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 HEGEL AND
EMPIRE
From Postcolonialism
to Globalism

M.A.R. Habib
Hegel and Empire
 M.A.R. Habib

Hegel and Empire

From Postcolonialism to Globalism
M.A.R. Habib
Rutgers University, U.S.A.
Visiting Professor, Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait

ISBN 978-3-319-68411-6    ISBN 978-3-319-68412-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68412-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017954967

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
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mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
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Printed on acid-free paper

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The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is gratefully dedicated
to
my friend and colleague
Keith Hall
 Preface

Hegel’s views on cultures beyond Europe raise some very disturbing ques-
tions. Are his ethnocentric pronouncements concerning the superiority
of Europe grounded in the basic principles of his thought? Or do they
internally shape those principles? In either case, is Hegel representative of
broader traditions of European thought? Did the formulation of a
European identity presuppose a certain model of history? A certain kind
of history of philosophy? These questions continue to generate strife to
this day.
It’s well-known that Hegel occupies a fraught position within postco-
lonial studies. The conventional postcolonial portrait of Hegel is that of
an arrogant, even racist, thinker who was profoundly Eurocentric in his
vision of philosophy, history, and the very nature of humanity. Yet even
this anti-Hegelian discourse, which seeks to “escape” or supersede Hegel,
is itself enabled by Hegelian categories of self and Other, identity and
difference, as well as the Hegelian concept of recognition.
More recent studies of Hegel, especially by philosophers, have
attempted to come to Hegel’s defense. In general, it is clear that scholars
on both sides of this Hegel “war” have produced sophisticated and com-
pelling arguments. However, many of these debates have taken place at a
rather specialized level, which can easily lose the reader who is not deeply
familiar with Hegel’s work. For example, Hegel’s master-slave dialectic is
one of the most complex portions of his account of consciousness; and
vii
viii Preface

parts of it are often cited in support of various theoretical positions as to

how to frame the relations between colonizer and colonized. But without
a clear account of how Hegel himself frames this dialectic, its import will
be lost on many readers.
In addressing the vexed questions cited above, the proposed book aims
to present a nuanced appraisal of Hegel’s work which takes account of
various readings. It seeks to provide a clear account of Hegel’s treatment
of Africa, India, and Islam, and of the implications of this treatment for
postcolonial and global studies. While it does not pretend to make an
original contribution to Hegelian scholarship, it does differ from previ-
ous works in a number of ways: (1) it offers a fairly comprehensive
account of Hegel’s commentaries on non-Western cultures, providing
clear expositions of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic and his views on Africa,
India, and Islam; (2) it situates these views not only within Hegel’s his-
torical scheme but also within a broader European philosophical context
and the debates they have provoked within Hegel scholarship; (3) in each
chapter it analyzes in depth certain readings of Hegel by postcolonial crit-
ics, in order to explore both the Eurocentric and potentially global nature
of his dialectic; and (4) it engages in close readings of Hegel and his post-
colonial critics in arriving at a balanced assessment of this profoundly
influential thinker, showing both where he archetypally embodies certain
Eurocentric traits that have characterized modernity and how, ironically,
he himself gives us the tools for working toward a more global vision.

Outline of Chapters
The introduction (Chap. 1) gives an overview of Hegel’s dialectic as it
operates in his overall scheme of global history. It argues that this dialec-
tic expresses the movement of capitalist society, whose economics are
intrinsically expansive, ever needing to move outward. Chapter 2
expounds Hegel’s “master-slave dialectic,” explaining why this provides a
necessary framework for approaching Hegel’s views on empire. The next
chapter is devoted to readings of the master-slave dialectic in literary/
postcolonial theory. Chapter 4 examines Hegel’s fiercely-debated views
on Africa, while Chap. 5 analyzes the response to these by postcolonial
 Preface
   ix

theorists, focusing on Frantz Fanon. With the aid of historians such as

Walter Johnson and Sven Beckert, Chap. 6 argues that slavery was inex-
tricably linked to the development of capitalism and the global economy.
Chapter 7 discusses Hegel’s account, in his aesthetics, of India and of the
Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata. Chapter 8 looks at an “Indian” reading
of Hegel by the noted postcolonial critic Gayatri Spivak. Chapter 9 offers
a comprehensive treatment of Hegel’s views of Islam, as expressed in his
assessments of Islamic philosophy, history, and literature. Chapter 10
considers the limitations and potential of Hegel’s characterizations of
Islam. The conclusion to the book addresses the question of what we can
profitably learn from Hegel in a global era, and the potential of his dia-
lectic and historical scheme to help us understand and articulate some of
the salient dilemmas of our own day.
In writing the current book, I have consulted with some of the fore-
most scholars of Hegel and Marx, including Frederick Beiser, Jere Surber,
Terrell Carver, Allen Wood, John O’Neill, and Michael Baur. I have also
sought help from the German historian Andrew Lees and the German
language specialist Lori Lantz, as well as the sociologists Keith Hall and
Thomas Kemple, the African historian Teshale Tibebu, and the Indian
scholar Aakash Singh Rathore. I received much insightful assistance from
a number of eminent literary theorists, including Terry Eagleton, Fredric
Jameson, and from Stuart Barnett. Zhao Ng and Alicia Broggi of Oxford
University also gave me valuable feedback.
 Contents

1 Introduction: Hegel and History   1

2 The Master-Slave Dialectic  19

3 The Master-Slave Dialectic in Literary Theory: Historical

Readings  31

4 Hegel and Africa  49

5 Frantz Fanon: An African Reading of Hegel  65

6 Slavery, Capitalism, and the Dialectic of Empire  75

7 Hegel and India: The Aesthetics of Eurocentrism  85

8 Gayatri Spivak: An “Indian” Reading of Hegel  97

9 Hegel and Islam: Orientalism 115

xi
xii Contents

10 Reading Hegel’s Islam 131

11 Epilogue: The Dialectic of Empire 139

Index 159
 1
Introduction: Hegel and History

Abstract This chapter gives an overview of Hegel’s dialectic as it operates

in his overall scheme of global history. It argues that this dialectic expresses
the movement of capitalist society, whose economics are intrinsically
expansive, ever needing to move outward. Most theorists acknowledge
that this movement is an underlying component of globalization. It is
precisely this movement that is embodied in the appropriative structure
of Hegel’s dialectic. The chapter concludes by outlining Hegel’s scheme
of global history, which moves from the Oriental world through the
Greek and Roman worlds and the Middle Ages to the modern (Germanic)
world.

Keywords Hegel and history • Structure of Hegel’s dialectic • Capitalism

and imperialism

Hegel is often seen as the philosopher of freedom—at least by his pro-

gressive admirers. But in his posthumously published Lectures on the
Philosophy of History he attributes the slaughter and demise of the Native
Americans to their own intrinsic deficiencies. He denies that Africans and
the “Negro” are capable of spiritual development. He views the Western

© The Author(s) 2017 1

M. Habib, Hegel and Empire, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68412-3_1
2 M.A.R. Habib

subjection of Africans to slavery as actually improving their condition.

And he excludes large portions of the world—including India and
China—from the process of world history.1 Nonetheless, it was Hegel
who systematically—albeit incompletely—introduced the idea of global-
ism into history, the history of philosophy, and into the very notion of
reason, within a vision of the overall progress of humanity.
Hegel has been widely acknowledged as “the inaugural thinker of the
contemporary world.”2 His early thinking was inspired by the French
Revolution of 1789, which he saw as the dawn of the modern world. For
Hegel, the revolution embodied the struggle of the European bourgeoisie
to overturn the system of feudalism based upon irrational hierarchy and
privilege, and to institute a social order based on reason. This revolution-
ary bourgeois thinking was most consummately expressed in Hegel’s phi-
losophy, which brings into confluence two broad movements. One of
these was the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on rationality, empiri-
cism, and progress. The other was Romanticism, with its propensity for
the idea of unification or totality and its insistence that subject and object,
the human self and the world, are created in their mutual interaction.
Hence, Hegel synthesizes two broad movements, the Enlightenment and
Romanticism, which are usually seen to be opposed. Indeed, much
Romanticism was formulated as an explicit reaction against the bourgeois
ideals of the Enlightenment as well as against the dehumanization and
alienation inhering in emerging industrial capitalism. While Hegel sup-
ported some of these bourgeois ideals—reason, freedom, progress—he
was acutely aware that unbridled capitalism could result in many social
ills, especially the danger of business interests overrunning the political
state and the universal interest of the people. So his philosophical system
attempted to integrate the insights of the bourgeois economists Adam
Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, and David Ricardo into a broader, ethical, and
harmonious vision of the world.
As such, Hegel is the archetypal philosopher of capitalism. His dialec-
tic expresses the nature of capitalism on many levels: its economic imper-
atives, its drive toward economic and religious freedom, its social ills such
as poverty and estrangement, and the contradictions it fosters between
individual and state interests as well as within the individual. Hegel also
recognized, before Marx, that capitalism was intrinsically imperialistic,
 Introduction: Hegel and History 3

that its markets ever needed to expand outward. Indeed, in certain pro-
found ways, the foundations of the various narratives of modern imperi-
alism were laid most systematically by Hegel’s philosophy, which
embodies many of the phenomena we see across the world today.3 These
include the wholesale rejection of certain other cultures, the view of
Europe and America as forging the main path of history, the suppression
of women, and the proliferation of parochial thinking as embodied in
anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and the excoriation of minority groups.4
How, then, can we view him as a proponent of freedom?

The Global Impetus of Hegel’s Dialectic

Hegel’s pronouncements on cultures outside Europe have profound
implications for understanding the phenomenon of globalization and the
still emerging field of global studies, as well as for the well-established
discipline of postcolonial studies.5 Many theorists have offered negative
characterizations of globalization, regarding it as a form of economic and
informational (rather than military) expansionism. The most renowned
of these theses in recent times has been Benjamin R. Barber’s Jihad vs.
McWorld (1996), which sees “McWorld” as embodying a global expan-
sion and integration of economic markets fueled by “communications,
information, entertainment, and commerce.”6 In other words, McWorld
represents the forces of Western capitalism which, in their pursuit of a
global market, override regional and local cultural difference in the name
of the economic imperatives of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and
control.
Of course, not all theorists of globalization would define the phenom-
enon so negatively, and some speak of the benefits of globalization in
terms of increased mutual understanding and communication between
cultures. Timothy Brennan usefully characterizes five broad types of glo-
balization theory: (1) Globalization is viewed as primarily a political
promise, for either a single world government or “some flexible federalist
structure allowing significant local autonomy.” (2) Globalization is seen
as occurring through the development of trade and finance, where “the
pure freedom of exchange revolutionizes human contact … It is not
4 M.A.R. Habib

political actors but transnational corporations that are responsible for

globalization.” (3) Globalization is seen as combining the emphasis on
politics and trade with geopolitical motives. In this version, globalization
is the result of developments in technology driven by an ideology that is
basically American. Some, such as Thomas Friedman, applaud this devel-
opment, while Paul Krugman is among those who aim to expose “the
emptiness of neoliberal ideology.” (4) Globalization is seen as a function
of the colonizing West, and is the form that contemporary imperialism
takes. Most of the features of globalization are American, and they are
“coercively imposed on others as a universal norm … we are seeing … the
violent incorporation of global difference into a single national project.”
This new colonialism is not conducted under the aegis of “civilization” or
“God” but in the name of globalization or the “new.” (5) The fifth, and
most distinctive, position is that globalization is a myth: despite enhanced
technology and communication, the “nation-state structure is still the
international norm; ethnic, linguistic, and religious divisions have only
intensified; most of the world’s people are entirely localized, provincial,
traditional, and cut-off from others … Globalization is therefore not a
description, but a projection.”7
However, as Brennan effectively acknowledges, the first four of these
are founded upon the recognition that capitalism and neoliberalism lie at
the core of the globalizing process (“DG,” 129–130). Hence, no one
would dispute that one underlying component in any endeavor to under-
stand and define globalization is the global expansion and integration of
economic markets. And the point to which we need to draw attention
here is that this globalizing movement was not only articulated by Hegel
but is embodied in the very structure of his dialectic.8 In fact, Brennan
states that a “totalizing” theory of society would not separate economic,
political, social, and aesthetic dimensions; and, as we can add here, it is
precisely this totalizing movement that is expressed in Hegel’s dialectic.
It’s well-known that the Hegelian dialectic moves through three
stages—which are not usually characterized by Hegel as a movement
from thesis through antithesis to synthesis. Rather, the first stage is that
of immediate or unmediated identity, when we take the existence of any
phenomenon at face value, as isolated and independent. In the second
stage, we see this identity as dispersed through its relations with the
 Introduction: Hegel and History 5

Other—which could be its specific other or opposite, but also the rela-
tions which constitute it. Finally, we will arrive at a more comprehensive
conception of our original identity—which is now a mediated identity
integrating those relations.
Hegel’s most renowned exposition of the dialectic occurs in the
Phenomenology, where he characterizes it as a movement from “substance”
to “subject,” a movement that allows us to grasp truth:

everything turns on grasping and expressing the True, not only as Substance,
but equally as Subject … This (living) substance is, as Subject, pure, simple
negativity, and is for this very reason the bifurcation of the simple; it is the
doubling which sets up opposition, and then again the negation of this
indifferent diversity and of its antithesis (the immediate simplicity). Only
this self-restoring sameness, or this reflection in otherness within itself—not
an original or immediate unity as such, is the True. It is the process of its
own becoming, the circle that presupposes its end as its goal, having its end
also as its beginning; and only by being worked out to its end, is it actual.9

So, initially, we confront the world as something Other and independent

of us, as a series of isolated and discrete objects. We then view these
objects as existing only in their relations with one another. Finally, we see
that what constitutes the reality of these objects is not anything to do
with their outward physical form or qualities but rather their embodi-
ment of our own rational thinking, as a construction of our own (collec-
tive and historical) subjectivity.
By way of example, we might begin with the concept of “woman” as
this has been conventionally understood for centuries. As merely imme-
diate, as it is merely given to us by centuries of convention, we might
view this concept as correlative with passivity, with emotion (rather than
reason), with bodily drives, and with the private or domestic sphere. In
the second dialectical stage, we will open up this concept toward the vari-
ous relations or “others” that have conventionally constituted it—with
husband, father, mother, children. We will view “woman” as wife, daugh-
ter, mother. But we can also open up this concept toward other possible
relations—with education, ambition, professionalism, independence. In
the third stage, we can then arrive at a more comprehensive definition of
6 M.A.R. Habib

“woman”—as correlative with emotion and intellect, as able to embrace

both private and public spheres, as not only a family member but a politi-
cal and economic agent. During this process, our own subjectivity will be
extended and enhanced: what we previously saw as “substance”—the
concept of “woman” as merely given—we now grasp as “subject,” as a
reflex of our own integrative subjective operations. Sadly, however, Hegel
does not apply his own dialectical thinking to his conception of women,
just as he fails to apply it to his conceptions of many of the cultures
beyond Europe.
Hence the dialectic can be characterized as intrinsically expansive and
imperialistic, since it negates whatever is immediately given in the world,
and ultimately integrates all forms of otherness into our equally expansive
subjectivity, which in this way progressively “conquers” the world beyond
it, absorbing it into its own self. Indeed, Hegel sees this dialectical move-
ment as characterizing history itself, where the principle of earlier civiliza-
tions gives way to the principle of more advanced cultures. The autocracies
of ancient India and China (where only one person, the Emperor, is free)
eventually pass into the partial democracies of Greece (where “some are
free”), which in turn yield to the modern world (where “all are free”).
Hegel sees the dialectic, then, not only as a movement from substance to
subject but also as a movement through history to freedom—defined
ultimately as a correlation between the rationality of the human mind
and the rationality of the institutions it has created.10 As such, Hegel’s
dialectic has profound implications for some of the fundamental notions
of global and postcolonial studies.
For Hegel, the culmination of the historical movement of Absolute
Subject or Spirit is effectively the world precipitated by the Protestant
Reformation and the French Revolution—the world of modern capital-
ism. Hegel sees the modern nation as harboring its own dialectic, from
family through civil society to the state. It is civil society or bourgeois
society that embodied for Hegel the essential traits of capitalism, such as
the focus on property rights, a free market, the pursuit of self-interest,
and competitive individualism. Indeed, property, as with Locke, becomes
for Hegel part of the very definition of personhood.11 For all these rea-
sons, Hegel has usually been seen as the philosopher par excellence of
 Introduction: Hegel and History 7

capitalism.12 As recognized by both Marxist and non-Marxist commenta-

tors, it is Hegel’s dialectic which expresses the essential movement of
capitalism, its motivation by the forces of freedom and individualism, its
intrinsic drive to expand its markets through imperialism, as well as the
forms of alienation it fosters within individuals—such as dividedness in
loyalty between family and state, between individual and state, and
between the economic interests of civil society and the ideally universal
interests of the state.
Hence, the structure of Hegel’s dialectic is intrinsically appropriative.
It always negates what is immediately given and eventually makes it its
“own.” On an epistemological level, it moves from sense through under-
standing to reason, with each stage being negated and subordinated to a
higher stage. Part of this very movement is the dialectic’s overcoming of
otherness and appropriating it—in all its forms. It is this dialectic that
allows Hegel to tell the story of world history as a dimension of the
appropriation of the Other in an unequal relationship of property. It is a
dialectic that expresses the movement of capitalist markets, which are
intrinsically expansive, ever needing to grow.13 Emphatically, this dialec-
tic condemns Africa as the land of backwardness, of otherness, which
needs to be colonized. Such imperialism, says Hegel, is part of “the abso-
lute right of the Idea to step into existence in clear-cut laws and objective
institutions” (PR, §350). So imperialism is not accidental or peripheral in
Hegel’s system; it is sanctioned by the authority of the Absolute Idea
itself, by its absolute imperative to conquer all otherness in realizing itself.
For Hegel, the overcoming of otherness glides seamlessly from epistemol-
ogy to economics, from self-realization to imperial domination, from
freedom to Empire.14
In Hegel’s historical scheme, then, there is a correlation between mod-
ern capitalism, Protestant Christianity, the principle of self-conscious rea-
son, the imperial destiny of Europe, and the realization of freedom in
history. All of these are embraced in a single dialectic which operates on
epistemic, historical, and political levels. The dialectic that expresses the
freedom of the modern world is the same dialectic that privileges Europe,
placing it at the center of the world stage, viewing it as the evolving
subject of modern history, in relation to which the rest of the world is
8 M.A.R. Habib

explicitly Other. It is the dialectic not only of property rights, of capitalist

economics, of the bourgeois family, and of male self-realization; it is also
the dialectic of Empire.

Hegel’s Scheme of Global History

We can briefly sketch here Hegel’s historical scheme so as to situate his
views on non-European cultures within his overall description of the jour-
ney of humanity toward freedom. Freedom, for Hegel, is a result, a prod-
uct, of a long historical process. We can get a broad sense of this historical
picture from certain statements in Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of
History, which see history itself as grounded in the ­geographical dimen-
sion of the dialectic.15 Hegel distinguishes geographical characteristics
into three broad kinds: upland regions, broad river valleys, and coastal
lands. Africa is the continent where the “upland principle” predominates.
This is the “substantial, unvarying, metallic, elevated region, intractably
shut up within itself ”—the first stage of the dialectic as “substance.”
The second geographical characteristic, the river valley plains, belongs
to Asia, which embodies “the contrast of river regions with the Upland.”
This is the second dialectical stage, where “the great antitheses come into
conflict,” with the rise of “centres of civilization” in a “yet undeveloped
independence [of humanity], a culture which is tied to the soil and
“broods for ever within itself.” These two principles are brought together
into a “totality” in the coastal lands which characterize Europe. The sea—
specifically the Mediterranean Sea around which the European nations
are congregated—invites man to the infinite, to conquest, and to tran-
scend limits. Europe embodies the third dialectical phase, in which spirit
moves “beyond these limited circles of thought and action,” and returns
to itself having “conquered” otherness (the sea).16
So much for the geographical basis of history. Here is Hegel’s general
characterization of the dialectic of history regarding Africa, Asia, and
Europe:

The spiritual character of the three continents varies in accordance with

these natural differences. In Africa proper, man has not progressed beyond
 Introduction: Hegel and History 9

a merely sensuous existence, and has found it absolutely impossible to

develop any further. Physically, he exhibits great muscular strength, which
enables him to perform arduous labours; and his temperament is character-
ized by good-naturedness, which is coupled, however, with completely
unfeeling cruelty. Asia is the land of antithesis, division, and expansion,
just as Africa is the land of concentration. One pole of the antithesis is that
of ethical life, the universal rational essence which remains solid and sub-
stantial; the other is the exact spiritual opposite, that of egotism, infinite
desires, and boundless expansion of freedom. Europe is the land of spiritual
unity, of retreat from this boundless freedom into the particular, of control
of the immoderate and elevation of the particular to the universal, and of
the descent of the spirit into itself. (LPH, 172–173)

Africa—like woman in Hegel’s vision of the family—is correlated with

the sphere of sense, of irreducible particularity, as well as with abstract
identity or identity in isolation from everything else (“concentration”).
Asia is the realm of “antithesis” because it is here that there first arises an
opposition between ethical life based on reason and universality and the
impulse toward “boundless freedom” and desire. How does this antithesis
arise? According to Hegel, the two kinds of terrain in Asia—uplands and
river plains—engender two modes of life, namely stock-rearing and a
mixture of agriculture and trade. The latter, entailing a settled way of life
and provision for the future, awakens “reflection on a universal object,”
which in turn involves “the principle of property and of private industry”
(LPH, 192–193). This, then, is the antithesis: between restless nomadic
wandering and a more stable existence. These principles are united in a
certain part of Asia, namely, the Near East, where a third principle pre-
dominates, that of “foreign commerce and navigation” (LPH, 193–194).
Hence Asia furnishes a transition to Europe: it gives birth to political and
religious principles which are “brought to fruition in Europe” (LPH,
194). Part of the reason for this was that in Asia generally life remained
insular and the sea played no part in its culture and civilization. Only the
Near East saw an engagement with the sea that anticipated the European
orientation to what lies beyond.
Indeed, Southern Europe, Hegel says, has no defined nucleus and is
“orientated outwards,” looking toward the Mediterranean. What is
peculiar to Europe is that its terrain does not exhibit the sharp contrasts
10 M.A.R. Habib

and antitheses offered by Asia; rather, its various geographical features

are “more closely intermingled” and merge into one another. And since
no particular type of environment predominates in Europe, man here “is
more universal in character” and “freer” since he is not tied to particular
ways of life (LPH, 194–195). In fact—in true dialectical fashion—the
“distinct ways of life which appear in Asia in a state of mutual conflict
appear in Europe rather as separate social classes within the concrete
state” (LPH, 196). So, whereas Africa embodies an abstract and static
identity and Asia an unreconciled antithesis between different ways of
life, Europe embodies the principle of unity in diversity, whereby differ-
ences are internalized in its very identity.

Stages of History
(a) The Oriental World

“World history,” proclaims Hegel, “travels from east to west; for

Europe is the absolute end of history, just as Asia is the beginning”
(LPH, 197). Though the sun, the light of history, arises in the east, it is
in the west, says Hegel, that “the inner sun of self-consciousness, which
emits a higher radiance, makes its first ascent.” And world history
imposes a discipline on the “unrestrained natural will,” guiding it
toward “universality and subjective freedom” (LPH, 197). In order to
grasp Hegel’s general scheme of history, we need to understand the ini-
tial distinction he makes between substantial freedom and subjective
freedom. The state embodies what Hegel calls the universal ethical
“substance,” or the basic ethical codes that apply to everyone. Substantial
freedom exists when this ethical code is enacted through command-
ments and laws as well as through “unreflecting habit and custom.”
Here, individual insight and volition are absent. Subjective freedom is
not yet present since it can arise only through the “reflection of the
individual in his own conscience” (LPH, 197).
This unreflecting subservience to the law and custom is what charac-
terizes the first stage of history, which begins in the Orient. This world is
based on “immediate consciousness,” on substantial spirituality. The state
 Introduction: Hegel and History 11

is indeed present at this stage but the subject is not yet fully developed.
Here, ethical life has an “immediate and lawless” character, for this is the
childhood of history. There is a dawning awareness of the principle of
individuality but this awareness is “weak, unconscious, and rooted in
nature; it is a light, but not yet the light of self-conscious personality”
(LPH, 198–199). The Oriental spirit, says Hegel, subsists in the sphere of
intuition, and its relationship to its object—which is the state—is still
“immediate” and not universal. In other words, it cannot conceive of the
state as a rational concept but merely as an external power in the shape of
a single individual, an absolute ruler, who embodies the “totality” of the
state.
This, then, is the “principle” of the Oriental world. The ruler is the
“master” who gives expression to the “substance” of the state and stands
in the relation of a “lawgiver towards the world of particular things.” His
task is to “implement the claims of morality” and to “uphold those essen-
tial commandments which are already established.” In this state, the indi-
vidual “has no moral selfhood” (LPH, 200–201). Since this state does not
have a rational basis, it embodies a destructive antithesis, between perma-
nence and stability on the one hand, and self-destructive arbitrariness or
unrestrained freedom on the other (LPH, 201–202).

(b) The Greek World

The second phase of history occurs in the world of Greece, which

Hegel likens to the “period of adolescence.” The principle of individual-
ity, of subjective freedom, has its origin here but it is still an “immediate
ethical existence” since its union with the state, though harmonious, is
“natural and unreflecting” (LPH, 202). The two sides of the Oriental
world, subjective freedom and substantiality, are now combined.
However, this is not the “unrestrained and natural freedom” of the
Oriental world but “ethical freedom” which understands the state as
something universal and rational in its aims. Nonetheless, the individual
intuitively adopts the customs and habits laid down by the laws. Yet this
unreflecting ethical life is unstable, and gives way to a third phase of
history where “inner reflection liberates itself ” (LPH, 203).
12 M.A.R. Habib

(c) The Roman Empire

This third phase is the era of the Roman Empire, the era of “man-
hood,” which follows neither the arbitrary will of a master nor its own
aesthetic (intuitive) arbitrariness. Rather, its life is one of “arduous labour
and service,” not in the pursuit of its own ends but the universal ends of
the state. Hegel’s description of the late Roman empire in the
Phenomenology has sometimes been compared with the conditions char-
acterizing late capitalism. Here also he describes the Roman state as
assuming a character of abstract universality. It is no longer a “common-
wealth of individuals” such as Athens knew. The interests of the state
become detached from the individual citizens who, in turn, enjoy only an
abstract individuality inasmuch as they have legal rights.
This antithesis between abstract universality and abstract individuality
results in fragmentation, in the mutual isolation of subjects from one
another. The “disintegration of the whole into atoms” can only be
restrained by external force: the state no longer confronts the individuals
as an abstract entity with universal ends but rather as an autocrat who has
power over the individual citizens—the Emperor. This is a world where
individuality is reduced to formal recognition of abstract right, the right
of property (LPH, 204–205). Hence the Emperor, an arbitrary power,
reconciles the antithesis, establishing order and peace. But this reconcili-
ation is purely “worldly and external” in character and is therefore accom-
panied by “absolute internal disunion.” The true reconciliation, which
must be of a spiritual nature, is lacking. The human spirit, driven back
into its “innermost depths, abandons the godless world, seeks the recon-
ciliation within itself, and embarks on a life of inwardness” (LPH, 205).

(d) The Middle Ages: Islam and Christianity

There now arises a “spiritual empire of subjectivity” in opposition to the

purely worldly empire, and this marks the fourth phase of history, the “old
age of the spirit” (LPH, 205). This phase has two periods. In the first, “spirit
as consciousness of an inner world” exhibits a “total indifference towards
worldly things.” This is manifested in Islamic civilization, in which “the
Oriental world reaches its highest transfiguration and its highest perception
 Introduction: Hegel and History 13

of the One” (LPH, 206). But this pure spirituality, as embodied in Islamic
monotheism, was abstract and entirely removed from any positive relation
to the world as such, which it looked upon negatively.
It is in the second period of this spiritual empire that the spiritual prin-
ciple is expressed in the world. This principle is the “consciousness and
volition of subjectivity as a divine personality.” As Hegel explains else-
where—especially in his lectures on the philosophy of religion—whereas
Islam saw God as a unity utterly transcending the temporal world,
Christianity saw God as realized in the world through Jesus and the Holy
Spirit. And Hegel indicates here also that in this phase—which occurs in
the modern world—God is not wholly transcendent but reconciled with
individual human subjects, and it is through this reconciliation that the
individual achieves “concrete freedom” (LPH, 206).

(e) The Protestant Reformation and the Modern (Germanic) World

By now, the worldly empire and the spiritual empire—as embodied in

Roman Catholic Christianity—are mutually opposed. This antithesis
between the spiritual principle, which is still ecclesiastical and somewhat
worldly in form, and the secular world is not abrogated until the Protestant
Reformation. Through this revolution, spirit both assumed the form of
“free and rational thought”—as in reliance on individual conscience—
and was able to realize itself in the secular world, since Protestantism
embraced the world as a legitimate arena of spiritual fulfillment. In this
way, the antithesis between church and state disappears, as does the
antithesis of spiritual and secular. Freedom is thereby realized in a con-
crete manner: “Freedom discovers its concept in reality, and has devel-
oped the secular world into the objective system of a specific and internally
organized state” (LPH, 208). This is also the stage at which subject and
object are reconciled, through the refashioning of the objective world in
the light of a rationally developed subjectivity: “reality is transformed and
reconstructed. This is the goal of world history: the spirit must create for
itself a nature and world to conform with its own nature, so that the sub-
ject may discover its own concept of the spirit in this second nature … and
in this objective reality, it becomes conscious of its subjective freedom
and rationality” (LPH, 208–209).
14 M.A.R. Habib

The Imperial Destiny of Europe

Throughout his writings, Hegel makes it clear that the task of Europe,
which is orientated outward toward the sea, is intrinsically an imperial
one. In the Encyclopedia, he states:

The principle of the European mind is … self-conscious Reason which …

takes an interest in everything [i.e. worldly life] in order to become present
to itself therein. The European spirit opposes the world to itself, makes
itself free of it, but in turn annuls this opposition, takes its Other, the
manifold, back into itself, into its unitary nature. In Europe, therefore,
there prevails this infinite thirst for knowledge, which is alien to other
races. The European is interested in the world, he wants to know it, to
make this Other confronting him his own, to bring to view the genus, law,
universal, thought, the inner rationality, in the particular forms of the
world. As in the theoretical, so too in the practical sphere, the European
mind strives to make manifest the unity between itself and the outer world.
It subdues the outer world to its ends with an energy which has ensured for
it the mastery of the world. (Enc, III, §393, Zus)

We’ve already seen the importance of “negation” in Hegel’s dialectic. The

world of nature, the external world, cannot be accepted merely as it is
given, as it initially confronts us. We must negate this immediate world,
looking beneath it to see its rational operations, which eventually we
discern to be the operations of our own rational subjectivity. This is the
movement from substance to subject. But what is interesting in the pas-
sage above is the continuity that Hegel indicates between negating the
“external world” conceived as nature and negating the external world
viewed as that which lies geographically beyond Europe. It is no accident
that this negation is spoken of in terms of “subduing” and “mastery.”
In particular, what Hegel is describing in this passage is the ethic of an
emerging capitalist world where theoretical and practical endeavors are
perfectly aligned. The very process of knowledge, the dialectic that seeks
to classify the world into genus, species, and universal laws, is used by the
European “mind” to “subdue” the external world to its own ends. In other
words, reason itself, in its very nature is imperialistic on both t­heoretical
 Introduction: Hegel and History 15

and practical levels. Hegel here anticipates what Schopenhauer and

Nietzsche would later argue, that reason is in its very motivation is
grounded upon pragmatic interests of power and domination. Moreover,
in identifying this European mentality with Protestantism’s decisive his-
torical turn away from the Roman Catholic “otherworldliness” of the
Middle Ages toward an interest in worldly life as the arena for religious
self-expression, he also anticipates Weber on the complex connections
between the protestant ethic and the driving spirit of capitalism.
Hence, in in Hegel’s hands the dialectic is indefinitely expansive and
colonizing in its character. The Other—no matter whether it takes the
form of a single object in the world or an entire continent—cannot be
allowed to exist in isolation and immediacy; it must be overcome, and
assimilated into oneself, whether that self is a rational individual or a
continent of individuals in the rational collectivity known as “Europe.”
For Hegel, the overcoming of otherness is the very basis of knowledge,
achievement of self, and mastery of the world beyond.

Notes
1. G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, trans.
H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 173.
Hereafter cited as LPH. See also Robert Bernasconi, “With What Must
the Philosophy of World History Begin? On the Racial Basis of Hegel’s
Eurocentrism,” Nineteenth Century Contexts, 22 (2000): 179.
2. This particular formulation was offered by Jean-Luc Nancy in Hegel: The
Restlessness of the Negative, trans. J. Smith and S. Miller (Minnesota:
University of Minnesota Press, 2002), p. 3.
3. Fayaz Chagani puts this very well when he states, “Hegel’s Eurocentrism
is not just a matter of historical curiosity; it is a fundamental feature of
contemporary knowledges. The Hegelian dialectic … has become the
dominant paradigm for thinking about … the relationship between the
West and the non-West,” “With or Without You: ‘Beyond’ the
Postcolonial Hegel,” presented at “Philosophy and the West,” The New
School for Social Research, March 2, 2013.
4. Hegel’s treatment of Judaism (as historically superseded) and Jews
(whose emancipation he supported) has of course provoked much heated
16 M.A.R. Habib

debate. Paul Lawrence Rose argues that his attitude (unlike that of Kant
and other German thinkers) was genuinely bifurcated, German Question/
Jewish Question: Revolutionary Anti-Semitism from Kant to Wagner
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 109–116. See also
Teshale Tibebu’s comprehensive treatment of the subject in Hegel and
Anti-Semitism (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2008).
5. As Timothy Brennan states, “The war over Hegel could not be more
central to the past and future of postcolonial studies itself—where the
field came from and what it deliberately excludes. At different times and
in different places, Hegel has been accused of an unsavory deification of
the state; of uncritically defending bourgeois property relations … of
adopting a coercive concept of universality; of imposing a reprehensible
concept of historical telos; and of infamously conflating differences by
way of a quasi-theological ‘absolute spirit’,” “Hegel, Empire, and Anti-
Colonial Thought,” in The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies, ed.
Graham Huggan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 143.
Hereafter cited as “HE.” Brennan is concerned to correct what he sees as
these imbalanced accusations by placing Hegel’s commentaries on non-
Western cultures within the overall development of his philosophy.
6. Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and tribalism are
Reshaping the World (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996), p. 4.
7. Timothy Brennan, “From Development to Globalization: Postcolonial
Studies and Globalization Theory,” in The Cambridge Companion to
Postcolonial Literary Studies, ed. Neil Lazarus (Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 125–128. Hereafter cited as
“DG.”
8. Brennan in fact argues that Hegel “brings a geopolitical consciousness
into the discourse of philosophical modernity” by establishing the
“global nature” of the movement of history. Notwithstanding this, there
has been “a failure to recognize the affinities between Hegelian philoso-
phy and anti-colonial theory,” and indeed a concerted effort to marginal-
ize Hegel, “HE,” pp. 143–144.
9. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, trans A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1979), §17–18.
10. The extent to which Hegel drew upon the experience of Empire and the
expansion of Europe into a world economy has yet to be explored in
depth. But some scholars have searchingly raised this question. See, for
example, John K. Noyes, “Hegel and the Fate of Negativity after Empire,”
 Introduction: Hegel and History 17

Postcolonialism Today: Theoretical Challenges and Pragmatic Issues, 2003,

http://www.semioticon.com/virtuals/postcolonialism/Noyes%20Hegel.
htm.
11. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, trans. T.M. Knox (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1967), §45. Hereafter cited as PR. See also the more recent edition
of this text is Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen
W. Wood, trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991), §45. Hereafter cited as EPR.
12. See, for example, Hegel and Capitalism, ed. Andrew Buchwalter (New
York: SUNY Press, 2015), hereafter cited as HC. In his introduction
entitled “Hegel and Capitalism,” Buchwalter states that Hegel’s “general
conceptual framework, expressed above all in its notion of dialectics, can
itself be construed as a response to the phenomenon of modern capital-
ism” (p. 2). See also my forthcoming book Hegel and the Foundations of
Literary Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
13. Some scholars, however, have stressed that Hegel held a negative view
toward the unbridled expansion of capital. See, for example, Jay Drydyk,
“Capital, Socialism and Civil Society,” Monist 74.3 (1991): 457–477.
14. Robert Young states that “Hegel articulates a philosophical structure of
the appropriation of the other as a form of knowledge which uncannily
simulates the project of nineteenth-century imperialism; the construc-
tion of knowledges … mimics at a conceptual level the geographical and
economic absorption of the non-European world by the West,” White
Mythologies: Writing History and the West (London: Routledge, 2004),
p. 34. While I would broadly agree with Young’s characterization, I
would argue that the relation between knowledge-construction and con-
quest is not so much one of mimicking; rather, it is the same imperialistic
operation that occurs on both levels, and this is how Hegel himself
appears to view the parallel endeavors of both language and labor,
G.W.F. Hegel, System of Ethical Life (1802/3) and First Philosophy of
Spirit (Part III of the System of Speculative Philosophy 1803/4), ed. and
trans. H.S. Harris and T.M. Knox (New York: State University of
New York Press, 1979), pp. 226–246.
15. Hegel’s geographical divisions, of course, have been subjected to much
criticism. For example, he did not consider Egypt to be a part of Africa.
This, as J. Obi Oguejiofor points out, was a “general misconception of
the time,” “The Enlightenment Gaze: Africans in the Mind of Western
Philosophy,” Philosophia Africana, 10.1 (2007): 33.
18 M.A.R. Habib

16. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, tr. J. Sibree (New York, 1956),
pp. 88–91, hereafter cited as PH; Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of
World History: Introduction: Reason in History, trans. H.B. Nisbet
(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 172.
Hereafter cited as LPH.
 2
The Master-Slave Dialectic

Abstract This chapter expounds Hegel’s “master-slave dialectic,”

explaining why it provides a necessary framework for approaching
Hegel’s views on empire. This dialectic reveals that the human self is
born in social interaction, through a process—a struggle—for recogni-
tion. In order to understand Hegel’s views on Africa and slavery, and
the “mastery” of Europe over the rest of the world, it is crucial to grasp
how he conceptualizes mastery and slavery in general. The master-slave
dialectic is not only essential to Hegel’s view of subjectivity, but also
furnishes a framework for assessing Hegel’s views of the Other in rela-
tion to European identity. Moreover, it is a dialectic with which impor-
tant postcolonial theorists have engaged in their critique of Hegel’s
Eurocentric vision.

Keywords Master-slave dialectic • Subjectivity as intersocial • Subjectivity

and recognition

In the introduction we saw that Hegel’s dialectic in general is a dialectic

of mastery and subjugation. It involves negating the world as it is given
and transforming it in one’s own image. We can further illustrate this

© The Author(s) 2017 19

M. Habib, Hegel and Empire, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68412-3_2
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 PLATE LXIV

PINK LADY’S SLIPPER.—C. acaule.

——— ———
Calopogon pulchellus. Orchis Family (p. 17).

Scape.—Rising about one foot from a small solid bulb. Leaf.—Linear, grass-
like. Flowers.—Two to six on each scape, purple-pink, about one inch broad, the lip
as if hinged at its insertion, bearded toward the summit with white, yellow, and
purple hairs. The peculiarity of this orchid is that the ovary is not twisted, and
consequently the lip is on the upper instead of the lower side of the flower.
One may hope to find these bright flowers growing side by side
with the glistening sundew in the rich bogs of early summer. Mr.
Baldwin assigns still another constant companion to the Calopogon,
an orchid which staggers under the terrifying title of Pogonia
ophioglossoides. The generic name of Calopogon is from two Greek
words signifying beautiful beard and has reference to the delicately
bearded lip.

Pink Azalea. Wild Honeysuckle. Pinxter Flower.

Swamp Pink.
Rhododendron nudiflorum. Heath Family.

A shrub from two to six feet high. Leaves.—Narrowly oblong, downy

underneath, usually appearing somewhat later than the flowers. Flowers.—Pink,
clustered. Calyx.—Minute. Corolla.—Funnel-shaped, with five long recurved lobes.
Stamens.—Five or ten, long, protruding noticeably. Pistil.—One, long, protruding.
Our May swamps and moist woods are made rosy by masses of
the pink azalea which is often known as the wild honeysuckle,
although not even a member of the Honeysuckle family. It is in the
height of its beauty before the blooming of the laurel, and heralds the
still lovelier pageant which is even then in rapid course of
preparation.
 PLATE LXV

PINK AZALEA.—R. nudiflorum.

In the last century the name of Mayflower was given to the

shrub by the Swedes in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. Peter
Kalm, the pupil of Linnæus, after whom our laurel, Kalmia, is
named, writes the following description of the shrub in his “Travels,”
which were published in English in 1771, and which explain the
origin of one of its titles: “Some of the Swedes and Dutch call them
Pinxter-bloem (Whitsunday-flower) as they really are in bloom about
Whitsuntide; and at a distance they have some similarity to the
Honeysuckle or ‘Lonicera.’... Its flowers were now open and added a
new ornament to the woods.... They sit in a circle round the stem’s
extremity and have either a dark red or a lively red color; but by
standing for some time the sun bleaches them, and at last they get to
a whitish hue.... They have some smell, but I cannot say it is very
pleasant. However, the beauty of the flower entitles them to a place
in every flower-garden.” While our pink azalea could hardly be called
“dark red” under any circumstances, it varies greatly in the color of
its flowers.
The azalea is the national flower of Flanders.

——— ———
Rhododendron Rhodora. Heath Family.

A shrub from one to two feet high. Leaves.—Oblong, pale. Flowers.—Purplish-

pink. Calyx.—Small. Corolla.—Two-lipped, almost without any tube. Stamens.—
Ten, not protruding. Pistil.—One, not protruding.

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being;
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there, brought you.[6]

Sheep Laurel. Lambkill.

Kalmia angustifolia. Heath Family.

A shrub from one to three feet high. Leaves.—Narrowly oblong, light green.
Flowers.—Deep pink, in lateral clusters. Calyx.—Five-parted. Corolla.—Five-lobed,
between wheel and bell-shaped, with stamens caught in its depressions as in the
mountain laurel. Stamens.—Ten. Pistil.—One.
 This low shrub grows abundantly with the mountain laurel,
bearing smaller deep pink flowers at the same season, and narrower,
paler leaves. It is said to be the most poisonous of the genus, and to
be especially deadly to sheep, while deer are supposed to feed upon
its leaves with impunity.

American Cranberry.
Vaccinium macrocarpon. Heath Family.

Stems.—Slender, trailing, one to four feet long. Leaves.—Oblong, obtuse.

Flowers.—Pale pink, nodding. Calyx.—With short teeth. Corolla.—Four-parted.
Stamens.—Eight or ten, protruding. Fruit.—A large, acid, red berry.
In the peat-bogs of our Northeastern States we may look in June
for the pink nodding flowers, and in late summer for the large red
berries of this well-known plant.

Adder’s Mouth.
Pogonia ophioglossoides. Orchis Family (p. 17).

Stem.—Six to nine inches high, from a fibrous root. Leaves.—An oval or lance-
oblong one near the middle of the stem, and a smaller or bract-like one near the
terminal flower, occasionally one or two others, with a flower in their axils. Flower.
—Pale pink, sometimes white, sweet-scented, one inch long, lip bearded and
fringed.
Mr. Baldwin maintains that there is no wild flower of as pure a
pink as this unless it be the Sabbatia. Its color has also been
described as a “peach-blossom red.” As already mentioned, the plant
is found blossoming in bogs during the early summer in company
with the Calopogons and sundews. Its violet-like fragrance greatly
enhances its charm.

Common Milkwort.
Polygala sanguinea. Milkwort Family.

Stem.—Six inches to a foot high, sparingly branched above, leafy to the top.
Leaves.—Oblong-linear. Flowers.—Growing in round or oblong heads which are
somewhat clover-like in appearance, bright pink or almost red, occasionally paler.
Calyx.—Of five sepals, three of which are small and often greenish, while the two
inner ones are much larger and colored like the petals. Corolla.—Of three petals
connected with each other, the lower one keel-shaped. Stamens.—Six or eight.
Pistil.—One. (Flowers too difficult to be analyzed by the non-botanist.)
This pretty little plant abounds in moist and also sandy places,
growing on mountain heights as well as in the salt meadows which
skirt the sea. In late summer its bright flower-heads gleam vividly
through the grasses, and from their form and color might almost be
mistaken for pink clover. Occasionally they are comparatively pale
and inconspicuous.

——— ———
Polygala polygama. Milkwort Family.

Stems.—Very leafy, six to nine inches high, with cleistogamous flowers on

underground runners. Leaves.—Lance-shaped or oblong. Flowers.—Purple-pink,
loosely clustered in a terminal raceme. Keel of Corolla.—Crested. Stamens.—Eight.
Pistil.—One.
Like its more attractive sister, the fringed polygala, this little
plant hides its most useful, albeit unattractive, blossoms in the
ground, where they can fulfil their destiny of perpetuating the
species without danger of molestation by thievish insects or any of
the distractions incidental to a more worldly career. Exactly what
purpose the little above-ground flowers, which appear so plentifully
in sandy soil in July, are intended to serve, it is difficult to
understand.

Fringed Polygala.
Polygala paucifolia. Milkwort Family.

Flowering stems.—Three or four inches high, from long, prostrate or

underground shoots which also bear cleistogamous flowers. Leaves.—The lower,
small and scale-like, scattered, the upper, ovate, and crowded at the summit.
Flowers.—Purple-pink, rarely white, rather large. Keel of Corolla.—Conspicuously
fringed and crested. Stamens.—Six. Pistil.—One.
 PLATE LXVI

MILKWORT.

“I must not forget to mention that delicate and lovely flower of

May, the fringed polygala. You gather it when you go for the fragrant
showy orchis—that is, if you are lucky enough to find it. It is rather a
shy flower, and is not found in every wood. One day we went up and
down through the woods looking for it—woods of mingled oak,
chestnut, pine, and hemlock,—and were about giving it up when
suddenly we came upon a gay company of them beside an old wood-
road. It was as if a flock of small rose-purple butterflies had alighted
there on the ground before us. The whole plant has a singularly fresh
and tender aspect. Its foliage is of a slightly purple tinge and of very
delicate texture. Not the least interesting feature about the plant is
the concealed fertile flower which it bears on a subterranean stem,
keeping, as it were, one flower for beauty and one for use.”
It seems unnecessary to tempt “odorous comparisons” by
endeavoring to supplement the above description of Mr. Burroughs.

Moss Polygala.
Polygala cruciata. Milkwort Family.

Stems.—Three to ten inches high, almost winged at the angles, with spreading
opposite leaves and branches. Leaves.—Linear, nearly all whorled in fours.
Flowers.—Greenish or purplish-pink, growing in short, thick spikes which
terminate the branches.
There is something very moss-like in the appearance of this little
plant which blossoms in late summer. It is found near moist places
and salt marshes along the coast, being very common in parts of New
England.

Spreading Dogbane. Indian Hemp.

Apocynum androsæmifolium. Dogbane Family.

Stems.—Erect, branching, two or three feet high. Leaves.—Opposite, oval.

Flowers.—Rose-color veined with deep pink, loosely clustered. Calyx.—Five-
parted. Corolla.—Small, bell-shaped, five-cleft. Stamens.—Five, slightly adherent
to the pistil. Pistil.—Two ovaries surmounted by a large, two-lobed stigma. Fruit.—
Two long and slender pods.
 PLATE LXVII

SPREADING DOGBANE.—A.
androsæmifolium.

The flowers of the dogbane, though small and inconspicuous are

very beautiful if closely examined. The deep pink veining of the
corolla suggests nectar, and the insect-visitor is not misled, for at its
base are five nectar-bearing glands. The two long, slender seed-pods
which result from a single blossom seem inappropriately large, often
appearing while the plant is still in flower. Rafinesque states that
from the stems may be obtained a thread similar to hemp which can
be woven into cloth, from the pods, cotton, and from the blossoms,
sugar. Its generic and one of its English titles arose from the belief,
which formerly prevailed, that it was poisonous to dogs. The plant is
constantly found growing in roadside thickets, with bright, pretty
foliage, and blossoms that appear in early summer.
 Hedge Bindweed.
Convolvulus Americanus. Convolvulus Family.

Stem.—Twining or trailing. Leaves.—Somewhat arrow-shaped. Flowers.—

Pink. Calyx.—Of five sepals enclosed in two broad leafy bracts. Corolla.—Five-
lobed, bell-shaped. Stamens.—Five. Pistil.—One, with two stigmas.
Many an unsightly heap of rubbish left by the roadside is hidden
by the delicate pink bells of the hedge bindweed, which again will
clamber over the thickets that line the streams and about the
tumbled stone-wall that marks the limit of the pasture. The pretty
flowers at once suggest the morning-glory, to which they are closely
allied.
The common European bindweed, C. arvensis, has white or
pinkish flowers, without bracts beneath the calyx, and a low
procumbent or twining stem. It has taken possession of many of our
old fields where it spreads extensively and proves troublesome to
farmers.

Purple-flowering Raspberry.
Rubus odoratus. Rose Family.

Stem.—Shrubby, three to five feet high; branching, branches bristly and

glandular. Leaves.—Three to five-lobed, the middle lobe prolonged. Flowers.—
Purplish-pink, large and showy, two inches broad. Calyx.—Five-parted. Corolla.—
Of five rounded petals. Stamens and Pistils.—Numerous. Fruit.—Reddish,
resembling the garden raspberry.
 PLATE LXVIII

PURPLE-FLOWERING RASPBERRY.—
R. odoratus.

This flower betrays its relationship to the wild rose, and might
easily be mistaken for it, although a glance at the undivided leaves
would at once correct such an error. The plant is a decorative one
when covered with its showy blossoms, constantly arresting our
attention along the wooded roadsides in June and July.

Pale Corydalis.
Corydalis glauca. Fumitory Family.

Stem.—Six inches to two feet high. Leaves.—Pale, divided into delicate leaflets.
Flowers.—Pink and yellow, in loose clusters. Calyx.—Of two small, scale-like
sepals. Corolla.—Pink, tipped with yellow; closed and flattened, of four petals, with
a short spur at the base of the upper petal. Stamens.—Six, maturing before the
pistil, thus avoiding self-fertilization. Pistil.—One.
From the rocky clefts in the summer woods springs the pale
corydalis, its graceful foliage dim with a whitish bloom, and its
delicate rosy, yellow-tipped flowers betraying by their odd flat
corollas their kinship with the Dutchman’s breeches and squirrel
corn of the early year, as well as with the bleeding hearts of the
garden. Thoreau assigns them to the middle of May, and says they
are “rarely met with,” which statement does not coincide with the
experience of those who find the rocky woodlands each summer
abundantly decorated with their fragile clusters.
The generic name, Corydalis, is the ancient Greek title for the
crested lark, and said to refer to the crested seeds of this genus. The
specific title, glauca, refers to the pallor of leaves and stem.
The golden corydalis, C. aurea, is found on rocky banks
somewhat westward.

Common Milkweed.
Asclepias Cornuti. Milkweed Family.

Stem.—Tall, stout, downy, with a milky juice. Leaves.—Generally opposite or

whorled, the upper sometimes scattered, large, oblong, pale, minutely downy
underneath. Flowers.—Dull, purplish-pink, clustered at the summit and along the
sides of the stem. (These flowers are too difficult to be successfully analyzed by the
non-botanist.) Calyx.—Five-parted, the divisions small and reflexed. Corolla.—
Deeply five-parted, the divisions reflexed; above them a crown of five hooded
nectaries, each containing an incurved horn. Stamens.—Five, inserted on the base
of the corolla, united with each other and enclosing the pistils. Pistils.—Properly
two, enclosed by the stamens, surmounted by a large five-angled disk. Fruit.—Two
pods, one of which is large and full of silky-tufted seeds, the other often stunted.
This is probably the commonest representative of this striking
and beautiful native family. The tall, stout stems, large, pale leaves,
dull pink clustered flowers which appear in July, and later the puffy
pods filled with the silky-tufted seeds beloved of imaginative
children, are familiar to nearly everyone who spends a portion of the
year in the country. The young sprouts are said to make an excellent
pot-herb; the silky hairs of the seed-pods have been used for the
stuffing of pillows and mattresses, and can be mixed with flax or
wool and woven to advantage; while paper has been manufactured
from the stout stalks.
The four-leaved milkweed, A. quadrifolia, is the most delicate
member of the family, with fragrant rose-tinged flowers which
appear on the dry wooded hill-sides quite early in June, and slender
stems which are usually leafless below, and with one or two whorls
and one or two pairs of oval, taper-pointed leaves above.
The swamp milkweed, A. incarnata, grows commonly in moist
places. Its very leafy stems are two or three feet high, with narrowly
oblong, pointed leaves. Its intense purple-pink flowers gleam from
the wet meadows nearly all summer. They are smaller than those of
the purple milkweed, A. purpurascens, which abounds in dry
ground, and which may be classed among the deep pink or purple
flowers according to the eye of the beholder.

Herb Robert.
Geranium Robertianum. Geranium Family.

Stem.—Forking, slightly hairy. Leaves.—Three, divided, the divisions again

dissected. Flowers.—Purple-pink, small. Calyx.—Of five sepals. Corolla.—Of five
petals. Stamens.—Ten. Pistil.—One, with five styles which split apart in fruit.
From June until October many of our shaded woods and glens
are abundantly decorated by the bright blossoms of the herb Robert.
The reddish stalks of the plant have won it the name of “red-shanks”
in the Scotch Highlands. Its strong scent is caused by a resinous
secretion which exists in several of the geraniums. In some species
this resin is so abundant that the stems will burn like torches,
yielding a powerful and pleasant perfume. The common name is said
to have been given the plant on account of its supposed virtue in a
disease which was known as “Robert’s plague,” after Robert, Duke of
Normandy. In some of the early writers it is alluded to as the “holy
herb of Robert.”
In fruit the styles of this plant split apart with an elasticity which
serves to project the seeds to a distance, it is said, of twenty-five feet.
 Bush Clover.
Lespedeza procumbens. Pulse Family (p. 16).

Stems.—Slender, trailing, and prostrate. Leaves.—Divided into three clover-

like leaflets. Flowers.—Papilionaceous, purplish-pink, veiny. Pod.—Small,
rounded, flat, one-seeded.
The flowers of this plant often have the appearance of springing
directly from the earth amid a mass of clover leaves. They are
common in dry soil in the late summer and autumn, as are the other
members of the same genus.
L. reticulata is an erect, very leafy species with similar blossoms,
which are chiefly clustered near the upper part of the stem. The bush
clovers betray at once their kinship with the tick-trefoils, but are
usually found in more sandy, open places.
L. polystachya has upright wand-like stems from two to four
feet high. Its flowers grow in oblong spikes on elongated stalks.
Those of L. capitata are clustered in globular heads.

Tick-trefoil.
Desmodium Canadense. Pulse Family (p. 16).

Stem.—Hairy, three to six feet high. Leaves.—Divided into three somewhat

oblong leaflets. Flowers.—Papilionaceous, dull purplish-pink, growing in densely
flowered racemes. Pod.—Flat, deeply lobed on the lower margin, from one to three
inches long, roughened with minute hooked hairs by means of which they adhere
to animals and clothing.
Great masses of color are made by these flowers in the bogs and
rich woods of midsummer. They are effective when seen in the
distance, but rather disappointing on closer examination, and will
hardly bear gathering or transportation. They are by far the largest
and most showy of the genus.
 PLATE LXIX

HERB ROBERT.—G. Robertianum.

Tick-Trefoil.
Desmodium nudiflorum. Pulse Family (p. 16).

Scape.—About two feet long. Leaves.—Divided into three broad leaflets,

crowded at the summit of the flowerless stems. Flowers.—Papilionaceous,
purplish-pink, small, growing in an elongated raceme on a mostly leafless scape.
This is a smaller, less noticeable plant than D. Canadense. It
flourishes abundantly in dry woods, where it often takes possession
in late summer to the exclusion of nearly all other flowers.
 The flowers of D. acuminatum grow in an elongated raceme
from a stem about whose summit the leaves, divided into very large
leaflets, are crowded; otherwise it resembles D. nudiflorum.
D. Dillenii grows to a height of from two to five feet, with erect
leafy stems and medium-sized flowers. It is found commonly in open
woods.
Many of us who do not know these plants by name have uttered
various imprecations against their roughened pods. Thoreau writes:
“Though you were running for your life, they would have time to
catch and cling to your clothes.... These almost invisible nets, as it
were, are spread for us, and whole coveys of desmodium and bidens
seeds steal transportation out of us. I have found myself often
covered, as it were, with an imbricated coat of the brown desmodium
seeds or a bristling chevaux-de-frise of beggar-ticks, and had to
spend a quarter of an hour or more picking them off in some
convenient spot; and so they get just what they wanted—deposited in
another place.”

Bouncing Bet. Soapwort.

Saponaria officinalis. Pink Family.

Stem.—Rather stout, swollen at the joints. Leaves.—Oval, opposite. Flowers.—

Pink or white, clustered. Calyx.—Of five united sepals. Corolla.—Of five pinkish,
long-clawed petals (frequently the flowers are double). Stamens.—Ten. Pistil.—
One, with two styles.
A cheery pretty plant is this with large, rose-tinged flowers
which are especially effective when double.
 PLATE LXX

BOUNCING BET.—S. officinalis.

Bouncing Bet is of a sociable turn and is seldom found far from

civilization, delighting in the proximity of farm-houses and their
belongings, in the shape of children, chickens, and cattle. She comes
to us from England, and her “feminine comeliness and bounce”
suggest to Mr. Burroughs a Yorkshire housemaid. The generic name
is from sapo—soap, and refers to the lather which the juice forms
with water, and which is said to have been used as a substitute for
soap.
 Steeple-bush. Hardhack.
Spiræa tomentosa. Rose Family.

Stems.—Very woolly. Leaves.—Alternate, oval, toothed. Flowers.—Small, pink,

in pyramidal clusters. Calyx.—Five-cleft. Corolla.—Of five rounded petals.
Stamens.—Numerous. Pistils.—Five to eight.
The pink spires of this shrub justify its rather unpoetic name of
steeple-bush. It is closely allied to the meadow-sweet (Pl. XXVI.),
blossoming with it in low grounds during the summer. It differs from
that plant in the color of its flowers and in the woolliness of its stems
and the lower surface of its leaves.

Deptford Pink.
Dianthus Armeria. Pink Family.

One or two feet high. Leaves.—Opposite, long and narrow, hairy. Flowers.—
Pink, with white dots, clustered. Calyx.—Five-toothed, cylindrical, with awl-shaped
bracts beneath. Corolla.—Of five small petals. Stamens.—Ten. Pistil.—One, with
two styles.
In July and August we find these little flowers in our eastern
fields. The generic name, which signifies Jove’s own flower, hardly
applies to these inconspicuous blossoms. Perhaps it was originally
bestowed upon D. caryophyllus, a large and fragrant English
member of the genus, which was the origin of our garden carnation.

Purple Loosestrife.
Lythrum Salicaria. Loosestrife Family.

Stem.—Tall and slender. Leaves.—Lance-shaped, with a heart-shaped base,

sometimes whorled in threes. Flowers.—Deep purple-pink, crowded and whorled
in an interrupted spike. Calyx.—Five to seven-toothed, with little processes
between the teeth. Corolla.—Of five or six somewhat wrinkled petals. Stamens.—
Usually twelve, in two sets, six longer and six shorter. Pistil.—One, varying in size
in the different blossoms, being of three different lengths.
 PLATE LXXI

PURPLE LOOSESTRIFE.—L. Salicaria.

One who has seen an inland marsh in August aglow with this
beautiful plant, is almost ready to forgive the Old Country some of
the many pests she has shipped to our shores in view of this radiant
acquisition. The botany locates it anywhere between Nova Scotia and
Delaware. It may be seen in the perfection of its beauty along the
marshy shores of the Hudson and in the swamps of the Wallkill
Valley.
When we learn that these flowers are called “long purples,” by
the English country people, the scene of Ophelia’s tragic death rises
before us:
 There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream,
There with fantastic garlands did she come,
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.

Dr. Prior, however, says that it is supposed that Shakespeare

intended to designate the purple-flowering orchis, O. mascula, which
is said to closely resemble the showy orchis (Pl. LXII.) of our spring
woods.
The flowers of the purple loosestrife are especially interesting to
botanists on account of their trimorphism, which word signifies
occurring in three forms, and refers to the stamens and pistils,
which vary in size in the different blossoms, being of three different
lengths, the pollen from any given set of stamens being especially
fitted to fertilize a pistil of corresponding length.

Meadow-beauty. Deer-grass.
Rhexia Virginica. Melastoma Family.

Stem.—Square, with wing-like angles. Leaves.—Opposite, narrowly oval.

Flowers.—Purplish-pink, clustered. Calyx-tube.—Urn-shaped, four-cleft at the
apex. Corolla.—Of four large rounded petals. Stamens.—Eight, with long curved
anthers. Pistil.—One.
It is always a pleasant surprise to happen upon a bright patch of
these delicate deep-hued flowers along the marshes or in the sandy
fields of midsummer. Their fragile beauty is of that order which
causes it to seem natural that they should belong to a genus which is
the sole northern representative of a tropical family. In parts of New
England they grow in profusion, while in Arkansas the plant is said
to be a great favorite with the deer, hence one of its common names.
The flower has been likened to a scarlet evening primrose, and there
is certainly a suggestion of the evening primrose in the four rounded,
slightly heart-shaped petals. The protruding stamens, with their long
yellow anthers, are conspicuous.