Abstract

Although Hegel's article on Natural Law is in the first instance a critical review of the empirical (such as Hobbes') and the formal approach (Kant and Fichte) of natural law, it is also the onset of a substantially elaborated natural law. This is based on a concept of the Absolute as a totality which is the absolute unity of the indifference of unity and plurality on one hand, and of the opposition of unity and plurality on the other hand. Reproaching Kant and Fichte of raising the moment of opposition into something absolute, Hegel shows how in fact the opposition can only be considered as a subordinate, though important moment within totality. In so far as the Absolute manifests itself in ethical life, the totality appears as a people. The spirit of the people, which inspires and penetrates thoroughly its members, is representing the moment of indifference. The moment of opposition appears twofold : where unity and plurality are in opposition of each other, plurality may have priority upon unity, and conversely. The priority of plurality upon unity constitutes within the people a specific dimension, i.e. that of economic life. On this level, the members of the people do manifest themselves as an atomistic plurality of individuals primarily thinking of their own physical needs and its satisfaction through labour and possession. The plurality which marks economic life is unified in a purely formal and external way through the law (das Recht) whereby disposing the fundamental equality of each individual as such. That plurality remains nevertheless prior upon unity appears from the fact that law does not abrogate the real inequality between men ; inequality is rather confirmed and consolidated by the law. As a matter of fact, the law is essentially at the service of economic life. The priority of unity upon plurality manifests itself at political level. The political dimension serves the unity of the people as a whole, which is realized by an actual control of the economic dimension in all its aspects. This happens most radically in war-time, when the brave individual is prepared to give his life and to sacrifice himself as a necessitous and pleasure-seeking being to the people as a whole. It is obvious that only the latter manifestation of the opposition forms a unity with the moment of indifference, and that the people constitutes itself only through this unity of both moments. Nevertheless, the other manifestation of the opposition is necessary as well. That is why Hegel affirms the necessity of two classes ; a class of citizens living amongst, with and for the people, and a class of „bourgeois" engaging themselves in economic life. The economic sphere is given a proper dimension although it must remain fundamentally subordinate to politics. Hegel's concern to accentuate the organic character of the state, seems to be one of the most important aspects of the article on Natural Law. With this he explicitly makes a stand against Fichte's conception of the state as a coercive system. Hegel shows in a convincing way that such a coercive system is an absurdity and that Fichte's wrong interpretation of the state lies in the misjudgment of the substantiality of the general will. Hegel's conception of the spirit of the people means in this respect an essential correction