THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

material. Here and there in this mesh there are firm knots which give stability and
direction to the life and consciousness of spirit; these knots owe their fixity and
power to the simple fact that having been brought before consciousness, they are
independent, self-existent Notions of its own essential nature. The most
important point for spirit is not only the relation of what it is in itself to what it is
actually, but the relation of what it knows itself to be to what it actually is;
because spirit is essentially consciousness, this self-knowing is a fundamental
determination of its actuality. As impulses the categories are only instinctively
active. At first they enter consciousness separately and so are variable and
mutually confusing; consequently they afford to mind only a fragmentary and
uncertain actuality; the loftier business of logic therefore is to clarify these
categories and in them to raise mind to freedom and truth. 189
This passage explains how mind or spirit raises itself out of nature, how it becomes what
it truly is by achieving freedom and truth. In this sense, it provides an excellent sketch of
Hegel’s theoretical philosophy, which deals with the mind’s attainment of truth. It also
provides an good sketch of his practical philosophy, which addresses the mind’s
attainment of freedom. The emphasis of the passage, however, remains on the practical
side, since it focuses on the distinction between an “instinctive act” and one that is
“intelligent and free.”
Both the instinctive act and the act that is free have the same (or at least similar)
conceptual structure. The difference does not depend upon the presence of conceptual
structure, but rather it depends upon our conscious awareness of what the conceptual
structure is. Thus the transformation of an instinctive act into an intelligent and free act
consists in the articulation of the implicit rules already imbedded in the act itself. In
order to emphasize this, Hegel says that the instinctive act and the intelligent act have the
same “content.” The content, which is the conceptual structure or the rule that governs
the act, becomes conscious when we divest it of its “immediate unity” with our self and
189 Science of Logic, p. 37.
193