refinding of itself by itself, then, the consciousness that serves becomes a
mind or sense of its own,and in the very work in which it seemed to be only another’s
sense.—For this reflexion both moments, that of fear and service in general, as well as
that of improving, are necessary, and at the same time both in a general way. Without
the discipline of service and obedience, fear remains at the formal stage, and does not
spread itself upon the known reality of concrete existence. Without the improving, fear
remains inward and silent, and consciousness does not become for itself. If consciousness
fashions, or forms, without the initial absolute fear, it is merely a vain sense of self; for
its form or negativity is not negativity in itself,and its fashioning cannot therefore give
it the consciousness of itself as the essence. If it has not endured absolute fear, but only
some anxiety, then it has the negative essence remain something external, its substance
has not been infected through and through by the negative essence. Inasmuch as not all
aspects of its natural consciousness have become insecure, it still in itselfbelongs to
some particular existence; its self-sense is self-will,a freedom which as yet remains
within subjection. No more than it can have the pure form become essence, no more is
the form, regarded as something spread over individual things, a universal cultivating,
an absolute concept, but is instead a dexterity which has power over merely some
things, not over universal power and the whole objective realm of being.