God and truth. (I do not mean that these two are logically connected.) Such conceptions tend to
melt away; even if not explicitly negated, they lose importance, and are retained only superficially.
This whole outlook is new, and it is impossible to say how mankind will adapt itself to it. It has
already produced immense cataclysms, and will no doubt produce others in the future. To frame a
philosophy capable of coping with men intoxicated with the prospect of almost unlimited power
and also with the apathy of the powerless is the most pressing task of our time.
Though many still sincerely believe in human equality and theoretical democracy, the imagination
of modern people is deeply affected by the pattern of social organization suggested by the
organization of industry in the nineteenth century, which is essentially undemocratic. On the one
hand there are the captains of industry, and on the other the mass of workers. This disruption of
democracy from within is not yet acknowledged by ordinary citizens in democratic countries, but
it has been a preoccupation of most philosophers from Hegel onwards, and the sharp opposition
which they discovered between the interests of the many and those of the few has found practical
expression in Fascism. Of the philosophers, Nietzsche was unashamedly on the side of the few,
Marx whole-heartedly on the side of the many. Perhaps Bentham was the only one of importance
who attempted a reconciliation of conflicting interests; he therefore incurred the hostility of both
parties.
To formulate any satisfactory modern ethic of human relationships it will be essential to recognize
the necessary limitations of men's power over the non-human environment, and the desirable
limitations of their power over each other.
-729-CHAPTER XXII HegelHEGEL ( 1770-1831) was the culmination of the movement in German philosophy that started
from Kant; although he often criticized Kant, his system could never have arisen if Kant's had not
existed. His influence, though now diminishing, has been very great, not only or chiefly in
Germany. At the end of the nineteenth century, the leading academic philosophers, both in
America and in Great Britain, were largely Hegelians. Outside of pure philosophy, many
Protestant theologians adopted his doctrines, and his philosophy of history profoundly affected
political theory. Marx, as every one knows, was a disciple of Hegel in his youth, and retained in
his own finished system some important Hegelian features. Even if (as I myself believe) almost all
Hegel's doctrines are false, he still retains an importance which is not merely historical, as the best
representative of a certain kind of philosophy which, in others, is less coherent and less
comprehensive.
His life contained few events of importance. In youth he was much attracted to mysticism, and his
later views may be regarded, to some extent, as an intellectualizing of what had first appeared to
him as mystic insight. He taught philosophy, first as Privatdozent at Jena-he mentions that he
finished his Phenomenology of Mind there the day before the battle of Jena--then at Nuremberg,
then as professor at Heidelberg ( 1816-1818), and finally at Berlin from 1818 to his death. He was
in later life a patriotic Prussian, a loyal servant of the State, who comfortably enjoyed his
recognized philosophical preeminence; but in his youth he despised Prussia and admired
Napoleon, to the extent of rejoicing in the French victory at Jena.
Hegel's philosophy is very difficult--he is, I should say, the hardest to understand of all the great
philosophers. Before entering on any detail, a general characterization may prove helpful.