MAN AND SOCIETY • VOLUME TWO

are inseparable, two of them, abstract right and morality, being aspects
of the third, ethical life. Abstract right and morality can be in conflict,
and must be so if men are to rise to the idea of freedom as moral
autonomy, and the conflict must be resolved if this freedom is to be
achieved, for it can be achieved only in a community where what men
require of one another (the claims they make) accord with their
deepest conviction about what is right.
The three moments of the second triad (the family, civil society,
and the State) are not related to one another in the same way as are
the three moments of the first. Where there is right of any kind, there
is also some kind of morality, and the two are mere aspects of social
life. But it is not true that, where there is any community of the family
type, there is always some form of civil society, and that neither family
nor civil society is ever found outside the State. The type of family
which is found together with civil society is by no means the only type,
and if it is negated by civil society it is so in a different way from the
way in which morality, in the form of conscience, negates abstract
right. Civil society does not challenge the family, there is no conflict
or tension between them which needs to be resolved in the State; or,
if there
is,

Hegel does not explain what is. He says merely that

it

civil society arises from the break-up of the family, and this, presum
'

'

ably, the sense in which negates the family. And this sense, as we
it
is

shall see in moment, really makes no sense.

a

do not deny that what Hegel understands by civil society has

I

arisen from the hreak-up of certain type of family; but do deny

a

that was necessary that should arise, and also that the type of
I
it

it

family out of which in fact arose the type that Hegel has in mind
it

is

in the Philosophy Right. The type of family, whose dissolution in

of

fact brings civil society into existence has often endured for centuries
without showing any sign of dissolving into civil society. No doubt,
there are causes for that dissolution wherever occurs, but there
is
it

nothing about that type of family requiring that should dissolve

it

into civil society. The dissolution, when only contingent

is
it

happens,
in the Hegelian sense of that word; has its sufficient causes but those
it

causes are not inherent in the structure which dissolves. The family
whose dissolution gives rise to civil society the extended family or
is

clan, the kinship group; and can endure, as have said, for centuries
it

without dissolving into civil society. There nothing about which

it
is

requires that should dissolve and to civil When

it

give way society.

does disintegrate, not because so constructed that there
is
it
is
it

it

it,

naturally emerges from form of life which supersedes as

it
a

the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis; disintegrates as result

it

of foreign invasion or penetration or from some other cause which

is

no part of the form of life which is.

it

it,

Civil society, as Hegel conceives of may be roughly defined as

a