ABSTRACT
The citizens of the Hegelian state must come to identify with the institutions of the Hegelian state as a reflection of their own rationality. The political implications of Hegel's concept of universality are more immediately obvious in the original German than in English translations. Hegel's most general way of referring to the emergence of the principles of rationality, universality, and subjective freedom as characteristic of the modern world is in reference to the progressive development of the realm of spirit through history as it wins its freedom from its natural origins. The principle of subjective freedom antedates the French Revolution. It makes its first, prefigurative appearance in Christianity but only really enters the social and political world with the advent of the German Reformation. For Hegel, Christianity establishes the principle that human beings are free in their inner essence, simply as human beings. The modern period is characterized by the ascendancy of the principles of universality and rationality.
