Note 135 — Chapter III · (continued 3)

Professor Bosanquet, in his note on this passage, expresses the opinion that Hegel when he writes thus is referring "To the self-consciousness of individual human beings as constituting, and reflecting on, an ideal unity between them." This no doubt, as he suggests, does put a somewhat unnatural meaning on the word "person" or "subjekt." No doubt there is a sense in which we can ascribe personality to a state, or nation, in the concrete unity of its life. But while admitting that unity such as this, which is not sensuous but ideal, can be "effective and actual," I find it difficult to conclude that Hegel did himself hold that the unity of the Divine Being was merely identical with the unity or totality of concrete human life as reflected upon by single individuals. How far is human life as a whole on this Earth a unity or totality at all? That question has been discussed by Professor Bradley and others with very different conclusions. Nay, how far does human existence itself exhaust the actually present realization or self-realization of self-conscious Spirit or Intelligence? Whatever maybe the wisest answer to such and other questions I can hardly think that Hegel would have accepted Professor Bosanquet's interpretation as completely adequate.