Contextualizing Hegel's Phenomenology of the French Revolution and the Terror

Author(s): Robert Wokler

Source: Political Theory, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 33-55
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/191868 .
Accessed: 09/05/2014 14:00

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Political Theory.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 CONTEXTUALIZINGHEGEL'S
PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTIONANDTHETERROR

ROBERTWOKLER
CollegiumBudapest

INTRODUCTION

Inobjectingtowhathedescribesastheemptyformalism of thephilosophy
of Kant,HegelinsiststhatSpiritis notabstract butconcreteuniversality (die
konkrete Allgemeinheit), embodiedin particular formsin the courseof its
owncomingto be whatit is-that is, in worldhistory,whichis alsohuman
history.Yet the exampleshe cites of Spirit'sobjectifications often seem
ethereal,and his accountof the epochsof time over whichthey occur,
positivelygeological.In his Phenomenology of Spirit,in the sixthsection
specificallyaddressed to thesubjectof "Spirit,"
heintroduces a passagefrom
Diderot'sNeveude Rameausomefifty paragraphs aftera fleetingcitation
fromSophocles'Antigone,while in the interveningmaterial,presumably
intendedto embracesome 2,000 yearsof civilizationseparatingclassical
GreecefromEnlightenment France,not a singleauthoror personis men-
tioned.'Althoughthereis everyreasonto believethatin his discussionof
"AbsoluteFreedomandTerror" in the samework,Hegelhadin mindboth
thepoliticalphilosophyof RousseauandtheFrenchRevolution,it mustbe
remarkedthathe keptsuchthoughtsverymuchto himself,since neither
Rousseau,nor the Revolution,nor anyoneelse, nor any occurrence,is
identifiedin anyway.
My principalobjectivein thisessaywill be,on onehand,to chart,andon
theother,to criticize,thelogicof anargument apparently intendedby Hegel
as a philosophicalexplanation of actualhistoricalevents,albeitpresented by

A UTHOR'SNOTE:Theoriginalversionof thisessay waspresentedas one of a series of seminar

papers whichI gave at the John Olin CenterfortheHistoryof Political Cultureat the University
of Chicago in 1990.

POLITICALTHEORY,Vol. 26 No. 1, February1998 33-55

C) 1998 Sage Publications,Inc.
33

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
34 POLITICALTHEORY/ February1998

him withoutany mentionof when they took place or indeedwhatthey might

be. I aim to localize, contextualize and illustrate Hegel's claims about
absolute freedom and terror,in effect to flesh out what I believe to be his
readingof the FrenchRevolution'sdescentfromthe sublimeidealismwhich
infused its inceptionto the dreadfulscourge of the Jacobindictatorship.No
more imaginativeview of the connectionbetweenthe theoryandpracticeof
politics is known to me thanthis treatmentof the Terroras the Revolution's
monstrousafterbirth,joined umbilicallyto the faetusof the FrenchNational
Assembly, whose creation had heralded the dawn of a new age. In his
commentson "AbsoluteFreedomandTerror"in the Phenomenology,Hegel
offers a conceptualhistory of modernityin termsof the self-transfiguration
of philosophy into violence, which I believe calls for much closer scrutiny
than it has ever received before.
If WorldSpiritis indeedmanifestin humanaffairs,it oughtto be possible,
to my mind,to identifyits concreteformswithreferenceto individualnames,
dates, and places. I thus mean here to provide a kind of catalogue of its
appearancesor actualembodimentsin the course of the FrenchRevolution.
I shall try to show, on one hand, that Hegel's accountof the genesis of the
Terroris profoundlyilluminatingin its portrayalof some of the most central
featuresof Frenchpolitical historyin the periodfrom 1789 to 1794, but, on
the otherhand, that it is grossly in errorin depictingthose same featuresof
the Revolution as propagatedfrom an Enlightenmentseed, in particular,as
the practicaloffspringof Rousseau'sphilosophy.

ROUSSEAU'S ALLEGEDAUTHORSHIP
OF THEFRENCHREVOLUTION

Hegel has often been describedas a follower of Rousseau, particularly

with regardto his conception of the link between liberty and law and his
emphasisuponpublic service andthe morallyupliftingcharacterof the state.
Any resemblance with respect to such mattersbetween his own political
philosophy and that of Rousseau,however,was not in the least apparentto
him. As is plain from both his Philosophyof History and his Philosophy of
Right, he understoodRousseau's passionate attachmentto liberty almost
exclusively in termsof mankind'sinnocencein a so-calledstateof natureand
with respect to the ethical simplicity of uncultured(ungebildeter)peoples.
The true purpose of Spirit, Hegel remarksin correctingRousseau, is to
eliminatenaturalsimplicity,immediacy,andindividuality(Einzelheit)in any
such state. The scheme of "negative"educationRousseau had outlined in

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Wokler/ CONTEXTUALIZINGHEGEL 35

Emile thereforeseemed to him particularlyfutile as a pedagogical experi-

ment, since perfectself-sufficiencywas as unattainableas it was undesirable.2
Hegel believed that Rousseau'spolitical philosophy was fundamentally
misconceived becauseit soughtto transposeto the statemuchthe same ideal
of individualself-sufficiencyas was ascribedto unculturedpeoples andto an
educationconceived in accordancewith nature.If Rousseaumeritedpraise
for puttingforwardthe notion of will as the centralprincipleof the state,his
idea of the will as expressing the merely arbitraryopinions of separate
individuals was grossly mistaken,Hegel observes in a notable passage in
?258 of the Philosophyof Right,renderingsuch criticismof Rousseaumost
sharplyin thatversion of his lectures,from which this text is drawn,thathe
deliveredin the 1819-20 academicyear,accordingto theirrecentlypublished
anonymoustranscription.For, as he remarksthere,Rousseauhad distorted
the state's very foundation, even while identifying its essential impulse,
throughhis punctuationof the singularanddisparatewills of separatepersons
in disjunctionfrom the communityas a whole.3
The political consequenceof this philosophicalmistakehad been utterly
devastating,Hegel supposed,because when the "abstractions"of the "false
theories ... which originatedlargely with Rousseau ... were invested with
power, they affordedthe tremendousspectacle, for the first time in human
history,of the overthrowof ... an actualmajorstate ... and the revision of
its constitution... purely in terms of thought' (Hegel 1991, 277, 279-80).
As Hegel puts this propositionin the section titled "TheFrenchRevolution
and Its Outcome"in his Philosophyof History,the politicalrealizationof the
notion of the absolutelyfree will, in and for itself, purportingto serve as the
highest principle of right, had been made possible by Rousseau: "Dieses
Prinzip wurdein FrankreichdurchRousseauaufgestellt."4
Numerous passages in Hegel's philosophicaland political writings ex-
plain how he imaginedthatthe notionof an absolutelyfree will as conceived
by Rousseauwas responsiblebothfor inauguratingthe FrenchRevolutionin
its overthrowof the ancienregimeandsubsequentlyforproducingthe Terror.
In a few pages at the end of the Philosophyof History, for example, Hegel
attemptsto show how the Frenchstatewas remodeledandits laws recast,by
the invocation of an Enlightenmentprincipleof the freedomof will, which
had come to agitate men's minds the more they perceived that their estab-
lished governmentdid not accordwith it. Tracingthe upheavalsof the French
court, clergy, and nobility,he remarksthatthey were all transformedby the
popularperceptionthat their authoritywas unjustbecause it contradicteda
fresh idea of right. Neither the reconstitutedmonarchynor the government
of the Legislative Assembly were judged to have adheredto that idea, and
they were accordingly destroyed as well, to be replaced ultimately by a

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
36 THEORY/February
POLITICAL 1998

governmentso determinedto sustainits integritythatfor the sake of virtue,

Hegel claims, it elected to enforce its will through terror (Hegel 1956,
447-50).
Furtherreflectionson thesethemescan be foundin ?300 of thePhilosophy
of Right; in a fragmenttitled "Religionund Kultur"transcribedby one of
Hegel's editors, Lasson; in essays on The German Constitutionand The
Wurtemberg Estates, which he draftedin 1799-1802 and 1817, respectively;
and especially in two works of widely differentcharacterand style, first, the
Jenaer Realphilosophieof 1805-1806, and second, TheEnglishReformBill,
draftedin 1831.5In the thirdpartof the JenaerRealphilosophie,in a lengthy
passage anticipatingthe section titled "AbsoluteFreedomandTerror"in the
Phenomenologyproduceda yearlater,he describesthe tyrannyof the French
state underRobespierreas "purefrighteningdomination"(reineentsetzliche
Herrschaft), pursuing a path of evil along lines mapped out in ancient
mythology by Theseus' establishmentof the Athenianstate, and lent addi-
tional warrantby the self-justificatorystatecraftof the equally tyrannical
regime of Machiavelli'sPrince, whose originalnecessity had provedsuper-
fluous (Uberfluissig)as it came to be abhorred(Hegel 1976, 258-60).
In TheEnglish ReformBill, a contributionto politicaljournalismwritten
for the PreussischeStaatszeitungjust before his death,he reflects upon "the
French democraticconstitutionof the year III under Robespierre,"which
"prescribedthat laws on public affairswere to be broughtbefore individual
citizens for confirmation."Earlier,underthe NationalAssembly,the policies
which its members were authorizedto pursue by their electors had been
promptlyforgottenas soon as they won office, he also remarksin the same
passage. In a sentence which recalls Rousseau'sfamous observationin the
Social Contract about the people of England's loss of freedom to their
members of Parliament,Hegel here contends, albeit in this case without
criticismor censure,that"itcounts as one of the most fundamentalconstitu-
tional principlesin EnglandandFrancethatmembers,once elected, arejust
as sovereignin castingtheirparliamentaryvotes as theirelectors were when
they cast their votes."
This passage refers as well to the factional zeal of the Jacobins, who
disgusteddecent citizens andmade it dangerousfor them to cast theirvotes,
while a couple of pages laterHegel turnshis attentionto the Frenchgovern-
ment'stransitionfromthe Directoryto the Consulatein 1799, notinghow the
abbe Sieyes, who "hada greatreputationfor deep insightsinto the organiza-
tion of free constitutions. . . was able to extractfrom his papersthe plan
which was to give France the enjoyment of his experience and profound
reflection."6If he supposedthat it was Rousseau'sphilosophy of an abso-
lutely free will which had ultimatelyinspiredthe FrenchRevolution,Hegel

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Wokler/ CONTEXTUALIZINGHEGEL 37

neverdoubtedthatthe plans of France'snew institutionshadbeen fundamen-

tally devised by Sieyes.
But it is in thePhenomenologyof SpiritthatHegel offershis readersmuch
the richest accountof his conceptionof the ideological thrustand character
of the FrenchRevolutionin its metamorphosisfromperfectconstitutionalism
to pure violence. The bare bones of his argumentin the ten pages of the
Phenomenologyof Spirit that are devoted to the subjectof "AbsoluteFree-
dom and Terror"may be rendered as follows, in more or less faithful
recapitulationof Hegel's own language."Spirit,"he contends,"comesbefore
us as absolutefreedom. It is conscious of its own personality,and thereinof
all spirituality.The world is for it simply its own will, and this is a general
will, a real general will, the will of all individualsas such" (?584).7 In the
Jenaer Realphilosophie,much the same point is made by way of Hegel's
contentiontherethat the universalwill, the will of all and each, was simply
itself alone, for the activityof the universalis a unity (ein Eins) (Hegel 1976,
256-7). As the self-conscious essence of each and every personality,he
continuesin the Phenomenology,it is the genuine actualwill thatit ought to
be, the undividedsubstanceof absolutefreedomwhich ascendsthe throneof
the world withoutany power being able to resist it (??584 and 585).
In their realizationof undividedsubstanceand absolute freedom, there-
fore, all social groups or classes, which are the spiritualspheresinto which
the whole is articulated,are abolished. The individualconsciousness puts
aside its limitation,its purpose becomes the general purpose, its language
universallaw. Universalfreedomis therebyfreedfromthe sphereof particu-
larity and seeks to apportion the plurality of individuals to its various
constituentparts(??585 and588). But the realitywhich standsin the greatest
antithesis to universal freedom is the freedom and individualityof actual
self-consciousness itself. By virtue of its own abstraction,such freedom
divides itself into extremesequally abstract-into a simple, inflexible, cold
universality,on the hand, and the hardrigidity and self-willed atomism of
actualself-consciousness,on the other.
Universal freedom thus seeks to exist just for itself, to be its own sole
object, withoutcontent or extension. It aspiresto a knowledge of itself that
is absolutelypure, by effecting the destructionof the actualorganizationof
the world (?590). It is the simple absolute spirit, Hegel remarks in the
equivalentpassage of the Jenaer Realphilosophie,for which nothingdeter-
minate counts except itself. In it, evil is reconciledwith itself (Das Bose ist
in ihm mit sich selbst versdhnt)(Hegel 1976, 258). In its abstractexistence
of unmediatedpurenegation,the sole workanddeed of universalfreedomis
thereforedeath, a deathwithoutinnersignificance,the coldest and meanest
of deaths,like splittinga headof cabbage,he exclaimsin thePhenomenology,

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
38 POLITICALTHEORY/ February1998

in a startling but only momentarydescent from sublime negativity into

common-or-gardenprose (?590).
In this flat monosyllableof death,he continues,is containedthe wisdom
of government,the abstractintelligenceof theuniversalwill, its self-fulfillment.
Such self-fulfillment, by exclusion of all other individualsfrom the enact-
mentof its will, is an expressionof a specific will, which cannotexhibititself
as anythingotherthana faction, so thatwhat is called governmentis merely
the victorious faction, and in the very fact of its being a faction lies the
necessity of its overthrow.Absolutelyfree self-consciousnessinstills a terror
of deathwhich is the vision of this negative natureof itself (?592).
But that negation of absolute freedom as the pure self-identity of the
universalwill, he continues, for the very reason that it is immediatelyone
with self-consciousness, turnsits innernotion into one of absolutepositiv-
ity-its abstractbeing, or the immediacy of its insubstantialnature,thus
vanishing.In thatvanishedimmediacylies the universalwill itself, which it
now knows itself to be, insofar as it is a pure will (?594). Here, I suspect,
Hegel may be alluding both to Thermidorand then to the Directory, or
perhapseven to the adventof the age of Napoleon, at any rateintroducinga
fresh notion of purely positive self-consciousness by way of yet another
negationof a negationwhichconstitutesthe innerunfoldingof Spiritin world
history.In the Jenaer Realphilosophie,the roughlyequivalentpassage con-
cludes with the advent of what Hegel terms a necessarily higher level of
abstraction,a greaterdegree of cultivation,a deeper spirit-the realm of
ethical life.8

HEGEL'SARGUMENTIN
HISTORICAL
TRANSCRIPTION

As every student of the French Revolution knows, the inaugurationof

modernpolitics occurredat a strokeon June 17, 1789. When the Bastille fell
four weeks later,little more than a symbolic gloss was added to the actual
metamorphosisof a regime that had alreadyestablishednot only the first
democraticrepublicof modernitybutthe first genuinenation-statein human
history.9It might be supposedthatphilosopherswho addressworld history
as a whole are characteristicallyimpreciseaboutdates, but Hegel's graspof
the chronology of political modernitywas perfectlycorrect,and for almost
200 years the section devoted to "Absolute Freedom and Terror"in his
Phenomenologyof Spirit has comprised the most accuratereading of its
earlieststages.

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Wokler/ CONTEXTUALIZINGHEGEL 39

On June 17, 1789, the deputies of the Estates General,which had been
convoked the previousautumnby King Louis XVI, resolved thatthey were
no longer assembled at the monarch'sbehest but were ratheragents of the
national will (le vceunational), entrustedwith the task of representingthe
sovereignty of the people of France.The three estates thereby constituted
themselves as a single Assemblee nationale,'0 bearing sole authorityto
interpretthe people's generalwill. It is in this way thatpolitical modernity
came to be born in France, through the establishmentof a unicameral
parliamentcorrespondingto a unitarywill andthe creationof a unified state
designed to give voice to an undifferentiatednation. Herein lay the estab-
lishment of the first genuinely modern state, in the sense in which it has
become a nation-state,pluckedfrom the womb of the ancien regime by its
own offspringwho, in transfiguringtheirdelegatedpowers and hence their
own identity,broughta new worldinto being. The UnitedStatesof America,
whose Constitutionhad been framed a fractionearlier,by contrast,never
formedone nationand at first scarcelyformedone state.
Since the motionthatthusgeneratedthe NationalAssemblyhadbeen put,
initially to the delegatesof the ThirdEstatealone, by the abbeSieyes, it may
be said that Sieyes is the fatherof the nation-state,standingto the whole of
politicalmodernityas does God to the Creation.His incendiarytract,Qu'est-
ce que le tiers etat?, publishedin January1789, not only prefiguredmuchof
the debatethatwas to lead to the establishmentof theNationalAssembly and
then its abolitionof the vestiges of feudalismon August 4, 1789; in its first
printingit also introducedthe expressionla science sociale to the historyof
social philosophyandthe humansciences. Strivingperhapseven harderthan
God haddone to ensurethathis handiworkflourished,Sieyes set himself the
task, over the next several years after the nation-statehad been born, of
serving as its nursemaidandcounseloras well. No one has contributedmore
to shapingthe modernworld'spoliticaldiscourse.
Hegel, who had witnessed modernity'sbirthand was to devote much of
his life to portrayingits childhood,came eventuallyto reflect upon Sieyes's
paternityof modernity,as it were, in the passage of his English ReformBill
to which I have alreadyreferred,wherehe observesthat Sieyes managedto
assemble from his own papersthe constitutionthatFrancecame to enjoy.11
In the languagehe had employedearlierin his Phenomenologyof Spirit,he
describes this birthdayof modernity,in his fashion, as the undividedsub-
stance of absolutefreedomascendingthe throneof the world withoutthere
being any power able to resist it.
In pursuitof the reasoningwhich had led to the formationof the National
Assembly, it next followed from its members'debates of late August and
earlySeptember1789 thattheking of Francemustbe deniedan absoluteveto

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
40 POLITICALTHEORY/ February1998

over its legislation, principallyon the groundsthattherecould be no sover-

eign above the people's representatives.Both RobespierreandSieyes argued
forcefully in the same debates that the king could not even be permitteda
suspensive veto, since the unity of the nation prohibited any executive
constraintover its legislative will, while the king's particularwill could not
be elevated above the rest. The advocatesof a suspensive veto, on the other
hand, either wished, as monarchists,that the king should retain a residual
power in a more mixed constitution,or, as democrats,thathe might hold the
Assembly's power in check on behalf of the people of France.
Theirtriumphof September15, 1789 overthe opponentsof any royalveto
was threeyearslaterto ensurethe final destructionof boththe monarchyand
the Legislative Assembly, which in October 1791 succeeded the National
Assembly. For having been granteda suspensive veto but at the same time
deniedtherebythe rightto representthe nation,the king was to find his office
preservedin name only, cut off from the populace to which he might have
appealedagainst the state. When his suspensive veto came to be exercised
on behalf of just those forces which had opposedthe Revolutionaltogether,
the people of France were able to see the fractureof their constitutionthat
had been manufacturedat its birth, and in a particularlystrikingway they
came to recognize the weakness of the authorityof their state. In the late
summerof 1792, with the king andthe LegislativeAssembly in conflict, the
nation in effect broughtthem down together,as Hegel recountswith perfect
accuracyat the end of his Philosophyof History.Depicting the same events
in philosophically more abstractterms in his Phenomenology,he remarks
thatall social groupsor classes which arethe spiritualspheresinto which the
whole is articulatedare abolished.
Around the time of its establishmentalong lines envisaged in Sieyes's
plan, the National Assembly, seeking to make its identityclear, deliberated
not only aboutthe powersof the king butalso aboutthe powersof the people.
Both in the spring of 1789 and again at the end of July, Sieyes argued
successfully thatthe people of Francemust be denied any bindingmandate,
or mandatimperatif,over their own delegates, since such a mandatewould
deprivethe people's representativesof theirfreedomand would accordingly
substitutethe multifariousparticularwills of scatteredcitizens for the collec-
tive will of the nationas a whole. The actof creationof theNationalAssembly
which Sieyes had sponsoreddeclaredthat the Assembly was one and indi-
visible. As the fatherof modernityinsisted, if the generalwill was to speak
with one voice in a unitarynation-state,it could no more be accountableto
the people at large thanto a king.

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Wokler/ CONTEXTUALIZINGHEGEL 41

At the heart of Sieyes's conception of modernitylay an idea of repre-

sentationwhich in his eyes was to constitutethe most centralfeatureof the
Frenchstate.The modernage in its politicalform,or l'ordrerepresentatif,as
he termedit, dependedfor its prosperityupon a system of statemanagement
thatadoptedthe same principleof the division of laboras was necessaryfor
a modem economy.This system entailedthatthe people mustentrustauthor-
ity to theirrepresentativesratherthanseek its exercisedirectlyby themselves,
their delegates articulatingtheirinterestson theirbehalf while they accord-
ingly remain silent. As has alreadybeen noted here, Hegel, in his English
ReformBill, drawsattentionto the fact that,in Franceas well as in England,
it is the people's parliamentaryrepresentativesratherthanthe people them-
selves who are sovereign,once the people, acting as electors,have cast their
votes.
Among the leadingfiguresof the FrenchRevolution,no one arguedmore
forcefullyfor thatprinciplethanSieyes. In distinguishingthe effective agents
of state power from its ultimateoriginators,he merely pursuedthe logic of
his own differentiationof active from passive citizens, whose separate
identificationfor a brief period underthe FrenchConstitutionof 1791 was
to prove one of the crowningachievementsof his careeras the firstlegislator
of modern France.'2In the light of his doctrine of representation,it was
accordinglyplain to Sieyes thatthe people as well as the king mustbe barred
from seeking controlover the NationalAssembly,since any diminutionof its
authorityfroman externalsourcewould constitutea dangerto the expression
of the generalwill.
Therecould be no confusionin Francebetweenrepresentationanddemoc-
racy such as inspiredPaine and others to imagine that the hybrid form of
governmentestablished in America had nourisheda classical principle of
self-rule in a large state. For Sieyes, who sometimesspoke of directdemoc-
racy as a form of democratiebrute,it would be tragicfor the first genuinely
modernstate of humanhistory to make a retrogradestep. In establishinga
political system that was without precedent,Francecould not hesitate be-
tween ancient and modernprinciplesof government.Despite his endorse-
ment of other constitutionalsafeguards against the sovereign assembly's
abuseof its powers,Sieyes did notpermitany allegianceto Montesquieuwith
respectto such mattersto overcomehis mistrustof Rousseau;he was adamant
that the people themselves, lacking discipline, must be deprived of such
means as wouldputpublicorderat risk.Democracy,he thought,was no more
fit for modernitythan was the mixed constitutionthatwould issue from the
preservationof a royal veto. No plebiscite or direct democracy could be

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
42 POLITICALTHEORY/ February1998

toleratedby the sole representativeof the entirenation.Sovereigntythereby

passed from the nation's multifariousfragmentsto the people's delegates
constitutedas one body, the populaceceasing to have any political identity
except as articulatedthroughits representatives,who by procurationhadbeen
grantedauthorityto speakfor the electorateas a whole.
While the conception of the modern state put forwardby Sieyes thus
requiredthatboth the king, on one hand,andthe people, on the other,should
be marginalizedfrom the governmentof France,the implementationof his
plan did not proceed as smoothly as he might have hoped. Apartfrom the
king's disinclinationto yield all his powers to an assembly which he had
originally called into being himself, the people had their revolutionary
championsas well. The Jacobins,in particular,regardedSieyes's distinction
between active and passive citizenshipas anathemaand, opposing his prin-
ciple of the indivisibility of the general will as articulatedby the nation's
representatives,they soughtto returndirectlyto the people, in theirdistricts
andthroughtheircommunes,the indivisiblesovereigntyof the whole nation
which had been expropriatedby their independentlymindedpolitical dele-
gates. No less than Condorcet,among the Legislative Assembly's internal
critics, the Jacobins, from their Club and from the Commune of Paris,
contendedthroughout1791 and 1792 thatthe people must be empoweredto
exercise theirrightsas citizens, even if in defianceof laws thatwould silence
them.
The Jacobinnotion of sovereignty,conceived as residingwith the people
as a whole, thus seemed to contradictthe logic of modernitypursuedby
Sieyes and his associates, insofar as the Jacobinsportrayedthemselves as
standing for the people ratherthan for the official proxies that had been
substitutedfor them.Sieyes's case on behalfof representationagainstdemoc-
racy just seemed to them a peculiarlymodernform of despotism. In this
respect,it may be said thatRobespierreand Saint-Justembracedthe idea of
popularsovereigntynot less but morethandid Sieyes, who in fact found the
termalmostas uncongenialas Locke had done a centuryearlier.As opposed
to the political idea of the sovereigntyof the nation,which to them signified
no morethanthe sovereigntyof the state,the Jacobinssubscribedto a belief
in the social sovereigntyof the nation conceived as the sovereignty of the
people in general.
The Jacobins'contradictionof Sieyes's logic of modernitywas in a crucial
sense illusory, however, since the nation which they envisaged to be com-
prised of all its people was to prove as monolithicas Sieyes's conceptionof
a nationrepresentedby the state. When the Jacobinscame to power within

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Wokler/ CONTEXTUALIZINGHEGEL 43

the Convention in the autumn of 1793, they behaved as Sieyes and his
associateshaddone earlier,but in reverse-that is, they attemptedto root out
the people's enemies withinthe state,just as Sieyes had soughtto silence the
enemies of the state within the nation.The right of initiativeof all citizens
throughdirectelections and by way of referenda,such as had been proposed
by Condorcetat the beginningof the year,was temperedby layersof indirect
suffrage and obstructionsto collective action which left the people in their
sections andcommuneswith only a tenuousandresidualrightof veto, when
the Constitutionof 1793 came to be enacted after the Girondins'fall. In
attempting to render the citizen population of France active so that the
people's delegates could be accountableto and even decomissionedby their
truesovereign,the Jacobinswere obliged to cleanse the nationof its internal
differences, closing the Catholic Churches, for instance, and forcing the
Commune of Paris, from which they had drawn so much of their own
strength,to surrenderits powers. Their immaculateconception of popular
self-rule was not to be taintedby the people themselves.Universalfreedom,
by thus seeking to exist just for itself, in Hegelian parlance, effects the
destructionof the actualorganizationof the world.
For the people to act as a collective grandjury of theirgovernment,they
must also speak with one voice. Having supportedthe rights of primary
assemblies against the state, the Jacobins came within the Convention to
oppose assemblies which betrayedthe nation.Puredemocracywas to prove
as incompatiblein practicewith Robespierre'spopulism as it was alien to
Sieyes's notionof representativegovernment,so thatin 1793, no less thanin
1789, when these two enemies hadlast been in agreementin theiropposition
to the royal veto, they could once again be of one mind. The Terrorof the
Jacobins was to follow directly from their idea of the sublime unity of the
nation, which requireda lofty purity of public spirit that made the vulgar
purity of democracyseem an uncouthsubstitutefor virtue. Popularsover-
eignty was not only to be given voice but actually createdby the nation's
genuine representatives.The greatestenemy of the people for whom they
stood, and who had still to be manufacturedin the image of what they might
become, were all the fractiouspeople cast in recalcitrantmolds resistantto
such change, who therebystood in the way of the agentsof the people of the
future.As Hegel henceconcludesby way of introducinga vegetablemetaphor
in the most trenchantlines of his section on "AbsoluteFreedomand Terror"
in the Phenomenology,in its abstractexistence of unmediatedpurenegation,
the sole work of freedom is thereforedeath, a death without inner signifi-
cance, the coldest and meanestof deaths,like splittinga head of cabbage.13

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
44 POLITICALTHEORY/ February1998

CORRECTINGHEGEL'SMISRENDERING
OF THEIDEOLOGICALROOTSOF
THEFRENCHREVOLUTION

The historyof the earlydevelopmentof this politicaldiscourseof moder-

nity, and of the FrenchRevolutionaryassemblies and debates in which its
principleswere articulatedandtransformed,has beenrecountedseveraltimes
before, most thoroughly,to my mind, by Patrice Gueniffey and Lucien
Jaume.'4 Paul Bastid, Murray Forsyth, Pasquale Pasquino, Jean-Denis
Bredin, Keith Baker,Antoine de Baecque, William Sewell, and othershave
stressed the special significance of Sieyes's contribution,and in a notable
recent essay, Istvan Hont, placing furtheremphasisupon Sieyes's doctrine,
locates it at the heartof a long and complex debate,over several centuries,
about the nature of the state in general and the characterof the modern
nation-state in particular."5 For the reasons outlined in my introductory
remarks, have insteadaddressedthe same materialwith respectto Hegel's
I
interpretationof the subjectin his Phenomenology,partlyso as to illustrate,
in concreteform, his idea of the marchof WorldSpiritin humanhistory,but
mainly to put his sinisteraccountof the unfoldinglogic of the Revolutionin
the most plausible terms possible. On what I take to be his reading of the
transfigurationof the National Assembly into the Jacobindictatorship,the
course of events which gave rise to the Terrorhad been implicit in the
argumentswhich had establishedthe political characterof modernFrance.
In retracingthe philosophical development of a theory of representation
appropriateto an indivisible nation-state,and in delineating the practical
consequenceswhichthattheoryentailed,Hegel offersa remarkablyprovoca-
tive portraitof the breedingof terrorfrompureabstractionandof totalitarian
violence stemming from conscientiously liberal principles. Yet, however
credible his assessment of FrenchRevolutionarypolitics might appear,his
accountof their ideological roots is, to my mind, utterlymisconceived.
Hegel perfectly well understoodSieyes's role as nursemaidand chief
counselorof the FrenchRevolution.As is plainmost of all fromthe passages
of his Philosophyof RightandPhilosophyof Historywhich I have discussed
here,he was neverthelessconvincedthatthe Revolution'sspiritualfatherwas
not Sieyes himself but Rousseau,who in the Social Contracthad articulated
the idea of absolutefreedomwhich was to be given politicalembodimentin
the NationalAssembly and was subsequentlyto be unsheathedin the Terror.
I hold that belief to be entirelywithout foundation,and to the extent that it
informs Hegel's conceptual history of modernity,I regard its falsity as
undermininghis whole case forjoining the FrenchRevolutionto the Enlight-
enment.'6Of course Hegel had no doubt that Rousseau's attachmentto the

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Wokler/ CONTEXTUALIZINGHEGEL 45

republicsof antiquityand his contemptfor the trappingsof civilizationbore

witness to his fundamentalantagonism toward Enlightenmentideals of
human progress. But in prescribinga notion of liberty that was at once
absoluteand pure,Rousseauwas in Hegel's eyes the authorof a philosophy
which was no less abstractthanKant's,andwhich, as a blueprintfor political
change, was to prove the most dangerousof all the monolithic schemes of
the Enlightenment.
Accordingto Hegel, Rousseau'sgreatachievement,as I havetriedto show
here, was to have to put forwardthe idea of will as the fundamentalprinciple
of the state. In conceiving his notion of the will only in terms of its
individuality,or Einzelheit,however, he had, in what Hegel took to be his
characteristicallyshallow fashion,portrayedthe union of individualswithin
the stateas a merecontractof particulars,whose indeterminacyandarbitrari-
ness made impossible the really concrete union of wills upon which the
establishmentof a genuinepoliticalcommunitydepends.Havingconstructed
his notion of the general will as a compound formed out of individuals'
capriciousness,Rousseauhad failed to see thatthe trulyuniversalor general
will, the allgemeine Wille,of the state requirescooperativeobedience to its
rules rather than any idea of contractualassociation designed to leave
individualsas free as they were before. In attemptingto invest Rousseau's
abstractionswith politicalpower,the revolutionariesof Franceoverthrewthe
constitutionof their state, because it stood in the way of the fulfillment of
their principles.The Reign of Terror,Hegel suggests in his Philosophy of
Right, was thus the destructiveand fanaticalform which had been takenby
Rousseau'sabstractidea of absolutefreedom,when in practiceit confronted
institutionsincompatiblewith its own self-realization.
Throughthe languagehe employs in his conceptualhistoryof modernity,
Hegel's readingof the revolutionaryinfluence of Rousseaumight appearto
correspondwith otherimages thathadbeen drawnby so manyof Rousseau's
revolutionaryadmirersand critics alike in just those debates that were to
inform the account of absolute freedom and terrorwhich is offered in the
Phenomenology.As early as 1791, Louis SebastienMercierhad produceda
work whose very title encapsulatesa belief that was alreadywidespreadat
the time, Rousseau consid&recommel'un des premiersauteursde la Re'vo-
lution. After the fall of Robespierrein 1794, Rousseau's remains were
transferredfrom their grave at Ermenonvilleandbroughtto the Pantheonin
Paris,wherele citoyende Geneve,whose contemptforthepolitics andculture
of Francehad been virtuallyboundless,could foreverbe acclaimeda heroof
the French nation in its modem form. Edmund Burke's denunciationof
Rousseau as the "insaneSocrates"of the NationalAssembly"7resonatedin
one form or another throughouta whole decade of political upheaval in

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
46 POLITICAL / February
THEORY 1998

France,when the Social Contractwould indeedcome to be esteemed as the

Revolution'sholy writ,fusing its TenCommandmentsandits Sermonon the
Mount in a blueprintfor a new social orderconceived by the patronsaint of
the FirstRepublicof Francethreedecadesbefore its actualCreation.
But neitherHegel's readingof Rousseaunor his conceptualhistoryof the
NationalAssembly's prefigurationof the Terrorin its act of union bearsany
relationto France'sown revolutionarycanonizationof its spirituallegislator.
The interpretationof Rousseau'srevolutionarysignificanceofferedby Hegel,
which was latertakenup by Marx(see Wokler1987), is based entirelyupon
Hegel's understandingof what he regardedas a defining featureof the age
of modernity,the advent of biirgerlicheGesellschaft-that is, the realm of
civil society-which he describes,in his Philosophyof Right, as an associa-
tion of self-sufficient individualswhose common interestsare pursuedby
contractandthroughlegal institutionsonly.'8Hegel was contemptuousof all
political thinkers,includingRousseau,who laboredunderthe misapprehen-
sion thatthe statecould be, or mightever have been, establishedby contract.
It was within civil society alone, and not the state, as he conceived it, that
individuals,the bearersof naturalliberty,remainas free aftermaking their
common agreementsas before.Accordingto Hegel, Rousseau'sfailure,and
that of the revolutionarieshe inspiredafterhim, had quite simply been due
to the fact that they had all attemptedto constructthe state in the image of
civil society and had neglectedto transcendit so as to enterthe truerealmof
communalaction, describedas Sittlichkeit,or ethical life, in the Philosophy
of Right. Rousseauhad merely abstractedhomo aeconomicus,the individual
in a civil society or marketeconomy,fromhis concretepoliticalrelationsand
thenhad falsely supposedthatby contractsuch a personcould come together
with otherslike himself to form a civil associationwhich had as its aim the
preservationof each person'snaturalfreedom.
Hegel, following Fichtebeforehim,nevernoticedthatRousseau'saccount
of the generalwill pertainedspecifically to a collective will, resemblinghis
own notion of the allgemeine Wille,ratherthanto a compoundof particulars
which, as Rousseaudescribedit, would have been merely the will of all. He
was not awarethatRousseau'svision of the moralpersonalityof the state, as
outlined in the Social Contract, entailed much the same dimensions of
political solidarityand self-recognitionas partof a greaterwhole that were
embracedby his account of ethical life. He did not perceive that Rousseau
sharedwith him a notion of communitythattranscendedthe arbitrarinessof
the individualwill in civil society.
Still less was Hegel attentiveto Rousseau'scritiqueof the modernidea of
representation-that is, to his so frequentlyreiteratedcharge that citizens
could only be trulyfree if they were themselvesengagedin legislation, since

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Wokler/ CONTEXTUALIZINGHEGEL 47

the substitutionof one's will by delegatesactingon one's behalfwas nothing

otherthandespotism.Even while upholdinga commitmentto civil libertyof
a kind that could not be enjoyed except by citizens partakingof their state's
corporateidentity,Rousseauinsisteduponeach person'sgenuineautonomy,
or self-direction,which Hegel wronglyassumedto meanthe maintenanceof
naturalliberty, thereby neglecting Rousseau's belief that liberty in all its
genuineforms,not least its politicaldimension,mustexclude dependenceon
others,from which it follows thatthe representationof individuals'freedom
of choice is prohibited.Rousseauwas convinced,as Hegel was not, any more
thanSieyes hadbeen, thatto expressthe generalwill, citizens mustdeliberate
together and then heed their own counsel; they could not just vote for
spokesmenwho, as theirproxies,would determinethe nation'slaws. In large
states, as Rousseaurecognizedin both his Social Contractand Government
of Poland (a workto which Hegel refersin the introductionto his Philosophy
of History), theremust be means wherebythe truesovereign could exercise
its will even when assemblies were entitled, over prescribedperiods and
subject to general ratification,to speak with the consent of the people as a
whole. Theremustin such circumstancesbe plebiscites,he believed, such as
had been enjoyedby the people of the Republicof Rome,entitledto dispense
with theirtribunesat will, for in the presenceof the represented,as Rousseau
put it, therecould be no representation.'9
For all his misgivings aboutdemocracyas a form of government,Rous-
seau believed morepassionatelythanany othereighteenth-centurythinkerin
the idea of popularor democraticsovereignty.It was principallythis doctrine,
which was presumedto have been inscribedin the Declarationsof the Rights
of Man and the constitutionsof the revolutionaryyears, thatensuredRous-
seau's renown as the patronsaint of a regeneratedFrance.But the doctrine
was upheldby him in its pureform,embracingthe people as a whole,20while
the purityof purposesoughtby Sieyes, Robespierre,andtheirassociateswith
respectto the sovereigntyof the nationwas always of another,contradictory,
sort. As is perhaps plainest from his Governmentof Poland, Rousseau
subscribedto just that notion of a mandat imperatifwhich in the modern
world most closely approximatedthe full legislative authorityof citizens
acting collectively, such as he understoodto have prevailed in the free
republicsof antiquity.He was a democratagainstrepresentation,he stood for
the direct and unmediatedsovereignty of the people against all forms of
delegatedpower,and not once in the course of a revolutionsaid to have been
framed by his ideas did the advocates of his philosophy-in the National
Assembly, the Commune of Paris, the Jacobin Club, or the Club of the
Cordeliers-come to prevail.

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
48 POLITICALTHEORY/ February1998

Hegel's conceptual history of political modernity,within which Rous-

seau's idea of absolute liberty is portrayedas having engenderedboth the
NationalAssembly andthe Terror,was thus only madepossible, to my mind,
by the categorymistakeof his confusing Rousseau'spolitical doctrinewith
the philosophiesof bothSieyes, whom he supposedto have putRousseauism
into practice,and Robespierre,whom he regardedas having broughtRous-
seauism to its dreadfulclimax. As the fatherof modernity,Sieyes was of
course no more likely to assume responsibilityfor the Terrorthanwas God
ever inclined to accept blame for originalsin. If he was awareof it, he was
never persuadedby Hegel's readingof the FrenchRevolution and always
remainedconvinced thatthe Terrorhad actuallysprungfrom the betrayalof
his own ideas on the partof populists who could not abide the principleof
indirectsovereigntywhich his theoryof representationprescribed.Fromhis
point of view, a form of Rousseauismhad indeed been responsiblefor the
Terror,in dissolving all his achievementsin the NationalAssembly through
its successful implementationof just that brutishform of directdemocracy
which was unfitfor the modernworld.Fortheirpart,in theiradvocacyof one
nation, the Jacobins likewise proved as little democraticas was Sieyes in
upholdingthe integrityof one state.
The inappropriatenessof democracy for modernity was as striking to
Sieyes as was the unsuitabilityof modernityfor democracyin the eyes of
Rousseau. With regardto his grasp of the meaningof Rousseau'spolitical
philosophy,Sieyes was as clear as was Hegel obscure.Most of the features
of Rousseau'spolitical philosophy which Hegel overlooked, Sieyes recog-
nized, and he devoted much of his careerto combatingthose democratsof
the National Assembly who espoused them. As against Rousseau's demo-
cratic notion of sovereigntyhe turnedinsteadto thatof Hobbes,even to the
extent of preferringa monarchicalover a republicanregimeif polyarchywas
to be averted.Rousseau'sfollowers in the NationalAssembly had no under-
standing of the system of representationrequiredin a modern state, he
supposed,butat least a sketchof it could be drawnfromthe sixteenthchapter
of Hobbes's Leviathan.2"To the Hobbesian theory of representation,the
nation-stateas conceivedby Sieyes addsthe dimensionof the comprehensive
unity of the people, the representerand representedjointly forming an
indissoluble whole, the state and nation bonded together,each understood
throughthe other.Somewhatlike Hegel himself, but contraryto Rousseau,
Sieyes soughtto establishthe foundationsof a new andprogressivepolitical
orderwhich would embraceratherthandestroythe trappingsof commercial
society, in a state whose legislative system could express the solidarityof a
nationalcommunityonly indirectlythroughrepresentatives.

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Wokler/ CONTEXTUALIZING
HEGEL 49

In opposing the democraticmandat imperatif, Sieyes resisted what he

perceivedto be the threatto the expressionof the nation'sgeneralwill which
might be constitutedby the people. It was of the essence of his plan thatthe
nationin assembly spoke for all the people andmustneverbe silenced by the
people themselves. Over the past 200 years the nation-statehas charac-
teristicallyachievedthatendbecauseit representsthepeople, standingbefore
them not just as monarchs had done earlier, as the embodimentof their
collective will, butratherby assumingtheirvery identity,bearingthe person-
ality of the people themselves.While a small numberof genuinelymultina-
tional states have in that period been established as well and continue to
flourish, the majorityof peoples everywherenow comprise nations which,
by way of their representatives,are politically incorporatedas states. All
peoples thathave accreditedidentitiesformnation-states.WhatSieyes failed
to foresee was thatin the age of modernityheraldedby his doctrine,a people
might not surviveunless it constituteda nation-state.In the age of modernity,
it has provedpossible for the nation-stateto become the enemy of the people.
By giving real substanceand propersanctionto the variousdeclarations
of the rights of man within the frameworkof its own first constitutions,the
French revolutionarynation-stateinvented by Sieyes and his associates
joined the rightsof manto the sovereigntyof the nation.22It definedthe rights
of manin such a way thatonly the statecouldenforcethemandonly members
of the nation could enjoy them, ensuring in effect that no one apartfrom
persons who were united as nations which formed states was entitled to
partakeof these rights.Underthe systems of representationheraldedby the
inceptionof the modem age on June 17, 1789, not only individualsbutwhole
peoples which comprisenationswithoutstates have found themselves com-
prehensivelyshornof rightsthey might have imaginedbelonged to them by
virtueof theirhumanity.This above all, to my mind, is the sinisterlegacy of
a system of politics thatencapsulatesno scheme of governmentof any major
thinkerof the Enlightenmentof which I am aware,and whose necessity and
perhaps even transcendenceI suspect might have been explained more
cogentlyby Hegelthanby anyotherphilosopher, if he hadsurvivedto witnessit.23

NOTES

1. Kaufmann(1966, 142), notes only twenty-eightpersonsnamedor cited by intimationin

the entiretext, of whom ten are philosophers,mostly ancient;nine are writersor poets; one is a
theologian;anothera legislator;and seven are fictional characters,of whom four are relatives
of a fifth, Antigone.But while includingDiderothimself, he overlooksRameau'snephew.In the

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
50 POLMCAL THEORY/ February1998

index to his own edition of the Phanomenologie,Hoffmeisterincorrectlyincludes Rousseauin

his own cast of twenty-six charactersmentionedin the text. It must, nevertheless,be acknow-
ledged that throughouthis writings, Hegel was very sparing indeed with citations, direct
references,or even specifiableallusions.
2. See, especially, Hegel's introductoryremarkson "The BarbarianMigrationsand the
GermanPeople,"in ThePhilosophyof History,and ??187, 194, and343 andhis additionto ?153
in the Philosophyof Right.For a morecomprehensivetreatmentof Hegel's readingof Rousseau,
see Wokler (1993) which, in additionto all the texts discussed here, also addresses Hegel
(1892-1896). Otherdetailedaccountsof the subjectcanbe foundin FuldaandHorstmann(1991)
andin PierreMethais,"Contratet volont6generaleselon Hegel et Rousseau,"in d'Hondt(1974).
See also Ripstein(1994). Centrallycontrastingfeaturesof the politicalphilosophiesof Rousseau
and Hegel are addressedby Riley (1982).
3. See Hegel (1983a, 212-13): "Das Schiefe an Rousseaus Theorie ist, dass er nicht den
Willen als solchen als Grundlagedes Staats gefasst hat, sondem den Willen als einzelnen in
seinerPunktualisierung.... Rousseauhatalso einerseitsdem wahrhaftenDenkenuberden Staat
den Impuls gegeben, auf der andem Seite hat er aber die Verwirrunghereingefuihrt, dass das
Einzelne als das ErstebetrachtetWurdeund nicht das Allgemeine."A slightly differentformu-
lation of the same point, transcribedfrom Hegel's lecturesin Heidelbergin 1817-18, figuresin
Hegel (1983b, 156). See also the treatmentsof Rousseau transcribedin the other surviving
versions andformatsof the lecturesthatformthe PhilosophyofRight in Hegel (1955) andHegel
(1973-74).
4. Hegel (1920-60), vol. IX, p. 921). This passage does not appearin The Philosophy of
History in the J. Sibree translationfrom the thirdedition by Karl Hegel, nor among the Carl
Friedrichselections,which partlyfollow GeorgLasson,in his editionof the Philosophyof Hegel
(Hegel 1954).
5. Hegel's politicalwritings,includingTheGermanConstitution,The Wurtemberg Estates,
and The English ReformBill, have been assembledin a varietyof formats-most particularly
by Lassonin Hegel (1913), comprisingvol. VII of his editionof Hegel's SaimtlicheWerke(Hegel
1920-60); Habermasin Hegel (1966); and Irrlitzin Hegel (1970). The same texts are available
in an Englishtranslation,by Knox,in Hegel (1964). The fragment"ReligionundKultur"figures
in vol. XII, devotedto Hegel's "BegriffderReligion"andpublishedin 1925, of Hegel (1920-60).
For broadertreatmentsof Hegel's politicalthoughtin the contextof his philosophyas a whole,
see Pelczynski (1971) and Taylor(1975).
6. See Hegel, Uber die englische Refornbill, first publishedin the Allgemeinepreufiische
Staatzeitung,in Hegel (1966,306-7,310). In Knox'sEnglishtranslation(Hegel 1964), the same
passages figure on pp. 319-20 and 322.
7. The discussionof "AbsoluteFreedomandTerror"comprisesthethirdsection(??582-95)
of the treatmentof "Self-alienatedSpirit.Culture"in the partof Hegel's Phenomenologywhich
is devoted to "Spirit."All my referencesto this text here give paragraphnumbersthatfigure in
pp. 355-63 of Miller'stranslation(Hegel 1977) of the fifthGermaneditioneditedby Hoffmeister
(Hegel 1952). Themostauthoritativeeditionof Hegel'sPhdnomenologieis now thatof Wolfgang
Bonsiepen and ReinhardHeede, formingvol. IX of Hegel (1968-). Among the most notable
commentarieson the Phenomenologywhich embracetreatmentsof his remarkson "Absolute
FreedomandTerror,"see especially Hyppolite(1946, 1948), Kojeve (1969), and Shklar(1976).
8. See Hegel (1976, 262): "Es is eine hohere Abstraktionnothwendig, ein grosserer
Gegensatz und Bildung, ein tiefererGeist. Es ist das Reich der Sittlichkeit."See also Hegel
(1983c) and Henrichand Dusing (1980).
9. The frequentdescription,in the late eighteenthcentury,of the United Statesof America
as a democraticrepublicdoes not correspondwell with the image of democracyas dangerously

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Wokler/ CONTEXTUALIZINGHEGEL 51

despoticwhich was articulatedby severalof its foundingfathers-Madison most conspicuously

among them. The political authorsof the first republicof the New Worlddrew up theirsystem
in such a way as to ensurethatit would be dividedinternallybetweenthe separatestatesandthe
different branches of government, so as to substitute indirect forms of authorityfor any
democraticassemblyof the peopleas a whole. In arguingherethatSieyes andhis followerswere
equally hostile to democracyin France,I have in mind the distinctionbetween a constitution
which was partlydesigned to keep the abuse of popularpower in perpetualcheck as againsta
system of governmentintendedto exercise all the powers of the people itself.
10. By avote of 491 to 90.
11. It must be noted that, in this passage of The English ReformBill, Hegel refers, not to
Sieyes's role in establishing the National Assembly in 1789, but to his authorshipof the
constitutionof the year VIII, which he draftedas provisionalconsul a decade later,following
the bloodless coup d'etat of the eighteenthBrumaireof Napoleon Bonapartethat markedthe
transitionof France'srevolutionarygovernmentfrom the Directoireto the Consulat.As First
Consul, BonapartealteredSieyes's scheme to suit his own advantageand ambition.
12. See W. H. Sewell Jr.,"Lecitoyen/lacitoyenne:Activity,Passivity,andthe Revolutionary
Conceptof Citizenship,"in Lucas (1988, 105-23). In Sieyes's philosophy,active citizens were,
by and large, stakeholdersor taxpayers,whereas women, children, domestic servants, and
foreignerswere deemed to be passive citizens.
13. See Hegel, Phdnomenologiedes Geistes, p. 320, lines 9-13; Phenomenologyof Spirit,
?590, p.360. Hegel's textreadsas follows: "Daseinzige WerkundThatderallgemeinenFreyheit
ist daherderTod,undzwarein Tot,derkeineninnernUmfangundErfiillunghat,dennwas negirt
wird, ist der unerfulltePunktdes absolutfreyenSelbsts; er ist also der kalteste,plattesteTod,
ohne mehr Bedeutung,als das Durchhaueneines Kohlhauptsoderein SchluckWassers."
14. See especiallyGueniffey,"Lesassembleesetlarepresentation,"in Lucas(1988,233-57);
Gueniffey(1993); andJaume(1989). Rosanvallon'sLe Sacredu citoyen(1992), in largemeasure
devoted to the theoryand practiceof citizenshipin the course of the FrenchRevolution,traces
the progressiveestablishmentof universalsuffragein Francesince 1789. See also Kaplan(1995).
15. See, in particular,Bastid(1939), Forsyth(1987), Pasquino(1987), Bredin(1988), Baker
(1988b, 1990), de Baecque (1993), Sewell (1994), and Hont (1994). Sieyes's apparently
inauguraluse of the term la science sociale was first notedby Head (1982).
16. For more general accounts of Hegel's interpretationof the conceptualorigins of the
FrenchRevolution,particularlywithregardto theEnlightenment,see Furet(1986,18-25,78-84);
L. Ferry,"Hegel,"in FuretandOzouf(1988,974-7); Hinchman(1984,141-54); andRitter(1965,
1982).
17. See Burke(1989, 314).
18. On Hegel's interpretationof civil society andits distinctionfromthe state,see especially
Avineri(1972), Chamley(1963), Pelczynski (1984), Riedel (1970), and Waszek(1988).
19. See especially the Contratsocial, III.xivandxv, andthe Gouvernementde Pologne, sec.
VI ("Moyensde maintenirla constitution"),in Rousseau(1959-95), vol. III,pp.427-31, 957-89.
See also Wokler(1983). For Hegel's commentson the Gouvernementde Pologne in the context
of his discussion of minoritiesand aspects of freedomin the Philosophyof History, see Hegel
(1956, 43).
20. By which Rousseau of course meantjust the citizenry,or the whole of the electorate
eligible to serve public office. As opposed to sovereignty,which must be exercised directlyby
the people and from which no one could be excluded,government,he argued,was inescapably
representativeand thereforecould never be democratic.
21. With respect to Sieyes's debt to the Hobbesiantheoryof representation,see especially
Forsyth(1981). For a strikingaccountof diverse ideas of representation,see Manin(1997). In

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
52 POLITICALTHEORY/ February1998

his own notabletreatmentof Sieyes's conceptionof the nation-state,Hont(1994,203) concludes

that"as a politicaldefinitionof the locationof sovereignty,Hobbes's 'state'and Sieyes' 'nation'
are identical. Sieyes' 'nation'is Hobbes's 'Leviathan'.Both are powerful interpretations,in a
sharplyconvergingmanner,of the modem popularcivitas."Withrespectto the contrastbetween
Sieyes's and Rousseau's conceptions of representation,but also the apparentconvergenceof
their ideas of the general will and indivisible sovereignty,see BronislawBaczko, "Le contrat
social des Frangais:Sieyes et Rousseau,"in Baker(1988a, 493-513).
22. This point is centralto Arendt'sdescription(1958, 230-1) of what she has termed"the
secret conflict between state and nation" engendered with the very birth of the modem
nation-state.Her reflections on the subject have occasioned extensive commentary.See, for
instance,Kristeva(1988, 220-9), andHont(1994, 206-9). The phrasingof the thirdarticleof the
Declarationof the Rights of Man, to the effect that sovereigntyresides in the nation, is owed
principallyto Lafayette.
23. The sections hereentitled"Hegel'sArgumentin HistoricalTranscription" and "Correct-
ing Hegel's Misrenderingof the IdeologicalRoots of the FrenchRevolution"are adaptedfrom
a muchlongeressay currentlyin press:Wokler,"TheEnlightenmentandthe FrenchRevolution-
ary Birth Pangs of Modernity,"in Heilbron,Magnusson,and Wittrock(1997). I have utilized
some of the same materialas well to form the fourthsection of Wokler (1997). Both in the
introductionand in the section entitled"Rousseau'sAlleged Authorshipof the FrenchRevolu-
tion," I have also recast some passages from Wokler(1993). A few lines of this text have been
addedor rephrasedon the helpful advice of BrianFay, IstvanHont, and Bruce Mazlish.

REFERENCES

Arendt,H. 1958. The origins of totalitarianism.2d ed. London:Allen & Unwin.

Avineri,S. 1972. Hegel's theoryof the modem state. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.
Baker,K. M., ed. 1988a. Thepolitical cultureof the old regime,formingvol. 1 of Baker,F Furet,
and C. Lucas, eds. The French Revolutionand the creation of modernpolitical culture.
Oxford:Pergamon.
. 1988b. Sieyes. In Dictionnairecritiquede la Revolutionfranfaise, edited by F. Furet
and M. Ozouf, 334-45. Paris:Flammarion.
. 1990. Inventingthe FrenchRevolution.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.
Bastid, P. 1939. Sieyes et sa pense6e.Paris:Hachette.
Bredin,J.-D. 1988. Sieyes: La cle de la Revolutionfrancaise.Paris:Etditonsde Fallois.
Burke, E. 1989. Letterto a memberof the NationalAssembly.In The writingsand speeches of
EdmundBurke,editedby P.Langford,vol. VIII, The FrenchRevolution:1790-1794, edited
by L. G. Mitchell. Oxford:Clarendon.
Chamley, P. 1963. Economie politique et philosophie chez Steuart et Hegel. Paris: Librairie
Dalloz.
de Baecque, A. 1993. Le Corps de l'histoire: Metaphores et politique (1770-1800). Paris:
Calmann-Levy.
d'Hondt,J., ed. 1974. Hegel et le siecle des Lumieres.Paris:Presses Universitairesde France.
Forsyth, M. 1981. Thomas Hobbes and the constituentpower of the people. Political Studies
29:191-203.
. 1987. Reason and revolution:The political thoughtof the Abbe Sieyes. Leicester:
LeicesterUniversityPress.

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Wokler/ CONTEXTUALIZINGHEGEL 53

Fulda, H. F., and R. -P. Horstmann,eds. 1991. Rousseau,die Revolutionund derjunge Hegel.
Stuttgart:Klett-Cotta.
Furet,F. 1986. Marx et la Re'volutionfranCaise. Paris:Flammarion.
Furet, F., and M. Ozouf, eds. 1988. Dictionnairecritique de la Re'volutionfranCaise. Paris:
Flammarion.
Gueniffey, P. 1993. Le Nombre et la raison. Paris: Editions de l'ecole des hautes etudes en
sciences sociales.
Head, B. 1982. The originsof "LaScience sociale"in France,1770-1800.AustralasianJournal
of French Studies 19:115-32.
Hegel, G. W. F. 1892-1896. Lectureson the historyof philosophy.Translatedby E. S. Haldane
and F. H. Simson. London:Routledge& Kegan Paul.
. 1913. SchriftenzurPolitik undRechtsphilosophie.Editedby G. Lasson. Leipzig:Felix
Meiner.
. 1920-60. Sdmtliche Werke.Edited by G. Lasson and J. Hoffmeister.Leipzig and
Hamburg:Felix Meiner.
1952. Phanomenologiedes Geistes.Editedby J. Hoffmeister.Hamburg:Felix Meiner.
1954. Thephilosophyof Hegel. Editedby C. Friedrich.New York:Modem Library.
1955. Grundliniender Philosophie des Rechts. Edited by J. Hoffmeister.Hamburg:
Felix Meiner.
1956. Thephilosophyof history.Translatedby J. Sibree.New York:Dover.
1964. Political writings.Translatedby T. M. Knox, with an introductoryessay by Z. A.
Pelczynski. Oxford:Clarendon.
1966. Politische Schriften.Afterwordby J. Habermas.Frankfurtam Main:Suhrkamp.
1968-. GesammelteWerke.Editedby H. Buchner,0. Poggeler et al. Hamburg:Felix
Meiner.
1970. Politische Schriften.Editedby G. Irrlitz.AkademieVerlag.
1973-74. Vorlesungenuber Rechtsphilosophie1818-1831. Edited by K. H. Ilting.
Stuttgart:Frommann-Holzboog.
. 1976. Jenaer SystementwarfeIII. Editedby J. H. Tredeand R.-P.Horstmann,in Hegel
1968-. Hamburg:Felix Meiner.
. 1977. Phenomenologyof spirit.Translatedby A. V. Miller,with analysisand foreword
by J. N. Findlay.Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress.
. 1983a.Philosophiedes Rechts.Die Vorlesungvon 1819/20 in einerNachschrift.Edited
by D. Henrich.Frankfurtam Main:Suhrkamp.
. 1983b. Die Philosophie des Rechts: Die Mitschriften Wannenmann(Heidelberg
1817/18) undHomeyer(Berlin 1818/19). Editedby K. H. Ilting. Stuttgart:Klett-Cotta.
.1983c. Hegel and the humanspirit:A translationof theJenaLectureson thePhilosophy
of Spirit.Commentaryby L. Rauch.Detroit:WayneState UniversityPress.
. 1991. Elements of the philosophy of right. Translatedby H. B. Nisbet and edited by
A. W. Wood.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.
Heilbron, J., L. Magnusson, and B. Wittrock,eds. 1997. The rise of social science and the
fonnation of modernity:Conceptualchangein context,1750-1850, Sociologyof thesciences,
A yearbook,vol. 20. Dordrecht:Kluwer.
Henrich, D., and K. Dusing. 1980. Hegel in Jena: die Entwicklungdes System und die
Zusamenarbeitmit Schelling. In Hegel-Studien,Beiheft 20. Bonn: Bouvier.
Hinchman,L. P. 1984. Hegel's critiqueof the Enlightenment.Gainesville:Universityof Florida
Press.

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
54 POLITICALTHEORY/ February1998

Hont, I. 1994. The permanentcrisis of a divided mankind:"Contemporarycrisis of the nation

state"in historicalperspective.Political Studies42:166-231 [special issue, Contemporary
Crisis of the Nation State?ed. JohnDunn].
Hyppolite, J. 1946. Genese et structurede la "Phenomenologiede l'esprit" de Hegel. Paris:
Aubier.
. 1948. Introductiona la philosophiede l'histoirede Hegel. Paris:Riviere.
Jaume,L. 1989. Le Discoursjacobin et la democratie.Paris:Fayard.
Kaplan,S. L. 1995. Farewell revolution:The historians'feud,France, 1789/1989. Ithaca,NY:
CornellUniversityPress.
Kaufmann,W. 1966. Hegel: Reinterpretation,textsand commentary.London:Weidenfieldand
Nicolson.
Kojeve, A. 1969. Introductionto the reading of Hegel: Lectureson the "Phenomenologyof
Spirit,"edited by R. Queneauand A. Bloom. New York:Basic Books.
Kristeva,J. 1988. Etrangersa nous-mnemes. Paris:Fayard.
Lucas, C., ed. 1988. Thepolitical cultureof the FrenchRevolution,formingvol. 2 of Bakeret
al., The FrenchRevolutionand the creationof modernpolitical culture.Oxford:Pergamon.
Manin,B. 1997. Theprinciplesof representativegovernment.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
Press.
Pasquino,P. 1987. EmmanuelSieyes, BenjaminConstantet le "Gouvemementdes Modemes."
Revuefran,caisede science politique37:214-28.
Pelczynski,Z. A., ed. 1971.Hegel ' politicalphilosophy,problemsandperspectives:A collection
of new essays. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.
. ed. 1984. Thestateand civil society:Studiesin Hegel spoliticalphilosophy.Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress.
Riedel, M. 1970. BurgerlicheGesellschaftund Staatbei Hegel. Neuweid: Luchterhand.
Riley, P. 1982. Willand political legitimacy:A critical exposition of social contract theoryin
Hobbes, Locke,Rousseau,Kantand Hegel. Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress.
Ripstein,A. 1994. Universalandgeneralwills: Hegel andRousseau.Political Theory22: 444-67.
Ritter,J. 1965. Hegel unddiefranzbsicheRevolution.Frankfurtam Main:Surhkamp.
. 1982. Hegel and the French Revolution: Essays on the "Philosophy of Right".
Translatedby R. D. Winfield.Cambridge,MA: MITPress.
Rosanvallon,P. 1992. Le Sacre du citoyen.Paris:Gallimard.
Rousseau,J. J. 1959-95. Oeuvrescompletes.Editedby B. Gagnebin,M. Raymondet al. Paris:
Gallinard.
Sewell. W. H. Jr. 1994. A rhetoricof bourgeois revolution:The Abbe'Sieyes and "WhatIs the
ThirdEstate?" Durham,NC: Duke UniversityPress.
Shklar,J. 1976. Freedomand independence:A studyof thepolitical ideas of Hegel's "Phenome-
nology of Mind."Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.
Taylor,C. 1975. Hegel. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.
Waszek,N. 1988. TheScottishEnlightenmentand Hegels accountof "CivilSociety".Dordrecht:
Kluwer.
Wokler,R. 1983. Rousseauand Marx.In Thenatureof political theory,editedby D. Miller and
L. Siedentop,219-46. Oxford:Clarendon.
. 1987. Rousseau'stwo conceptsof liberty.In Lives, libertiesand thepublic good: New
essays in political theoryfor MauriceCranston,61-100. London:Macmillan.
. 1993. Hegel's Rousseau:The generalwill and civil society. In Deutscher Idealismus
(paperspresentedat a Symposiumon GermanIdealismin November1991),Arachne8:7-45.
. 1997. The Frenchrevolutionaryroots of political modernityin Hegel's philosophy,or
the enlightenmentat dusk. In Bulletinof the Hegel Society of GreatBritain35: 71-89.

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Wokler/ CONTEXTUALIZINGHEGEL 55

GENERALREFERENCES

d'Hondt,J. 1986. Hegel secret: Recherchessur les sources cache6esde la pensee de Hegel. 2d
ed. Paris:Presses Universitairesde France.
Harris,H. S. 1972. Hegel's development:Towardsthe sunlight(1770-1801). Oxford:Clarendon.
. 1983. Hegel's development:Night thoughts,(Jena 1801-1806). Oxford:Clarendon.
Kelly, G. A. 1969. Idealism, politics and history: Sources of Hegelian thought.Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress.
. 1978. Hegel's retreatfromEleusis: Studiesinpolitical thought.Princeton,NJ:Princeton
UniversityPress.
Wood, A. W. 1990. Hegel's ethical thought.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.

RobertWokler,Readerin theHistoryof Political Thoughtat the UlniversityofManchester

and currentlya Fellow of the CollegiumBudapest, is joint editor of theforthcoming
CambridgeHistory of Eighteenth-CenturyPolitical Thought His recent publications
include editorship of Rousseau and Liberty and joint editorshipof InventingHuman
Science (both1995) and the OxfordUniversityPress Rousseauin its 'PastMaster'series,
revised in 1996.

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.67 on Fri, 9 May 2014 14:00:14 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions