Hegel: Social and Political Thought

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) is one of the greatest systematic thinkers in the history of Western philosophy. In addition to epitomizing German idealist philosophy, Hegel boldly claimed that his own system of philosophy represented an historical culmination of all previous philosophical thought. Hegel’s overall encyclopedic system is divided into the science of Logic, the philosophy of Nature, and the philosophy of Spirit. Of most enduring interest are his views on history, society, and the state, which fall within the realm of Objective Spirit. Some have considered Hegel to be a nationalistic apologist for the Prussian State of the early 19th century, but his significance has been much broader, and there is no doubt that Hegel himself considered his work to be an expression of the self-consciousness of the World Spirit of his time. At the core of Hegel’s social and political thought are the concepts of freedom, reason, self-consciousness, and recognition. There are important connections between the metaphysical or speculative articulation of these ideas and their application to social and political reality, and one could say that the full meaning of these ideas can be grasped only with a comprehension of their social and historical embodiment. The work that explicates this concretizing of ideas, and which has perhaps stimulated as much controversy as interest, is the Philosophy of Right (Philosophie des Rechts), which will be a main focus of this essay. Table of Contents Biography Political Writings The Jena Writings (1802-06) The Phenomenology of Spirit Logic and Political Theory The Philosophy of Right Abstract Right Morality Ethical Life The Family Civil Society The State Constitutional Law International Law World History Closing Remarks References and Further Reading Works by Hegel in German and in English Translation Works on Hegel’s Social and Political Philosophy 1. Biography G.W.F. Hegel was born in Stuttgart in 1770, the son of an official in the government of the Duke of Württemberg. He was educated at the Royal Highschool in Stuttgart from 1777-88 and steeped in both the classics and the literature of the European Enlightenment. In October, 1788 Hegel began studies at a theological seminary in Tübingen, the Tüberger Stift, where he became friends with the poet Hölderlin and philosopher Friedrich Schelling, both of whom would later become famous. In 1790 Hegel received an M.A. degree, one year after the fall of the Bastille in France, an event welcomed by these young idealistic students. Shortly after graduation, Hegel took a post as tutor to a wealthy Swiss family in Berne from 1793-96. In 1797, with the help of his friend Hölderlin, Hegel moved to Frankfurt to take on another tutorship. During this time he wrote unpublished essays on religion which display a certain radical tendency of thought in his critique of orthodox religion. In January 1801, two years after the death of his father, Hegel finished with tutoring and went to Jena where he took a position as Privatdozent (unsalaried lecturer) at the University of Jena, where Hegel’s friend Schelling had already held a university professorship for three years. There Hegel collaborated with Schelling on a Critical Journal of Philosophy (Kritisches Journal der Philosophie) and he also published a piece on the differences between the philosophies of Fichte and Schelling (Differenz des Fichte’schen und Schelling’schen Systems der Philosophie) in which preference was consistently expressed for the latter thinker. After having attained a professorship in 1805, Hegel published his first major work, the Phenomenology of Spirit (Phänomenologie des Geistes, 1807) which was delivered to the publisher just at the time of the occupation of Jena by Napoleon’s armies. With the closing of the University, due to the victory of the French in Prussia, Hegel had to seek employment elsewhere and so he took a job as editor of a newspaper in Bamberg, Bavaria in 1807 (Die Bamberger Zeitung) followed by a move to Nuremberg in 1808 where Hegel became headmaster of a preparatory school (Gymnasium), roughly equivalent to a high school, and also taught philosophy to the students there until 1816. During this time Hegel married, had children, and published his Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik) in three volumes. One year following the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo (1815), Hegel took the position of Professor of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg where he published his first edition of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, 1817). In 1818 he became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Berlin, through the invitation of the Prussion minister von Altenstein (who had introduced many liberal reforms in Prussia until the fall of Napoleon), and Hegel taught there until he died in 1831. Hegel lectured on various topics in philosophy, most notably on history, art, religion, and the history of philosophy and he became quite famous and influential. He held public positions as a member of the Royal Examination Commission of the Province of Brandenberg and also as a councellor in the Ministry of Education. In 1821 he published the Philosophy of Right (Philosophie des Rechts) and in 1830 was given the honor of being elected Rector of the University. On November 14, 1831 Hegel died of cholera in Berlin, four months after having been decorated by Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia. 2. Political Writings Apart from his philosophical works on history, society, and the state, Hegel wrote several political tracts most of which were not published in his lifetime but which are significant enough in connection to the theoretical writings to deserve some mention. (These are published in English translation in Hegel’s Political Writings and Political Writings, listed in the bibliography of works by Hegel below.) Hegel’s very first political work was on “On the Recent Domestic Affairs of Wurtemberg” (Über die neuesten innern Verhältnisse Württembergs…, 1798) which was neither completed nor published. In it Hegel expresses the view that the constitutional structure of Wurtemberg requires fundamental reform. He condemns the absolutist rule of Duke Ferdinand along with the narrow traditionalism and legal positivism of his officials and welcomes the convening of the Estates Assembly, while disagreeing with the method of election in the Diet. In contrast to the existing system of oligarchic privilege, Hegel argues that the Diet needs to be based on popular election through local town councils, although this should not be done by granting suffrage to an uneducated multitude. The essay ends inconclusively on the appropriate method of political representation. A quite long piece of about 100 pages, The German Constitution (Die Verfassung Deutchlands) was written and revised by Hegel between 1799 and 1802 and was not published until after his death in 1893. This piece provides an analysis and critique of the constitution of the German Empire with the main theme being that the Empire is a thing of the past and that appeals for a unified German state are anachronistic. Hegel finds a certain hypocrisy in German thinking about the Empire and a gap between theory and practice in the German constitution. Germany was no longer a state governed by law but rather a plurality of independent political entities with disparate practices. Hegel stresses the need to recognize that the realities of the modern state necessitate a strong public authority along with a populace that is free and unregimented. The principle of government in the modern world is constitutional monarchy, the potentialities of which can be seen in Austria and Prussia. Hegel ends the essay on an uncertain note with the idea that Germany as a whole could be saved only by some Machiavellian genius. The essay “Proceedings of the Estates Assembly in the Kingdom of Württemberg, 1815-1816″ was published in 1817 in the Heidelbergische Jahrbücher. In it Hegel commented on sections of the official report of the Diet of Württemberg, focusing on the opposition by the Estates to the King’s request for ratification of a new constitutional charter that recognized recent liberalizing changes and reforms. Hegel sided with King Frederick and criticized the Estates as being reactionary in their appeal to old customary laws and feudal property rights. There has been controversy over whether Hegel here was trying to gain favor with the King in order to attain a government position. However, Hegel’s favoring a sovereign kingdom of Wurtemberg over the German Empire and the need for a constitutional charter that is more rational than the previous are quite continuous with the previous essays. A genuine state needs a strong and effective central public authority, and in resisting the Estates are trying to live in the feudal past. Moreover, Hegel is not uncritical of the King’s constitutional provisions and finds deficiencies in the exclusion of members of professions from the Estates Assembly as well as in the proposal for direct suffrage in representation, which treats citizens like unintegrated atomic units rather than as members of a political community. The last of Hegel’s political tracts, “The English Reform Bill,” was written in installments in 1831 for the ministerial newspaper, the Preussische Staatszeitung, but was interrupted due to censure by the Prussian King because of the perception of its being overly critical and anti-English. As a result, the remainder of the work was printed independently and distributed discretely. Hegel’s main line of criticism is that the proposed English reforms of suffrage will not make much of a difference in the distribution of political power and may only create a power struggle between the rising group of politicians and the traditional ruling class. Moreover, there are deep problems in English society that cannot be addressed by the proposed electoral reforms, including political corruption in the English burroughs, the selling of seats in parliament, and the general oligarchic nature of social reality including the wide disparities between wealth and poverty, Ecclesiastical patronage, and conditions in Ireland. While Hegel supports the idea of reform with its appeal to rational change as against the “positivity” of customary law, traditionalism and privilege, he thinks that universalizing suffrage with a property qualification without a thorough reform of the system of Common Law and the existing social conditions will only be perceived as token measures leading to greater disenchantment among the newly enfranchised and possibly inclinations to violent revolution. Hegel claims that national pride keeps the English from studying and following the reforms of the European Continent or seriously reflecting upon and grasping the nature of government and legislation. There are several overall themes that reoccur in these political writings and that connect with some of the main lines of thought in Hegel’s theoretical works. First, there is the contrast between the attitude of legal positivism and the appeal to the law of reason. Hegel consistently displays a “political rationalism” which attacks old concepts and attitudes that no longer apply to the modern world. Old constitutions stemming from the Feudal era are a confused mixture of customary laws and special privileges that must give way to the constitutional reforms of the new social and political world that has arrived in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Second, reforms of old constitutions must be thorough and radical, but also cautious and gradual. This might sound somewhat inconsistent, but for Hegel a reform is radical due to a fundamental change in direction, not the speed of such change. Hegel suggests that customary institutions not be abolished too quickly for there must be some congruence and continuity with the existing social conditions. Hegel rejects violent popular action and sees the principal force for reform in governments and the estates assemblies, and he thinks reforms should always stress legal equality and the public welfare. Third, Hegel emphasizes the need for a strong central government, albeit without complete centralized control of public administration and social relations. Hegel here anticipates his later conception of civil society (bürgerliche Gesellschaft), the social realm of individual autonomy where there is significant local self-governance. The task of government is not to thoroughly bureaucratize civil society but rather to provide oversight, regulation, and when necessary intervention. Fourth, Hegel claims that representation of the people must be popular but not atomistic. The democratic element in a state is not its sole feature and it must be institutionalized in a rational manner. Hegel rejects universal suffrage as irrational because it provides no means of mediation between the individual and the state as a whole. Hegel believed that the masses lacked the experience and political education to be directly involved in national elections and policy matters and that direct suffrage leads to electoral indifference and apathy. Fifth, while acknowledging the importance of a division of powers in the public authority, Hegel does not appeal to a conception of separation and balance of powers. He views the estates assemblies, which safeguard freedom, as essentially related to the monarch and also stresses the role of civil servants and members of the professions, both in ministerial positions and in the assemblies. The monarchy, however, is the central supporting element in the constitutional structure because the monarch is invested with the sovereignty of the state. However, the power of the monarch is not despotical for he exercises authority through universal laws and statutes and is advised and assisted by a ministry and civil service, all members of which must meet educational requirements. 3. The Jena Writings (1802-06) Hegel wrote several pieces while at the University of Jena that point in the direction of some of the main theses of the Philosophy of Right. The first was entitled “On the Scientific Modes of Treatment of Natural Law–Its Place in Practical Philosophy and Its Relationship to the Positive Science of Law” (Über die wissenschaftlichen Behandlungsarten des Naturrechts…), published originally in the Kritisches Journal der Philosophie in 1802, edited jointly by Hegel and Schelling. In this piece, usually referred to as the essay on Natural Law, Hegel criticizes both the empirical and formal approaches to natural law, as exemplified in British and Kantian philosophy respectively. Empiricism reaches conclusions that are limited by the particularities of its contexts and materials and thus cannot provide universally valid propositions regarding the concepts of various social and political institutions or of the relation of reflective consciousness to social and political experience. Formalist conclusions, on the other hand, are too insubstantial and abstract in failing to properly link human reason concretely to human experience. Traditional natural law theories are based on an abstract rationalism and the attempts of Rousseau, Kant, and Fichte to remedy this through their various ethical conceptions fail to overcome abstractness. For Hegel, the proper method of philosophical science must link concretely the development of the human mind and its rational powers to actual experience. Moreover, the concept of a social and political community must transcend the instrumentalizing of the state. Hegel’s work entitled “The System of Ethical Life” (System der Sittlichkeit) was written in 1802-03 and first published in its entirety by Georg Lasson in 1913 in a volume entitled Schriften zur Politik und Rechtsphilosophie. In this work, Hegel develops a philosophical theory of social and political development that correlates with the self-development of essential human powers. Historically, humans begin in an immediate relation to nature and their social existence takes the form of natürliche Sittlichkeit, i.e., a non-selfconscious relation to nature and to others. However, the satisfaction of human desires leads to their reproduction and multiplication and leads to the necessity for labor, which induces transformation in the human world and people’s connections to it. This process leads to a self-realization that undermines the original naïve unity with nature and others and to the formation of overtly cooperative endeavors, e.g., in the making and use of tools. Another result of labor is the emergence of private property as an embodiment of human personality as well as of sets of legal relationships that institutionalize property ownership, exchange, etc., and deal with crimes against property. Furthermore, disparities in property and power lead to relationships of subordination and the use of the labor of others to satisfy one’s increasingly complex and expanded desires. Gradually, a system of mutual dependence, a “system of needs,” develops, and along with the increasing division of labor there also develops class differentiations reflecting the types of labor or activity taken up by members of each class, which Hegel classifies into the agricultural, acquisitive, and administerial classes. However, despite relations of interdependence and cooperation the members of society experience social connections as a sort of blind fate without some larger system of control which is provided by the state which regulates the economic life of society. The details of the structure of the state are unclear in this essay, but what is clear is that for Hegel the state provides an increased rationality to social practices, much in the sense that the later German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) would articulate how social practices become more rational by being codified and made more predictable. The manuscripts entitled Realphilosophie are based on lectures Hegel delivered at Jena University in 1803-04 (Realphilosophie I) and 1805-06 (Realphilosophie II), and were originally published by Johannes Hoffmeister in 1932. These writings cover much of the same ground as the System der Sittlichkeit in explicating a philosophy of mind and human experience in relation to human social and political development. Some of the noteworthy ideas in these writings are the role and significance of language for social consciousness, for giving expression to a people (Volk) and for the comprehending of and mastery of the world, and the necessity and consequences of the fragmentation of primordial social relationships and patterns as part of the process of human development. Also, there is a reiteration of the importance of property relations as crucial to social recognition and how there would be no security of property or recognition of property rights if society were to remain a mere multitude of families. Such security requires a system of control over the “struggle for recognition” through interpersonal norms, rules, and juridical authority provided by the nation state. Moreover, Hegel repeats the need for strong state regulation of the economy, which if left to its own workings is blind to the needs of the social community. The economy, especially through the division of labor, produces fragmentation and diminishment of human life (compare Marx on alienation) and the state must not only address this phenomenon but also provide the means for the people’s political participation to further the development of social self-consciousness. In all of this Hegel appears to be providing a philosophical account of modern developments both in terms of the tensions and conflicts that are new to modernity as well as in the progressive movements of reform found under the influence of Napoleon. Finally, Hegel also discusses the forms of government, the three main types being tyranny, democracy, and hereditary monarchy. Tyranny is found typically in primitive or undeveloped states, democracy exists in states where there is the realization of individual identity but no split between the public and private person, and hereditary monarchy is the appropriate form of political authority in the modern world in providing strong central government along with a system of indirect representation through Estates. The relation of religion to the state is undeveloped in these writings, but Hegel is clear about the supereminent role of the state that stands above all else in giving expression to the Spirit (Geist) of a society in a sort of earthly kingdom of God, the realization of God in the world. True religion complements and supports this realization and thus cannot properly have supremacy over or be opposed to the state. 4. The Phenomenology of Spirit The Phenomenology of Spirit (Die Phänomenologie des Geistes), published in 1807, is Hegel’s first major comprehensive philosophical work. Originally intended to be the first part of his comprehensive system of science (Wissenschaft) or philosophy, Hegel eventually considered it to be the introduction to his system. This work provides what can be called a “biography of spirit,” i.e., an account of the development of consciousness and self-consciousness in the context of some central epistemological, anthropological and cultural themes of human history. It has continuity with the works discussed above in examining the development of the human mind in relation to human experience but is more wide-ranging in also addressing fundamental questions about the meaning of perceiving, knowing, and other cognitive activities as well as of the nature of reason and reality. Given the focus of this essay, the themes of the Phenomenology to be discussed here are those directly relevant to Hegel’s social and political thought. One of the most widely discussed places in the Phenomenology is the chapter on “The Truth of Self-Certainty” which includes a subsection on “Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage.” This section treats of the (somewhat misleadingly named) “master/slave” struggle which is taken by some, especially the Marxian-inspired, as a paradigm of all forms of social conflict, in particular the struggle between social classes. It is clear that Hegel intended the scenario to typify certain features of the struggle for recognition (Anerkennung) overall, be it social, personal, etc. The conflict between master and slave (which shall be referred to hereafter as lord and bondsman as more in keeping with Hegel’s own terminology and the intended generic meaning) is one in which the historical themes of dominance and obedience, dependence and independence, etc., are philosophically introduced. Although this specific dialectic of struggle occurs only at the earliest stages of self-consciousness, it nonetheless sets up the main problematic for achieving realized self-consciousness–the gaining of self-recognition through the recognition of and by another, through mutual recognition. According to Hegel, the relationship between self and otherness is the fundamental defining characteristic of human awareness and activity, being rooted as it is in the emotion of desire for objects as well as in the estrangement from those objects, which is part of the primordial human experience of the world. The otherness that consciousness experiences as a barrier to its goal is the external reality of the natural and social world, which prevents individual consciousness from becoming free and independent. However, that otherness cannot be abolished or destroyed, without destroying oneself, and so ideally there must be reconciliation between self and other such that consciousness can “universalize” itself through the other. In the relation of dominance and subservience between two consciousnesses, say lord and bondsman, the basic problem for consciousness is the overcoming of its otherness, or put positively, the achieving of integration with itself. The relation between lord and bondsman leads to a sort of provisional, incomplete resolution of the struggle for recognition between distinct consciousnesses. Hegel asks us to consider how a struggle between two distinct consciousnesses, let us say a violent “life-or-death” struggle, would lead to one consciousness surrendering and submitting to the other out of fear of death. Initially, the consciousness that becomes lord or master proves its freedom through willingness to risk its life and not submit to the other out of fear of death, and thus not identify simply with its desire for life and physical being. Moreover, this consciousness is given acknowledgement of its freedom through the submission and dependence of the other, which turns out paradoxically to be a deficient recognition in that the dominant one fails to see a reflection of itself in the subservient one. Adequate recognition requires a mirroring of the self through the other, which means that to be successful it must be mutual. In the ensuing relationship of lordship and bondage, furthermore, the bondsman through work and discipline (motivated by fear of dying at the hands of the master or lord) transforms his subservience into a mastery over his environment, and thus achieves a measure of independence. In objectifying himself in his environment through his labor the bondsman in effect realizes himself, with his transformed environment serving as a reflection of his inherently self-realizing activity. Thus, the bondsman gains a measure of independence in his subjugation out of fear of death. In a way, the lord represents death as the absolute subjugator, since it is through fear of this master, of the death that he can impose, that the bondsman in his acquiescence and subservience is placed into a social context of work and discipline. Yet despite, or more properly, because of this subjection the bondsman is able to attain a measure of independence by internalizing and overcoming those limitations which must be dealt with if he is to produce efficiently. However, this accomplishment, the self-determination of the bondsman, is limited and incomplete because of the asymmetry that remains in his relation to the lord. Self-consciousness is still fragmented, i.e., the objectification through labor that the bondsman experiences does not coincide with the consciousness of the lord whose sense of self is not through labor but through power over the bondsman and enjoyment of the fruits of the bondsman’s labor. Only in a realm of ethical life can self-determination be fully self-conscious to the extent that universal freedom is reflected in the life of each individual member of society. Thus, in the Phenomenology consciousness must move on through the phases of Stoicism, Skepticism, and the Unhappy Consciousness before engaging in the self-articulation of Reason, and it is not until the section “Objective Spirit: The Ethical Order” that the full universalization of self-consciousness is in principle to be met with. Here we find a shape of human existence where all men work freely, serving the needs of the whole community rather than of masters, and subject only to the “discipline of reason.” This mode of ethical life, typified in ancient Greek democracy, also eventually disintegrates, as is expressed in the conflict between human and divine law and the tragic fate that is the outcome of this conflict illustrated in the story of Antigone. However, the ethical life described here is still in its immediacy and is therefore at a level of abstractness that falls short of the mediation of subjectivity and universality which is provided spiritually in revealed Christianity and politically in the modern state, which purportedly provides a solution to human conflict arising from the struggle for recognition. In any case, the rest of the Phenomenology is devoted to examinations of culture (including enlightenment and revolution), morality, religion, and finally, Absolute Knowing. The dialectic of self-determination is, for Hegel, inherent in the very structure of freedom, and is the defining feature of Spirit (Geist). The full actualization of Spirit in the human community requires the progressive development of individuality which effectively begins with the realization in self-consciousness of the “truth of self-certainty” and culminates in the shape of a shared common life in an integrated community of love and Reason, based upon the realization of truths of incarnation, death, resurrection, and forgiveness as grasped in speculative Religion. The articulation Hegel provides in the Phenomenology, however, is very generic and is to be made concrete politically with the working out of a specific conception of the modern nation-state with its particular configuration of social and political institutions. It is to the latter that we must turn in order to see how these fundamental dialectical considerations take shape in the “solution” to the struggle for recognition in self-consciousness. However, before moving directly to Hegel’s theory of the state, and history, some discussion of his Logic is in order. 5. Logic and Political Theory The Logic constitutes the first part of Hegel’s philosophical system as presented in his Encyclopedia. It was preceded by his larger work, The Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik), published in 1812-16 in two volumes. The “Encyclopedia Logic” is a shorter version intended to function as part of an “outline,” but it became longer in the course of the three published versions of 1817, 1827, and 1830. Also, the English translation by William Wallace contains additions from the notes of students who heard Hegel’s lectures on this subject. (Reference to the paragraphs of the Encyclopedia will be made with the “¶” character.) The structure of the Logic is triadic, reflecting the organization of the larger system of philosophy as well as a variety of other motifs, both internal and external to the Logic proper. The Logic has three divisions: the Doctrine of Being, the Doctrine of Essence, and the Doctrine of the Notion (or Concept). There are a number of logical categories in this work that are directly relevant to social and political theorizing. In the Doctrine of Being, for example, Hegel explains the concept of “being-for-self” as the function of self-relatedness in the resolving of opposition between self and other in the “ideality of the finite” (¶ 95-96). He claims that the task of philosophy is to bring out the ideality of the finite, and as will be seen later Hegel’s philosophy of the state is intended to articulate the ideality of the state, i.e., its affirmative and infinite or rational features. In the Doctrine of Essence, Hegel explains the categories of actuality and freedom. He says that actuality is the unity of “essence and existence” (¶ 142) and argues that this does not rule out the actuality of ideas for they become actual by being realized in external existence. Hegel will have related points to make about the actuality of the idea of the state in society and history. Also, he defines freedom not in terms of contingency or lack of determination, as is popular, but rather as the “truth of necessity,” i.e., freedom presupposes necessity in the sense that reciprocal action and reaction provide a structure for free action, e.g., a necessary relation between crime and punishment. The Doctrine of the Notion (Begriff) is perhaps the most relevant section of the Logic to social and political theory due to its focus on the various dynamics of development. This section is subdivided into three parts: the subjective notion, the objective notion, and the idea which articulates the unity of subjective and objective. The first part, the subjective notion, contains three “moments” or functional parts: universality, particularity, and individuality (¶ 163ff). These are particularly important as Hegel will show how the functional parts of the state operate according to a progressive “dialectical” movement from the first to the third moments and how the state as a whole, as a functioning and integrated totality, gives expression to the concept of individuality (in ¶198 Hegel refers to the state as “a system of three syllogisms”). Hegel treats these relationships as logical judgments and syllogisms but they do not merely articulate how the mind must operate (subjectivity) but also explain actual relationships in reality (objectivity). In objective reality we find these logical/dialectical relationships in mechanism, chemism, and teleology. Finally, in the Idea, the correspondence of the notion or concept with objective reality, we have the truth of objects or objects as they ought to be, i.e., as they correspond to their proper concepts. The logical articulation of the Idea is very important to Hegel’s explanation of the Idea of the state in modern history, for this provides the principles of rationality that guide the development of Spirit in the world and that become manifested in various ways in social and political life. 6. The Philosophy of Right In 1821, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right orginally appeared under the double title Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaften in Grundrisse; Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (Natural Law and the Science of the State; Elements of the Philosophy of Right). The work was republished by Eduard Gans in 1833 and 1854 as part of Hegel’s Werke, vol. viii and included additions from notes taken by students at Hegel’s lectures. The English language translation of this work by T. M. Knox refers to these later editions as well as to an edition published in 1923 by Georg Lasson, which included corrections from previous editions. The Philosophy of Right constitutes, along with Hegel’s Philosophy of History, the penultimate section of his Encyclopedia, the section on Objective Spirit, which deals with the human world and its array of social rules and institutions, including the moral, legal, religious, economic, and political as well as marriage, the family, social classes, and other forms of human organization. The German word Recht is often translated as ‘law’, however, Hegel clearly intends the term to have a broader meaning that captures what we might call the good or just society, one that is “rightful” in its structure, composition, and practices. In the Introduction to this work Hegel explains the concept of his philosophical undertaking along with the specific key concepts of will, freedom, and right. At the very beginning, Hegel states that the Idea of right, the concept together with its actualization, is the proper subject of the philosophical science of right (¶ 1). Hegel is emphatic that the study is scientific in that it deals in a systematic way with something essentially rational. He further remarks that the basis of scientific procedure in a philosophy of right is explicated in philosophical logic and presupposed by the former (¶ 2). Furthermore, Hegel is at pains to distinguish the historical or legal approach to “positive law” (Gesetz) and the philosophical approach to the Idea of right (Recht), the former involving mere description and compilation of laws as legal facts while the latter probes into the inner meaning and necessary determinations of law or right. For Hegel the justification of something, the finding of its inherent rationality, is not a matter of seeking its origins or longstanding features but rather of studying it conceptually. However, there is one sense in which the origin of right is relevant to philosophical science and this is the free will. The free will is the basis and origin of right in the sense that mind or spirit (Geist) generally objectifies itself in a system of right (human social and political institutions) that gives expression to freedom, which Hegel says is both the substance and goal of right (¶ 4). This ethical life in the state consists in the unity of the universal and the subjective will. The universal will is contained in the Idea of freedom as its essence, but when considered apart from the subjective will can be thought of only abstractly or indeterminately. Considered apart from the subjective or particular will, the universal will is “the element of pure indeterminacy or that pure reflection of the ego into itself which involves the dissipation of every restriction and every content either immediately presented by nature, by needs, desires, and impulses, or given and determined by any means whatever” (¶ 5). In other words, the universal will is that moment in the Idea of freedom where willing is thought of as state of absolutely unrestrained volition, unfettered by any particular circumstances or limitations whatsoever–the pure form of willing. This is expressed in the modern libertarian view of completely uncoerced choice, the absence of restraint (or “negative liberty” as understood by Thomas Hobbes). The subjective will, on the other hand, is the principle of activity and realization that involves “differentiation, determination, and positing of a determinacy as a content and object” (¶ 6). This means that the will is not merely unrestrained in acting but that it actually can give expression to the doing or accomplishing of certain things, e.g., through talent or expertise (sometimes called “positive freedom”). The unity of both the moments of abstract universality (the will in-itself) and subjectivity or particularity (the will for-itself) is the concrete universal or true individuality (the will in-and-for-itself). According to Hegel, preservation of the distinction of these two moments in the unity (identity-in-difference) between universal and particular will is what produces rational self-determination of an ego, as well as the self-consciousness of the state as a whole. Hegel’s conception of freedom as self-determination is just this unity in difference of the universal and subjective will, be it in the willing by individual persons or in the expressions of will by groups of individuals or collectivities. The “negative self-relation” of this freedom involves the subordination of the natural instincts, impulses, and desires to conscious reflection and to goals and purposes that are consciously chosen and that require commitment to rational principles in order to properly guide action. The overall structure of the Philosophy of Right is quite remarkable in its “syllogistic” organization. The main division of the work corresponds to what Hegel calls the stages in the development of “the Idea of the absolutely free will,” and these are Abstract Right, Morality, and Ethical Life. Each of these divisions is further subdivided triadically: under Abstract Right there is Property, Contract, and Wrong; under Morality falls Purpose and Responsibility, Intention and Welfare, and Good and Conscience; finally, under Ethical Life comes the Family, Civil Society, and the State. These last subdivisions are further subdivided into triads, with fourth level subdivisions occurring under Civil Society and the State. This triadic system of rubrics is no mere description of a static model of social and political life. Hegel claims that it gives expression to the conceptual development of Spirit in human society based upon the purely logical development of rationality provided in his Logic. Thus, it is speculatively based and not derivable from empirical survey, although the particularities of the system do indeed correspond to our experience and what we know about ourselves anthropologically, culturally, etc. The transition in the Logic from universality to particularity to individuality (or concrete universality) is expressed in the social and political context in the conceptual transition from Abstract Right to Morality to Ethical Life. In the realm of Abstract Right, the will remains in its immediacy as an abstract universal that is expressed in personality and in the universal right to possession of external things in property. In the realm of Morality, the will is no longer merely “in-itself,” or restricted to the specific characteristics of legal personality, but becomes free “for-itself,” i.e., it is will reflected into itself so as to produce a self-consciousness of the will’s infinity. The will is expressed, initially, in inner conviction and subsequently in purpose, intention, and conviction. As opposed to the merely juridical person, the moral agent places primary value on subjective recognition of principles or ideals that stand higher than positive law. At this stage, universality of a higher moral law is viewed as something inherently different from subjectivity, from the will’s inward convictions and actions, and so in its isolation from a system of objectively recognized legal rules the willing subject remains “abstract, restricted, and formal” (¶ 108). Because the subject is intrinsically a social being who needs association with others in order to institutionalize the universal maxims of morality, maxims that cover all people, it is only in the realm of Ethical Life that the universal and the subjective will come into a unity through the objectification of the will in the institutions of the Family, Civil Society, and the State. In what follows, we trace through Hegel’s systematic development of the “stages of the will,” highlighting only the most important points as necessary to get an overall view of this work. a. Abstract Right The subject of Abstract Right (Recht) is the person as the bearer or holder of individual rights. Hegel claims that this focus on the right of personality, while significant in distinguishing persons from mere things, is abstract and without content, a simple relation of the will to itself. The imperative of right is: “Be a person and respect others as persons” (¶ 36). In this formal conception of right, there is no question of particular interests, advantages, motives or intentions, but only the mere idea of the possibility of choosing based on the having of permission, as long as one does not infringe on the right of other persons. Because of the possibilities of infringement, the positive form of commands in this sphere are prohibitions. (1) Property (the universality of will as embodied in things) A person must translate his or her freedom into the external world “in order to exist as Idea” (¶ 41), thus abstract right manifests itself in the absolute right of appropriation over all things. Property is the category through which one becomes an object to oneself in that one actualizes the will through possession of something external. Property is the embodiment of personality and of freedom. Not only can a person put his or her will into something external through the taking possession of it and of using it, but one can also alienate property or yield it to the will of another, including the ability to labor for a restricted period of time. One’s personality is inalienable and one’s right to personality imprescriptible. This means one cannot alienate all of one’s labor time without becoming the property of another. (2) Contract (the positing of explicit universality of will) In this sphere, we have a relation of will to will, i.e., one holds property not merely by means of the subjective will externalized in a thing, but by means of another’s person’s will, and implicitly by virtue of one’s participation in a common will. The status of being an independent owner of something from which one excludes the will of another is thus mediated in the identification of one’s will with the other in the contractual relation, which presupposes that the contracting parties “recognize each other as persons and property owners” (¶ 71). (Note the significant development here beyond the dialectic of lord and bondsman.) Moreover, when contract involves the alienation or giving up of property, the external thing is now an explicit embodiment of the unity of wills. In contractual relations of exchange, what remains identical as the property of the individuals is its value, in respect to which the parties to the contract are on an equal footing, regardless of the qualitative external differences between the things exchanged. “Value is the universal in which the subjects of the contract participate” (¶ 77). (3) Wrong (the particular will opposing itself to the universal) In immediate relations of persons to one another it is possible for a particular will to be at variance with the universal through arbitrariness of decision and contingency of circumstance, and so the appearance (Erscheinung) of right takes on the character of a show (Schein), which is the inessential, arbitrary, posing as the essential. If the “show” is only implicit and not explicit also, i.e., if the wrong passes in the doer’s eyes as right, the wrong is non-malicious. In fraud a show is made to deceive the other party and so in the doer’s eyes the right asserted is only a show. Crime is wrong both in itself and from the doer’s point of view, such that wrong is willed without even the pretense or show of right. Here the form of acting does not imply a recognition of right but rather is an act of coercion through exercise of force. It is a “negatively infinite judgement” in that it asserts a denial of rights to the victim, which is not only incompatible with the fact of the matter but also self-negating in denying its own capacity for rights in principle. The penalty that falls on the criminal is not merely just but is “a right established within the criminal himself, i.e., in his objectively embodied will, in his action,” because the crime as the action of a rational being implies appeal to a universal standard recognized by the criminal (¶ 100). The annulling of crime in this sphere of immediate right occurs first as revenge, which as retributive is just in its content, but in its form it is an act of a subjective will and does not correspond with its universal content and hence as a new transgression is defective and contradictory (¶ 102). All crimes are comparable in their universal property of being injuries, thus, in a sense it is not something personal but the concept itself which carries out retribution. Crime, as the will which is implicitly null, contains its negation in itself, which is its punishment. The nullity of crime is that it has set aside right as such, but since right is absolute it cannot be set aside. Thus, the act of crime is not something positive, not a first thing, but is something negative, and punishment is the negation of crime’s negation. b. Morality The demand for justice as punishment rather than as revenge, with regard to wrong, implies the demand for a will which, though particular and subjective, also wills the universal as such. In wrong the will has become aware of itself as particular and has opposed itself to and contradicted the universal embodied in rights. At this stage the universally right is abstract and one-sided and thus requires a move to a higher level of self-consciousness where the universally right is mediated by the particular convictions of the willing subject. We go beyond the criminal’s defiance of the universal by substituting for the abstract conception of personality the more concrete conception of subjectivity. The criminal is now viewed as breaking his own law, and his crime is a self-contradiction and not only a contradiction of a right outside him. This recognition brings us to the level of morality (Moralität) where the will is free both in itself and for itself, i.e., the will is self-conscious of its subjective freedom. At the level of morality the right of the subjective will is embodied in immediate wills (as opposed to immediate things like property). The defect of this level, however, is that the subject is only for itself, i.e., one is conscious of one’s subjectivity and independence but is conscious of universality only as something different from this subjectivity. Therefore, the identity of the particular will and the universal will is only implicit and the moral point of view is that of a relation of “ought-to-be,” or the demand for what is right. While the moral will externalizes itself in action, its self-determination is a pure “restlessness” of activity that never arrives at actualization. The right of the moral will has three aspects. First, there is the right of the will to act in its external environment, to recognize as its actions only those that it has consciously willed in light of an aim or purpose (purpose and responsibility). Second, in my intention I ought to be aware not simply of my particular action but also of the universal which is conjoined with it. The universal is what I have willed and is my intention. The right of intention is that the universal quality of the action is not merely implied but is known by the agent, and so it lies from the start in one’s subjective will. Moreover, the content of such a will is not only the right of the particular subject to be satisfied but is elevated to a universal end, the end of welfare or happiness (intention and welfare). The welfare of many unspecified persons is thus also an essential end and right of subjectivity. However, right as an abstract universal and welfare as abstract particularity, may collide, since both are contingent on circumstances for their satisfaction, e.g., in cases where claims of right or welfare by someone may endanger the life of another there can be a counter-claim to a right of distress. “This distress reveals the finitude and therefore the contingency of both right and welfare” (¶ 128). This “contradiction” between right and welfare is overcome in the third aspect of the moral will, the good which is “the Idea as the unity of the concept of the will with the particular will” (¶ 129). In addition to the right of the subjective will that whatever it recognizes as valid shall be seen by it as good, and that an action shall be imputed to it as good or evil in accordance with its knowledge of the worth which the action has in its external objectivity (¶ 132), which together constitute a “right of insight,” the will also must recognize the good as its duty, which is, to begin with, duty for duty’s sake, or duty formally and without content (e.g., as expressed in the Kantian “categorical imperative”). Because of this lack of content, the subjective will in its abstract reflection into itself is “absolute inward certainty (Gewißheit) of self,” or conscience (Gewissen). While true or authentic conscience is the disposition to will what is absolutely good, and thus correspond with what is objectively right, purely formal conscience lacks an objective system of principles and duties. Although conscience is ideally supposed to mean the identity of subjective knowing and willing with the truly good, when it remains the subjective inner reflection of self-consciousness into itself its claim to this identity is deficient and one-sided. Moreover, when the determinate character of right and duty reduces to subjectivity, the mere inwardness of the will, there is the potentiality of elevating the self-will of particular individuals above the universal itself, i.e., of “slipping into evil” (¶ 139). What makes a person evil is the choosing of natural desires in opposition to the good, i.e., to the concept of the will. When an individual attempts to pass off his or her action as good, and thus imposing it on others, while being aware of the discrepancy between its negative character and the objective universal good, the person falls into hypocrisy. This is one of several forms of perverse moral subjectivity that Hegel discusses at length in his remarks (¶ 140). c. Ethical Life Hegel’s analysis of the moral implications of “good and conscience” leads to the conclusion that a concrete unity of the objective good with the subjectivity of the will cannot be achieved at the level of personal morality since all attempts at this are problematic. The concrete identity of the good with the subjective will occurs only in moving to the level of ethical life (Sittlichkeit), which Hegel says is “the Idea of freedom…the concept of freedom developed into the existing world and the nature of self-consciousness” (¶ 142). Thus, ethical life is permeated with both objectivity and subjectivity: regarded objectively it is the state and its institutions, whose force (unlike abstract right) depends entirely on the self-consciousness of citizens, on their subjective freedom; regarded subjectively it is the ethical will of the individual which (unlike the moral will) is aware of objective duties that express one’s inner sense of universality. The rationality of the ethical order of society is thus constituted in the synthesis of the concept of the will, both as universal and as particular, with its embodiment in institutional life. The synthesis of ethical life means that individuals not only act in conformity with the ethical good but that they recognize the authority of ethical laws. This authority is not something alien to individuals since they are linked to the ethical order through a strong identification which Hegel says “is more like an identity than even the relation of faith or trust” (¶ 147). The knowledge of how the laws and institutions of society are binding on the will of individuals entails a “doctrine of duties.” In duty the individual finds liberation both from dependence on mere natural impulse, which may or may not motivate ethical actions, and from indeterminate subjectivity which cannot produce a clear view of proper action. “In duty the individual acquires his substantive freedom” (¶ 149). In the performance of duty the individual exhibits virtue when the ethical order is reflected in his or her character, and when this is done by simple conformity with one’s duties it is rectitude. When individuals are simply identified with the actual ethical order such that their ethical practices are habitual and second nature, ethical life appears in their general mode of conduct as custom (Sitten). Thus, the ethical order manifests its right and validity vis-à-vis individuals. In duty “the self-will of the individual vanishes together with his private conscience which had claimed independence and opposed itself to the ethical substance. For when his character is ethical, he recognizes as the end which moves him to act the universal which is itself unmoved but is disclosed in its specific determinations as rationality actualized. He knows that his own dignity and the whole stability of his particular ends are grounded in this same universal, and it is therein that he actually attains these” (¶ 152). However, this does not deny the right of subjectivity, i.e., the right of individuals to be satisfied in their particular pursuits and free activity; but this right is realized only in belonging to an objective ethical order. The “bond of duty” will be seen as a restriction on the particular individual only if the self-will of subjective freedom is considered in the abstract, apart from an ethical order (as is the case for both Abstract Right and Morality). “Hence, in this identity of the universal will with the particular will, right and duty coalesce, and by being in the ethical order a man has rights in so far as he has duties, and duties in so far as he has rights” (¶ 155). In the realm of ethical life the logical syllogism of self-determination of the Idea is most clearly applied. The moments of universality, particularity, and individuality initially are represented respectively in the institutions of the family, civil society, and the state. The family is “ethical mind in its natural or immediate phase” and is characterized by love or the feeling of unity in which one is not conscious of oneself as an independent person but only as a member of the family unit to which one is bound. Civil society, on the other hand, comprises an association of individuals considered as self-subsistent and who have no conscious sense of unity of membership but only pursue self-interest, e.g., in satisfying needs, acquiring and protecting property, and in joining organizations for mutual advantage. Finally, the constitution of the political state brings together in a unity the sense of the importance of the whole or universal good along with the freedom of particularity of individual pursuits and thus is “the end and actuality of both the substantial order and the public life devoted thereto” (¶ 157). i. The Family The family is characterized by love which is “mind’s feeling of its own unity,” where one’s sense of individuality is within this unity, not as an independent individual but as a member essentially related to the other family members. Thus, familial love implies a contradiction between, on the one hand, not wanting to be a self-subsistent and independent person if that means feeling incomplete and, on the other hand, wanting to be recognized in another person. Familial love is truly an ethical unity, but because it is nonetheless a subjective feeling it is limited in sustaining unity (pars. 158-59, and additions). (A) Marriage The union of man and woman in marriage is both natural and spiritual, i.e., is a physical relationship and one that is also self-conscious, and it is entered into on the basis of the free consent of the persons. Since this consent involves bringing two persons into a union, there is the mutual surrender of their natural individuality for the sake of union, which is both a self-restriction and also a liberation because in this way individuals attain a higher self-consciousness. (B) Family Capital The family as a unit has its external existence in property, specifically capital (Vermögen) which constitutes permanent and secured possessions that allow for endurance of the family as “person” (¶ 170). This capital is the common property of all the family members, none of whom possess property of their own, but it is administered by the head of the family, the husband. (C) Education of Children & Dissolution of the Family Children provide the external and objective basis for the unity of marriage. The love of the parents for their children is the explicit expression of their love for each other, while their immediate feelings of love for each other are only subjective. Children have the right to maintenance and education, and in this regard a claim upon the family capital, but parents have the right to provide this service to the children and to instill discipline over the wishes of their children. The education of children has a twofold purpose: the positive aim of instilling ethical principles in them in the form of immediate feeling and the negative one of raising them out of the instinctive physical level. Marriage can be dissolved not by whim but by duly constituted authority when there is total estrangement of husband and wife. The ethical dissolution of the family results when the children have been educated to be free and responsible persons and they are of mature age under the law. The natural dissolution of the family occurs with the death of the parents, the result of which is the passing of inheritance of property to the surviving family members. The disintegration of the family exhibits its immediacy and contingency as an expression of the ethical Idea (pars. 173-80). ii. Civil Society With civil society (bürgerliche Gesellschaft) we move from the family or “the ethical idea still in its concept,” where consciousness of the whole or totality is focal, to the “determination of particularity,” where the satisfaction of subjective needs and desires is given free reign (pars. 181-182). However, despite the pursuit of private or selfish ends in relatively unrestricted social and economic activity, universality is implicit in the differentiation of particular needs insofar as the welfare of an individual in society is intrinsically bound up with that of others, since each requires another in some way to effectively engage in reciprocal activities like commerce, trade, etc. Because this system of interdependence is not self-conscious but exists only in abstraction from the individual pursuit of need satisfaction, here particularity and universality are only externally related. Hegel says that “this system may be prima facie regarded as the external state, the state based on need, the state as the Understanding (Verstand) envisages it” (¶ 183). However, civil society is also a realm of mediation of particular wills through social interaction and a means whereby individuals are educated (Bildung) through their efforts and struggles toward a higher universal consciousness. (A) The System of Needs This dimension of civil society involves the pursuit of need satisfaction. Humans are different from animals in their ability to multiply needs and differentiate them in various ways, which leads to their refinement and luxury. Political economy discovers the necessary interconnections in the social and universalistic side of need. Work is the mode of acquisition and transformation of the means for satisfying needs as well as a mode of practical education in abilities and understanding. Work also reveals the way in which people are dependent upon one another in their self-seeking and how each individual contributes to the need satisfaction of all others. Society generates a “universal permanent capital” (¶ 199) that everyone in principle can draw upon, but the natural inequalities between individuals will translate into social inequalities. Furthermore, labor undergoes a division according to the complexities of the system of production, which is reflected in social class divisions: the agricultural (substantial or immediate); the business (reflecting or formal); and the civil servants (universal). Membership in a class is important for gaining status and recognition in a civil society. Hegel says that “A man actualizes himself only in becoming something definite, i.e., something specifically particularized; this means restricting himself exclusively to one of the particular spheres of need. In this class-system, the ethical frame of mind therefore is rectitude and esprit de corps, i.e., the disposition to make oneself a member of one of the moments of civil society by one’s own act … in this way gaining recognition both in one’s own eyes and in the eyes of others” (¶ 207). The “substantial” agricultural class is based upon family relationships whose capital is in the products of nature, such as the land, and tends to be patriarchial, unreflective, and oriented toward dependence rather than free activity. In contrast to this focus on “immediacy,” the business class is oriented toward work and reflection, e.g., in transforming raw materials for use and exchange, which is a form of mediation of humans to one another. The main activities of the business class are craftsmanship, manufacture, and trade. The third class is the class of civil servants, which Hegel calls the “universal class” because it has the universal interests of society as its concern. Members of this class are relieved from having to labor to support themselves and maintain their livelihood either from private resources such as inheritance or are paid a salary by the state as members of the bureaucracy. These individuals tend to be highly educated and must qualify for appointment to government positions on the basis of merit. (B) Administration of Justice The principle of rightness becomes civil law (Gesetz) when it is posited, and in order to have binding force it must be given determinate objective existence. To be determinately existent, laws must be made universally known through a public legal code. Through a rational legal system, private property and personality are given legal recognition and validity in civil society, and wrongdoing now becomes an infringement, not merely of the subjective right of individuals but also of the larger universal will that exists in ethical life. The court of justice is the means whereby right is vindicated as something universal by addressing particular cases of violation or conflict without mere subjective feeling or private bias. “Instead of the injured party, the injured universal now comes on the scene, and … this pursuit consequently ceases to be the subjective and contingent retribution of revenge and is transformed into the genuine reconciliation of right with itself, i.e, into punishment” (¶ 220). Moreover, court proceedings and legal processes must take place according to rights and rules of evidence; judicial proceedings as well as the laws themselves must be made public; trial should be by jury; and punishment should fit the crime. Finally, in the administration of justice, “civil society returns to its concept, to the unity of the implicit universal with the subjective particular, although here the latter is only that present in single cases and the universality in question is that of abstract right” (¶ 229). (C) The Police and the Corporation The Police (Polizei) for Hegel is understood broadly as the public authorities in civil society. In addition to crime fighting organizations, it includes agencies that provide oversight over public utilities as well as regulation of and, when necessary, intervention into activities related to the production, distribution, and sale of goods and services, or with any of the contingencies that can affect the rights and welfare of individuals and society generally (e.g., defense of the public’s right not to be defrauded, and also the management of goods inspection). Also, the public authority superintends education and organizes the relief of poverty. Poverty must be addressed both through private charity and public assistance since in civil society it constitutes a social wrong when poverty results in the creation of a class of “penurious rabble” (¶ 245). Society looks to colonization to increase its wealth but poverty remains a problem with no apparent solution. The corporation (Korporation) applies especially to the business class, since this class is concentrated on the particularities of social existence and the corporation has the function of bringing implicit similarities between various private interests into explicit existence in forms of association. This is not the same as our contemporary business corporation but rather is a voluntary association of persons based on occupational or various social interests (such as professional and trade guilds, educational clubs, religious societies, townships, etc.) Because of the integrating function of the corporation, especially in regard to the social and economic division of labor, what appear as selfish purposes in civil society are shown to be at the same time universal through the formation of concretely recognized commonalities. Hegel says that “a Corporation has the right, under the surveillance of the public authority, (a) to look after its own interests within its own sphere, (b) to co-opt members, qualified objectively by requisite skill and rectitude, to a number fixed by the general structure of society, (c) to protect its members against particular contingencies, (d) to provide the education requisite to fit other to become members. In short, the right is to come on the scene like a second family for its members …” (¶ 252). Furthermore, the family is assured greater stability of livelihood insofar as its providers are corporation members who command the respect due to them in their social positions. “Unless he is a member of an authorized Corporation (and it is only by being authorized that an association becomes a Corporation), an individual is without rank or dignity, his isolation reduces his business to mere self-seeking, and his livelihood and satisfaction become insecure” (¶ 253). Because individual self-seeking is raised to a higher level of common pursuits, albeit restricted to the interest of a sectional group, individual self-consciousness is raised to relative universality. Hence, “As the family was the first, so the Corporation is the second ethical root of the state, the one planted in civil society” (¶ 255). iii. The State The political State, as the third moment of Ethical Life, provides a synthesis between the principles governing the Family and those governing Civil Society. The rationality of the state is located in the realization of the universal substantial will in the self-consciousness of particular individuals elevated to consciousness of universality. Freedom becomes explicit and objective in this sphere. “Since the state is mind objectified, it is only as one of its members that the individual has objectivity, genuine individuality, and an ethical life … and the individual’s destiny is the living of a universal life” (¶ 258). Rationality is concrete in the state in so far as its content is comprised in the unity of objective freedom (freedom of the universal or substantial will) and subjective freedom (freedom of everyone in knowing and willing of particular ends); and in its form rationality is in self-determining action or laws and principles which are logical universal thoughts (as in the logical syllogism). The Idea of the State is itself divided into three moments: (a) the immediate actuality of the state as a self-dependent organism, or Constitutional Law; (b) the relation of states to other states in International Law; (c) the universal Idea as Mind or Spirit which gives itself actuality in the process of World-History. 1) Constitutional Law (1) The Constitution (internally) Only through the political constitution of the State can universality and particularity be welded together into a real unity. The self-consciousness of this unity is expressed in the recognition on the part of each citizen that the full meaning of one’s actual freedom is found in the objective laws and institutions provided by the State. The aspect of identity comes to the fore in the recognition that individual citizens give to the ethical laws such that they “do not live as private persons for their own ends alone, but in the very act of willing these they will the universal in the light of the universal, and their activity is consciously aimed at none but the universal end” (¶ 260). The aspect of differentiation, on the other hand, is found in “the right of individuals to their particular satisfaction,” the right of subjective freedom which is maintained in Civil Society. Thus, according to Hegel, “the universal must be furthered, but subjectivity on the other hand must attain its full and living development. It is only when both these moments subsist in their strength that the state can be regarded as articulated and genuinely organized” (¶ 260, addition). As was indicated in the introduction to the concept of Ethical Life above, the higher authority of the laws and institutions of society requires a doctrine of duties. From the vantage point of the political State, this means that there must be a correlation between rights and duties. “In the state, as something ethical, as the inter-penetration of the substantive and the particular, my obligation to what is substantive is at the same time the embodiment of my particular freedom. This means that in the state duty and right are united in one and the same relation” (¶ 261). In fulfilling one’s duties one is also satisfying particular interests, and the conviction that this is so Hegel calls “political sentiment” (politische Gesinnung) or patriotism. “This sentiment is, in general, trust (which may pass over into a greater or lesser degree of educated insight), or the consciousness that my interest, both substantive and particular, is contained and preserved in another’s (that is, the state’s) interest and end, i.e., in the other’s relation to me as an individual” (¶ 268). Thus, the “bond of duty” cannot involve being coerced into obeying the laws of the State. “Commonplace thinking often has the impression that force holds the state together, but in fact its only bond is the sense of order which everybody possesses” (¶ 268, addition). According to Hegel, the political state is rational in so far as it inwardly differentiates itself according to the nature of the Concept (Begriff). The principle of the division of powers expresses inner differentiation, but while these powers are distinguished they must also be built into an organic whole such that each contains in itself the other moments so that the political constitution is a concrete unity in difference. Constitutional Law is accordingly divided into three moments: (a) the Legislature which establishes the universal through lawmaking; (b) the Executive which subsumes the particular under the universal through administering the laws; (c) the Crown which is the power of subjectivity of the state in the providing of the act of “ultimate decision” and thus forming into unity the other two powers. Despite the syllogistic sequence of universality, particularity, and individuality in these three constitutional powers, Hegel discusses the Crown first followed by the Executive and the Legislature respectively. Hegel understands the concept of the Crown in terms of constitutional monarchy. (a) The Crown “The power of the crown contains in itself the three moments of the whole, namely, (a) the universality of the constitution and the laws; (b) counsel, which refers the particular to the universal; and (g) the moment of ultimate decision, as the self-determination to which everything else reverts and from which everything else derives the beginning of its actuality” (¶ 275). The third moment is what gives expression to the sovereignty of the state, i.e., that the various activities, agencies, functions and powers of the state are not self-subsistent but rather have their basis ultimately in the unity of the state as a single self or self-organized organic whole. The monarch is the bearer of the individuality of the state and its sovereignty is the ideality in unity in which the particular functions and powers of the state subsist. “It is only as a person, the monarch, that the personality of the state is actual. Personality expresses the concept as such; but the person enshrines the actuality of the concept, and only when the concept is determined as a person is it the Idea or truth” (¶ 279). The monarch is not a despot but rather a constitutional monarch, and he does not act in a capricious manner but is bound by a decision-making process, in particular to the recommendations and decisions of his cabinet (supreme advisory council). The monarch functions solely to give agency to the state, and so his personal traits are irrelevant and his ascending to the throne is based on hereditary succession, and thus on the accident of birth. “In a completely organized state, it is only a question of the culminating point of formal decision … he has only to say ‘yes’ and dot the ‘i’ …. In a well organized monarchy, the objective aspect belongs to law alone, and the monarch’s part is merely to set to the law the subjective ‘I will’” (¶ 280, addition). The “majesty of the monarch” lies in the free asserting of ‘I will’ as an expression of the unity of the state and the final step in establishing law. (b) The Executive The executive has the task of executing and applying the decisions formally made by the monarch. “This task of merely subsuming the particular under the universal is comprised in the executive power, which also includes the powers of the judiciary and the police” (¶ 287). Also, the executive is the higher authority that oversees the filling of positions of responsibilities in corporations. The executive is comprised of the civil servants proper and the higher advisory officials organized into committees, both of which are connected to the monarch through their supreme departmental heads. Overall, government has its division of labor into various centers of administration managed by special officials. Individuals are appointed to executive functions on the basis of their knowledgibility and proof of ability and tenure is conditional on the fulfillment of duties, with the offices in the civil service being open to all citizens. The executive is not an unchecked bureaucratic authority. “The security of the state and its subjects against the misuse of power by ministers and their officials lies directly in their hierarchical organization and their answerability; but it lies too in the authority given to societies and corporations …” (¶ 295). However, civil servants will tend to be dispassionate, upright, and polite in part as “a result of direct education in thought and ethical conduct” (¶ 296). Civil servants and the members of the executive make up the largest section of the middle class, the class with a highly developed intelligence and consciousness of right. Moreover, “The sovereign working on the middle class at the top, and Corporation-rights working on it at the bottom, are the institutions which effectively prevent it from acquiring the isolated position of an aristocracy and using its education and skill as a means to an arbitrary tyranny” (¶ 297). (c) The Legislature For Hegel, “The legislature is concerned (a) with the laws as such in so far as they require fresh and extended determination; and (b) with the content of home affairs affecting the entire state” (¶ 298). Legislative activity focuses on both providing well-being and happiness for citizens as well as exacting services from them (largely in the form of monetary taxes). The proper function of legislation is distinguished from the function of administration and state regulation in that the content of the former are determinate laws that are wholly universal whereas in administration it is application of the law to particulars, along with enforcing the law. Hegel also says that the other two moments of the political constitution, the monarchy and the executive, are the first two moments of the legislature, i.e., are reflected in the legislature respectively through the ultimate decision regarding proposed laws and an advising function in their formation. Hegel rejects the idea of independence or separation of powers for the sake of checks and balances, which he holds destroys the unity of the state (¶ 300, addition). The third moment in the legislature is the estates (Stände), which are the classes of society given political recognition in the legislature. In the legislature, the estates “have the function of bringing public affairs into existence not only implicitly, but also actually, i.e., of bringing into existence the moment of subjective formal freedom, the public consciousness as an empirical universal, of which the thoughts and opinions of the Many are particulars” (¶ 301). Not only do the estates guarantee the general welfare and public freedom, but they are also the means by which the state as a whole enters the subjective consciousness of the people through their participation in the state. Thus, the estates incorporate the private judgment and will of individuals in civil society and give it political significance. The estates have an important integrating function in the state overall. “Regarded as a mediating organ, the Estates stand between the government in general on the one hand, and the nation broken up into particulars (people and associations) on the other. … [I]n common with the organized executive, they are a middle term preventing both the extreme isolation of the power of the crown … and also the isolation of the particular interests of persons, societies and Corporations” (¶ 302). Also, the organizing function of the estates prevents groups in society from becoming formless masses that could form anti-government feelings and rise up in blocs in opposition to the state. The three classes of civil society, the agricultural, the business, and the universal class of civil servants, are each given political voice in the Estates Assembly in accordance with their distinctiveness in the lower spheres of civil life. The legislature is divided into two houses, an upper and lower. The upper house comprises the agricultural estate (including the peasant farmers and landed aristocracy), a class “whose ethical life is natural, whose basis is family life, and, so far as its livelihood is concerned, the possession of land. Its particular members attain their position by birth, just as the monarch does, and, in common with him, they possess a will which rests on itself alone” (¶ 305). Landed gentry inherit their estates and so owe their position to birth (primogeniture) and thus are free from the exigencies and uncertainties of the life of business and state interference. The relative independence of this class makes it particularly suited for public office as well as a mediating element between the crown and civil society. The second section of the estates, the business class, comprises the “fluctuating and changeable element in civil society” which can enter politics only through its deputies or representatives (unlike the agricultural estate from which members can present themselves to the Estates Assembly in person). The appointment of deputies is “made by society as a society” both because of the multiplicity of members but also because representation must reflect the organization of civil society into associations, communities, and corporations. It is only as a member of such groups that an individual is a member of the state, and hence rational representation implies that consent to legislation is to be given not directly by all but only by “plenipotentiaries” who are chosen on the basis of their understanding of public affairs as well as managerial and political acumen, character, insight, etc. Moreover, their charge is to further the general interest of society and not the interest of a particular association or corporation instead (¶ 308-10). The deputies of civil society are selected by the various corporations, not on the basis of universal direct suffrage which Hegel believed inevitably leads to electoral indifference, and they adopt the point of view of society. “Deputies are sometimes regarded as ‘representatives’; but they are representatives in an organic, rational sense only if they are representatives not of individuals or a conglomeration of them, but of one of the essential spheres of society and its large-scale interests. Hence, representation cannot now be taken to mean simply the substitution of one man for another; the point is that the interest itself is actually present in its representative, while he himself is there to represent the objective element of his own being” (¶ 311). The debates that take place in the Estates Assembly are to be open to the public, whereby citizens can become politically educated both about national affairs and the true character of their own interests. “The formal subjective freedom of individuals consists in their having and expressing their own private judgements, opinions, and recommendations as affairs of state. This freedom is collectively manifested as what is called ‘public opinion’, in which what is absolutely universal, the substantive and the true, is linked with its opposite, the purely particular and private opinions of the Many” (¶ 316). Public opinion is a “standing self-contradiction” because, on the one hand, it gives expression to genuine needs and proper tendencies of common life along with common sense views about important matters and, on the other, is infected with accidental opinion, ignorance, and faulty judgment. “Public opinion therefore deserves to be as much respected as despised — despised for its concrete expression and for the concrete consciousness it expresses, respected for its essential basis, a basis which only glimmers more or less dimly in that concrete expression” (¶ 318). Moreover, while there is freedom of public communication, freedom of the press is not totally unrestricted as freedom does not mean absence of all restriction, either in word or deed. Hegel calls the class of civil servants the “universal class” not only because as members of the executive their function is to “subsume the particular under the universal” in the administration of law, but also because they reflect a disposition of mind (due perhaps largely from their education) that transcends concerns with selfish ends in the devotion to the discharge of public functions and to the public universal good. As one of the classes of the estates, civil servants also participate in the legislature as an “unofficial class,” which seems to mean that as members of the executive they will attend legislative assemblies in an advisory capacity, but this is not entirely clear from Hegel’s text. Also, given that the monarch and the classes of civil society when conceived in abstraction are opposed to each other as “the one and the many,” they must become “fused into a unity” or mediated together through the civil servant class. From the point of view of the crown the executive is such a middle term, because it carries out the final decisions of the crown and makes it “particularized” in civil society. On the other hand, in order for the classes of civil society to actually sense this unity with the crown a mediation must occur from the other direction, so to speak, where the upper house of the estates, in virtue of certain likenesses to the Crown (e.g., role of birth for one’s position) is able to mediate between the Crown and civil society as a whole. (2) Sovereignty vis-à-vis foreign States The interpenetration of the universal with the particular will through a complex system of social and political mediations is what produces the self-consciousness of the nation-state considered as an organic (internally differentiated and interrelated) totality or concrete individual. In this system, particular individuals consciously pursue the universal ends of the State, not out of external or mechanical conformity to law, but in the free development of personal individuality and the expression of the unique subjectivity of each. However, individuality is not something possessed by particular persons alone, or even primarily by such persons. The state as a whole, i.e., the nation-state as distinct from the political state as one of its moments, constitutes a higher form of individuality. In principle, Mind or Spirit possesses a singleness in its “negative self-relation,” i.e., in the sense that unity in a being is a function of setting itself off from other beings. “Individuality is awareness of one’s existence as a unit in sharp distinction from others. It manifests itself here in the state as a relation to other states, each of which is autonomous vis-à-vis the others. This autonomy embodies mind’s actual awareness of itself as a unit and hence it is the most fundamental freedom which a people possesses as well as its highest dignity” (¶ 322). For any being to have self-conscious independence requires distinguishing the self from any of its contingent characteristics (inner self-negation), which externally is a distinction from another being. This consciousness of what one is not is for the nation-state its negative relation to itself embodied externally in the world as the relation of one state to another. However, this is not a mere externality, “But in fact this negative relation is that moment in the state which is most supremely its own, the state’s actual infinity as the ideality of everything finite within it” (¶ 323). According to Hegel, war is an “ethical moment” in the life of a nation-state and hence is neither purely accidental nor an inherent evil. Because there is no higher earthly power ruling over nation-states, and because these entities are oriented to preserving their existence and sovereignty, conflicts leading to war are inevitable. Also, defense of one’s nation is an ethical duty and the ultimate test of one’s patriotism is war. “Sacrifice on behalf of the individuality of the state is the substantial tie between the state and all its members and so is a universal duty” (¶ 325). In making a sacrifice for the sake of the state individuals prove their courage, which involves a transcendence of concern with egoistic interests and mere material existence. “The intrinsic worth of courage as a disposition of mind is to be found in the genuine absolute, final end, the sovereignty of the state. The work of courage is to actualize this final end, and the means to this end is the sacrifice of personal actuality” (¶ 328). Moreover, war, along with catastrophy, disease, etc, highlights the finitude, insecurity, and ultimate transitoriness of human existence and puts the health of a state to a test. Hegel does not consider the ideal of “perpetual peace,” as advocated by Kant, a realistic goal towards which humanity can strive. Not only is the sovereignty of each state imprescriptible, but any alliance or league of states will be established in opposition to others. 2) International Law “International law springs from the relations between autonomous states. It is for this reason that what is absolute in it retains the form of an ought-to-be, since its actuality depends on different wills each of which is sovereign” (¶ 330). States are not private persons in civil society who pursue their self-interest in the context of universal interdependence but rather are completely autonomous entities with no relations of private right or morality. However, since a state cannot escape having relations with other states, there must be at least some sort of recognition of each by the other. International law prescribes that treaties between states ought to be kept, but this universal proviso remains abstract because the sovereignty of a state is its guiding principle, hence states are to that extent in a state of nature in relation to each other (in the Hobbesian sense of there being natural rights to one’s survival with no natural duties to others). “Their rights are actualized only in their particular wills and not in a universal will with constitutional powers over them. This universal proviso of international law therefore does not go beyond an ought-to-be, and what really happens is that international relations in accordance with treaty alternate with the severance of these relations” (¶ 333). Obviously, if states come to disagree about the nature of their treaties, etc., and there is no acceptable compromise for each party, then matters will ultimately be settled by war. States recognize their own welfare as the highest law governing their relations to one another, however, the claim by a state to recognition of this welfare is quite different from claims to welfare by individual person in civil society. “The ethical substance, the state, has its determinate being, i.e., its right, directly embodied in something existent … and the principle of its conduct and behavior can only be this concrete existent and not one of many universal thoughts supposed to be moral commands” (¶ 337). States recognize each other as states, and even in war there is awareness of the possibility that peace can be restored and that therefore war ought to come to an end, as well as understandings about the proper limitations on the waging of war. However, at most this translates into the jus gentium, the law of nations understood as customary relationships, which remains a “maelstrom of external contingency.” The principles of the mind or spirit (Volksgeist) of a nation-state are wholly restricted because its particularity is already that of realized individuality, possessing objective actuality and self-consciousness. Hence, the reciprocal relations of states to one another partake of a “dialectic of finitude” out of which arises the universal mind, “the mind of the world, free from all restriction, producing itself as that which exercises its right–and its right is the highest right of all–over these finite minds in the ‘history of the world which is the world’s court of judgment’” (¶ 340). 3) World History To say that history is the world’s court of judgment is to say that over and above the nation-states, or national “spirits,” there is the mind or Spirit of the world (Weltgeist) which pronounces its verdict through the development of history itself. The verdicts of world history, however, are not expressions of mere might, which in itself is abstract and non-rational. Rather than blind destiny, “world history is the necessary development, out of the concepts of mind’s freedom alone, of the moments of reason and so of the self-consciousness and freedom of mind” (¶ 342). The history of Spirit is the development through time of its own self-consciousness through the actions of peoples, states, and world historical actors who, while absorbed in their own interests, are nonetheless the unconscious instruments of the work of Spirit. “All actions, including world-historical actions, culminate with individuals as subjects giving actuality to the substantial. They are the living instruments of what is in substance the deed of the world mind and they are therefore directly at one with that deed though it is concealed from them and is not their aim and object” (¶ 348). The actions of great men are produced through their subjective willing and their passion, but the substance of these deeds is actually the accomplishment not of the individual agent but of the World Spirit (e.g., the founding of states by world-historical heroes). Hegel says that in the history of the world we can distinguish several important formations of the self-consciousness of Spirit in the course of its free self-development, each corresponding to a significant principle. More specifically, there are four world-historical epochs, each manifesting a principle of Spirit as expressed through a dominant culture. In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel discusses these in a very abbreviated way in paragraphs 253-260, which brings this work to an end. Here we will draw from the more elaborated treatment in the appendix to the introduction to Hegel’s lectures on the Philosophy of World History. (1) The Oriental Realm (mind in its immediate substance) Here Spirit exists in its substantiality (objectivity) without inward differentiation. Individuals have no self-consciousness of personality or of rights–they are still immersed in external nature (and their divinities are naturalistic as well). Hegel characterizes this stage as one of consciousness in its immediacy, where subjectivity and substantiality are unmediated. In his Philosophy of History Hegel discusses China, India, and Persia specifically and suggests that these cultures do not actually have a history but rather are subject to natural cyclical processes. The typical governments of these cultures are theocratic and more particularly despotism, aristocracy, and monarchy respectively. Persia and Egypt are seen as transitional from these “unhistorical” and “non-political” states. Hegel calls this period the “childhood” of Spirit. (2) The Greek Realm (mind in the simple unity of subjective and objective) In this realm, we have the mixing of subjective freedom and substantiality in the ethical life of the Greek polis, because the ancient Greek city-states give expression to personal individuality for those who are free and have status. However, the relation of individual to the state is not self-conscious but is unreflective and based on obedience to custom and tradition. Hence, the immediate union of subjectivity with the substantial mind is unstable and leads to fragmentation. This is the period of the “adolescence” of Spirit. (3) The Roman Realm (mind in its abstract universality) At this stage, individual personality is recognized in formal rights, thus including a level of reflection absent in the Greek realm of “beautiful freedom.” Here freedom is difficult because the universal subjugates individuals, i.e., the state becomes an abstraction over above its citizens who must be sacrificed to the severe demands of a state in which individuals form a homogeneous mass. A tension between the two principles of individuality and universality ensues, manifesting itself in the formation of political despotism and insurgency against it. This realm gives expression to the “manhood” of Spirit. (4) The Germanic Realm (reconciled unity of subjective and objective mind) This realm comprises along with Germany and the Nordic peoples the major European nations (France, Italy, Spain) along with England. The principle of subjective freedom comes to the fore in such a way as to be made explicit in the life of Spirit and also mediated with substantiality. This involves a gradual development that begins with the rise of Christianity and its spiritual reconciliation of inner and outer life and culminates in the appearance of the modern nation-state, the rational Idea of which is articulated in the Philosophy of Right. (Along the way there are several milestones Hegel discusses in his Philosophy of History that are especially important in the developing of the self-consciousness of freedom, in particular the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution.) One of the significant features of the modern world is the overcoming of the antithesis of church and state that developed in the Medieval period. This final stage of Spirit is mature “old age.” In sum, for Hegel the modern nation-state can be said to manifest a “personality” and a self-consciousness of its inherent nature and goals, indeed a self-awareness of everything which is implicit in its concept, and is able to act rationally and in accordance with its self-awareness. The modern nation-state is a “spiritual individual,” the true historical individual, precisely because of the level of realization of self-consciousness that it actualizes. The development of the perfected nation-state is the end or goal of history because it provides an optimal level of realization of self-consciousness, a more comprehensive level of realization of freedom than mere natural individuals, or other forms of human organization, can produce. 7. Closing Remarks In closing this account of Hegel’s theory of the state, a few words on a “theory and practice” problem of the modern state. In the preface to the Philosophy of Right Hegel is quite clear that his science of the state articulates the nature of the state, not as it ought to be, but as it really is, as something inherently rational. Hegel’s famous quote in this regard is “What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational,” where by the ‘actual’ (Wirklich) Hegel means not the merely existent, i.e., a state that can be simply identified empirically, but the actualized or realized state, i.e., one that corresponds to its rational concept and thus in some sense must be perfected. Later in the introduction of the Idea of the state in paragraph 258, Hegel is at pains to distinguish the Idea of the state from a state understood in terms of its historical origins and says that while the state is the way of God in the world we must not focus on particular states or on particular institutions of the state, but only on the Idea itself. Furthermore he says, “The state is no ideal work of art; it stands on earth and so in the sphere of caprice, chance, and error, and bad behavior may disfigure it in many respects. But the ugliest of men, or a criminal, or an invalid, or a cripple, is still always a living man. The affirmative, life, subsists despite his defects, and it is this affirmative factor which is our theme here” (¶ 258, addition). The issue, then, is whether the actual state — the subject of philosophical science — is only a theoretical possibility and whether from a practical point of view all existing states are in some way disfigured or deficient. Our ability to rationally distill from existing states their ideal characteristics does not entail that a fully actualized state does, or will, exist. Hence, there is perhaps some ambiguity in Hegel’s claim about the modern state as an actualization of freedom. 8. References and Further Reading a. Works by Hegel in German and in English Translation Below are works by Hegel that relate most directly to his social and political philosophy. Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, Berlin 1830; ed. G. Lasson & O. Pöggler (Hamburg, 1959). In the third volume of this work, The Philosophy of Spirit, the section on Objective Spirit corresponds to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, ed. J. Hoffmeister. Hamburg, 1955. Hegels Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 2nd edn. hrsg. G. Lasson. Leipzig, 1921. This is the most recent edition referred to in T. M. Knox’s translation of 1952. Hegel’s Logic, trans. William Wallace. Oxford University Press, 1892. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller. Oxford University Press, 1977. Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind, trans. William Wallace & A. V. Miller. Oxford University Press, 1971. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox. Clarendon Press, 1952; Oxford University Press, 1967. Hegel’s Political Writings, trans. T. M. Knox, with an introductory essay by Z. A. Pelczynski. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964. This contains the following pieces: “The German Constitution,” “On the Recent Domestic Affairs of Wurtemberg …,” “The Proceedings of the Estates Assembly in the Kingdom of Wurtemberg, 1815-1816,” and “The English Reform Bill.” Hegels sämtliche Werke, vol. VIII, ed. E. Gans. Berlin: 1833, 1st ed.; 1854, 2nd ed.. These were the first editions of the material of The Philosophy of Right to incorporate additions culled from notes taken at Hegel’s lectures. T. M. Knox reproduces these in his 1952 translation. Jenaer Realphilosophie I: Die Vorlesungen von 1803/4, ed. J. Hoffmeister. Leipzig, 1913. Jenaer Realphilosophie II: Die Vorlesungen von 1805/6, ed. J. Hoffmeister. Hamburg, 1967. Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction, trans. H. B. Nisbet, with an introduction by Duncan Forbes. Cambridge University Press, 1975. This is based on the 1955 German edition by J. Hoffmeister. Natural Law, trans. T. M. Knox, with an introduction by H. B. Acton. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977. Phänomenologie des Geistes, ed. J. Hoffmeister. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1952. The Philosophy of History, trans. J. B. Sibree. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1956. This is a reprint of the 1899 translation (the first was done in 1857) of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History, published by Colonial House Press. The Dover edition has a new introduction by C. J. Friedrich. Political Writings. Eds. L. Dickie & H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Politische Schriften, Nachwort von Jürgen Habermas. Frankfurt/Main, 1966. A more recent edition of the material of the Schriften zur Politik (see below). Reason in History, trans. R. S. Hartman. New York, 1953. The introduction to Hegel’s lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Schriften zur Politik und Rechtsphilosophie, 2nd ed. hrsg. Georg Lasson. Leipzig, 1923. This is the basis of T. M. Knox’s translations in Hegel’s Political Writings, 1964. System of Ethical Life and First Philosophy of Spirit, trans. H. S. Harris & T. M. Knox. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1979. Die Vernunft in der Geschichte, ed. J. Hoffmeister. Hamburg, 1955. This is the fourth edition of Hegel’s lectures on the Philosophy of World History given in Berlin from 1822-1830; the previous editions were done by Eduard Gans (1837), Karl Hegel (1840), and Georg Lasson (1917, 1920, 1930). In the 1930 edition, Lasson added additional manuscript material by Hegel as well as lecture notes from students, which are preserved in Hoffmeister’s edition. Werke. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970. This is the most recent and comprehensive collection of Hegel’s works. His social and political writings are contained in various volumes. b. Works on Hegel’s Social and Political Philosophy The books listed below either focus on one or more aspects of Hegel’s social and political thought or include some discussion in this area and, moreover, are significant enough works on Hegel to be included. The most comprehensive bibliography on Hegel is Hegel-Bibliographie (München: K. G Saur Verlag, 1980). For books and articles in the last 25 years, consult the Philosopher’s Index. Avineri, Shlomo. Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Bosanquet, Bernard. The Philosophical Theory of the State. 4th edition, London: Macmillan, 1930, 1951. Cullen, Bernard. Hegel’s Social and Political Thought: An Introduction. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979. Findlay, John. Hegel: A Re-examination (1958). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. Foster, Michael B. The Political Philosophies of Plato and Hegel. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935/1968. Dickey, Laurence. Religion, Economics, and the Politics of Spirit. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Franco, Paul. Hegel’s Philosophy of Freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. Gray, Jesse Glen. Hegel And Greek Thought. New York: Harper & Row, 1968. Hardimon, Michael O. Hegel’s Social Philosophy: The Project of Reconciliation. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Harris, H. S. Hegel’s Development, vols. 1 & 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, 1983. Haym, Rudolf. Hegel und seine Zeit. Berlin, 1857; Hildenshine, 1962). Henrich, Dieter & R. P. Horstman. Hegels Philosophie des Rechts. Stuttgart: Klett-Catta, 1982. Hicks, Steven V. International Law and the Possibility of a Just World Order: An Essay on Hegel’s Universalism. Value Inquiry Book Series 78. Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1999. Hyppolite, Jean. Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1946). Trans. S. Cherniak & J. Heckman. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974. Kainz, Howard P. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right with Marx’s Commentary. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1974. Kaufman, Walter A. Hegel’s Political Philosophy. New York: Atherton Press, 1970. ________. Hegel: A Reinterpretation. New York: Anchor Books, 1966. Kelly, George Armstrong. Hegel’s Retreat From Eleusis: Studies In Political Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. Kojeve, Alexander. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (1947). Ed. Allen Bloom, trans. J. H. Nichols. New York: Basic Books, 1969. Lakeland, Paul. The Politics of Salvation: The Hegelian Idea of the State. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1984. MacGregor, David. The Communist Ideal in Hegel and Marx. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984. ___________. Hegel, Marx, and the English State. University of Toronto Press, 1996. Marcuse, Herbert. Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory. Boston: Beacon Press, 1960. Mehta, V.R. Hegel and the Modern State. New Delhi: Associated Publishing House, 1968. Mitias, Michael. Moral Foundation of the State in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1984. Morris, George S. Hegel’s Philosophy of the State and of History. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co., 18871, 18922. O’Brien, George Dennis. Hegel On Reason and History. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1975. O’Neil, John, ed. Hegel’s Dialectic of Desire and Recognition: Texts and Commentary. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996. Paolucci, Henry. The Political Thought of G. W. F. Hegel. Whitestone, NY: Griffon House, 1978. Pelczynski, Z. A. (ed.). Hegel’s Political Philosophy: Problems and Perspectives. London: Cambridge University Press, 1971. ___________. The State and Civil Society: Studies in Hegel’s Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Perkins, Robert L. (ed.). History and System: Hegel’s Philosophy of History. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984. Plamenatz, John. Man and Society, vol. II. London: Longman, 1963. Plant, Raymond. Hegel: An Introduction. London: Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1972; Basil Blackwell, 1983. Pepperzak, Adriaan T. Philosophy and Politics: A Commentary to the Preface of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987. Popper, Karl. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966. Reyburn, Hugh A. The Ethical Theory of Hegel: A Study of the Philosophy of Right. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921. Riedel, Manfred. Between Tradition and Revolution: The Hegelian Transformation of Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Ritter, Joachim. Hegel and the French Revolution: Essays on ‘The Philosophy of Right’. trans. Richard Dien Winfield, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1982. Rosenkranz, Karl. Hegel As The National Philosopher of Germany. trans. G. S. Hall, St. Louis: Gray, Baker, 1874. Rosenweig, Franz. Hegel und der Staat. Berlin/München, 1920; Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1982. Shanks, Andrew. Hegel’s Political Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Shklar, Judith N. Freedom and Independence: A Study of the Political Ideas of Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology of Mind’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Siebert, Rudolf J. Hegel’s Concept of Marriage and Family: The Origin of Subjective Freedom. Washington, D.C.: The University Press of America, 1979. _______. Hegel’s Philosophy of History: Theological, Humanistic and Scientific Elements. Washington: University Press of America, 1979. Siep, Ludwig. Anerkennung als Prinzip der praktische Philosophie: Zur Hegels Jenaer Philosophie des Geistes. München, Alber, 1979 Singer, Peter. Hegel. Past Masters Series (Oxford University Press, 1983). Smith, Steven B. Hegel’s Critique of Liberalism: Rights in Context. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989. Steinberger, Peter J. Logic and Politics: Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982. Stepelevich, L. S. & D. Lamb, (eds.). Hegel’s Philosophy of Action. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1983. Taylor, Charles. Hegel and Modern Society. New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Tunick, Mark. Hegel’s Political Philosophy. Princeton University Press, 1992. Verene, Donald Phillip (ed.). Hegel’s Social and Political Thought: The Philosophy of Objective Spirit. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press/Sussex: Harvester Press, 1980. Walsh, William Henry. Hegelian Ethics. London/Melbourne: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969. Wazek, Norbert. The Scottish Enlightenment and Hegel’s Account of ‘Civil Society‘. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988. Weil, Eric. Hegel et L’Etat. Paris, 1950. Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1979. Wilkins, Burleigh Taylor. Hegel’s Philosophy of History. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974. Williams, Robert R. (ed.). Beyond Liberalism and Communitarianism: Studies in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Proceedings of the 15th Biennial Meeting of the Hegel Society of America. SUNY Press, 2000. Wood, Allen. Hegel’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge University Press, 1982. Author Information David A. Duquette Email: david.duquette@snc.edu St. Norbert College U. S. A. Categories: 19th Century European, Political Philosophy

奇书推背图 31nr2013/4/9 15:23:34 收藏分享 >2897927 推背图相传是我国唐朝太宗皇帝（李世民）命两位当时著名的天相家李淳风和袁天罡所作，以推算大唐国运。由于李淳风推算的上了瘾，一发不可收，竟推算到唐以后中国2000多年的命运，直到袁天罡推了他的背，说道：“天机不可再泻”，既是第60像所述，所以推背图因此得名。 推背图因为它预言的准确，使历朝历代的统治者心惊，一直被列为禁书，直到今日它在大陆依然没能逃脱禁书的黑名单。我们只有在港台的一些网站得以一览它的玄妙。而今天我们从网上看到的推背图，是清乾隆年间的举人金圣叹评批的版本，原本现仍保存于台北故宫博物院中，与我们看到的没有出入。 与西方大名鼎鼎的预言家诺察丹玛斯所著的《诸世纪》不同的是，推背图并没有打乱历史的顺序，而且预言的也都是有关国家兴亡的大事，所以更有研究价值，其准确性也更高。而最令人感到欣慰的是，它与《诸世纪》预言的悲观世界正好相反，他预言世界大同，天下一家的其乐融融的未来世界，令人鼓舞。（看来马克思预言的共产主义社会一定能实现。） 推背图共60像，除去第一像引言和最后一象结言并非预言外，共有58像预言，从大唐气数（第2像）一直预言到世界大同（第59像），且每像相接，决无次序错乱。其中，在金圣叹老先生在世的时候已应验到第33像。 由于可能有些人怀疑金圣叹的版本已非唐李淳风、袁天罡的原著，而有为后人据历史篡改的嫌疑。所以，金圣叹生前已发生的前33象，我们就不重点研究了，我们就从对于金圣叹来说是未来之事的第34象以后的推背图来研究，看看它的应验情况。 第三四象 丁酉 巽下巽上 巽 （太平天国的预言） 铁血网提醒您：点击查看大图 图：洪水滔天，芦苇边有几具骷髅 谶曰： 头有发 衣怕白 太平时 王杀王 颂曰： 太平又见血花飞 五色章成里外衣 洪水滔天苗不秀 中原曾见梦全非 〖 DHiGku〗 金圣叹：「证已往之事易，推未来之事难，然既证已往，似不得不推及将来。吾但愿自此以后，吾所谓平治者皆幸而中，吾所谓不平治者幸而不中，而吾可告无罪矣。此象疑遭水灾或兵戎与天灾共见，此一乱也。」 解说：从金圣叹老先生的话里，我们能看出，他已不知道此象预言的是什么了。他是生活在乾隆太平年间，自然不知道太平天国之事。他只能推测此乃一乱也。 "头有发，衣怕白" 形容的是太平军的服饰，"太平时，王杀王"直接提到了太平天国的名号，以及最后互相残杀的命运。"太平又见血花飞"，太平即是指太平年景的终结，也是暗示了太平天国的名号，"五色章成里外衣" 形容太平军的服饰。"洪水滔天苗不秀" 暗示了洪秀全的名字，" 中原曾见梦全非" 指的是太平天国一度占了中原的大好河山，但终是一梦。再看图，描绘的是洪水滔天，芦苇边的几具骷髅，即暗示了洪秀全的名字，又暗示了太平天国的悲惨命运。 第三五象 戊戍 震下兑上 随 （火烧圆明园的预言） 铁血网提醒您：点击查看大图 图：城门大开，有两个士兵（后面远处还跟着一个士兵）正大踏步地往里闯。 谶曰： 西方有人 足踏神京 帝出不还 三台扶倾 颂曰： 黑云黯黯自西来 帝子临河筑金台 南有兵戎北有火 中兴曾见有奇才 金圣叹：「此象疑有出狩事，亦乱兆也。」 〖 gwCLNj〗 解说：金圣叹老先生无论如何也想不到，天朝帝京，竟会遭此大难。英法联军部大摇大摆的进了北京城逼得皇帝出逃不说，还竟然一把大火，烧了被誉为万园之园的圆明园，至今国人想起来仍是国耻。 "西方有人，足踏神京" 很好理解，指的是英法联军进北京。"帝出不还" 皇帝被逼得出了城，再也回不来了（咸丰自从逃到热河，就病死在哪了，再也没有回到北京）"三台扶倾"，三个藩台保驾才没有使政权倾覆（由于我对那段历史不是太了解，这句可能解释的不对）。 “黑云黯黯自西来”，西方侵略者如黑云一般攻来。“帝子临河筑金台”，皇帝逃到了热河，其子也在热河继的位。“南有兵戎北有火” 西方侵略者是从南面攻入京城的，并且在京城的北面放了一把大火，火烧圆明园（又一说，“南有兵戎”指的是南方有太平天国造反）。“中兴曾见有奇才”，幸亏有这个奇才（曾国藩），才保住了大清的江山（其中的“曾”字暗示了曾国藩的姓）。 第三六象 己亥 乾下巽上 小畜 （慈喜逃到西安的预言） 铁血网提醒您：点击查看大图 图：一装束高贵女子骑于马上，前有宫女执灯，侧有小官跪拜 谶曰： 纤纤女子 赤手御敌 不分祸福 灯光蔽日 颂曰： 双拳旋转乾坤 海内无端不靖 母子不分先后 西望长安入觐 金圣叹：「此象疑一女子能定中原，建都长安。」 解说：看来金老先生受大清开国之女孝庄的影响，认为凡女杰都能定天下，可这回此女非彼女也，乃是中国有史以来最大的败家子-------慈禧。 "纤纤女子，赤手御敌" ，慈禧也是不容易，瞧国家给她败的，只能赤手御敌（谁让她把建北洋水师的钱修了颐和园呢）。"不分祸福，灯光蔽日"，整天就知道享乐，晚上也是灯火通明的看戏听曲，那里还分得出祸福？"双拳旋转乾坤"，垂帘听政，囚禁皇帝，竟把紫禁城的石阶都改为凤在上，龙在下，岂不是倒转乾坤。"海内无端不靖"，天下的百姓能服么？"母子不分先后"，她和光绪死于一天，不分先后奔了黄泉。"西望长安入觐"，在八国联军攻进北京时，她携光绪逃到了西安。 而图形容的就是她仓皇逃往西安的情景，路上不时还有小官巴结她，向她跪拜，捐钱献媚。 〖 fU9x2A〗 第三七象 庚子 震下巽上 益 （中华民国的预言） 铁血网提醒您：点击查看大图 图：一鬼在水中，托起一只人头 谶曰： 汉水茫茫 不统继统 南北不分 和衷与共 颂曰： 水清终有竭 倒戈逢八月 海内竟无王 半凶还半吉 金圣叹：「此象虽有元首出现，而一时未易平治，亦一乱也。」 解说：此象金老推测得不错，却是有元首出现，而一时未易平治，也可称为一乱。但这一乱，可是开天辟地的一乱，使几千年的封建统治彻底倾覆的一乱，是共和深入人心的一乱。民国的成立，真是半凶半吉啊。 "汉水茫茫"，武昌起义打响了革命的第一枪。"不统继统"，革命虽成功但国家却未统一，还要继续二次革命，前赴后继。（又一解，宣统帝虽退位，但还继续统治他的紫禁城）。"南北不分"，革命之初，国家分为南北两个阵营（北面是袁世凯，南面是孙中山），但最终通过谈判统一了。"和衷与共"，成立了共和体制的国家。"水清终有竭"，清朝的气数已尽，"倒戈逢八月"，10月10日正是农历8月。"海内竟无王"，封建统治终结了，只有总统，没有皇帝了，"半凶还半吉"，可是国家并不富强，内忧外患。 图形容的是袁世凯这恶鬼，企图扼杀民主共和。也可解为，那头是指袁大头，他被封建势力形容为洪水猛兽的革命军（那鬼）最终整死。 第三八象 辛丑 震下离上 噬嗑 （第一次世界大战的预言） 铁血网提醒您：点击查看大图 图：门外，很多平民死亡 谶曰： 门外一鹿 群雄争逐 劫及鸢鱼 水深火热 颂曰： 火运开时祸蔓延 万人后死万人生 海波能使江河浊 境外何殊在目前 金圣叹：「此象兵祸起于门外有延及门内之兆。」 〖 kOySfY〗 解：金老猜的很准。这次不是中国的战乱，而是在中国境外的第一次世界大战。 "门外一鹿，群雄争逐"，这鹿不是指中原，而是指欧洲。"劫及鸢鱼，水深火热"，一战已有了飞机，潜艇，连天上的飞禽，水里的鱼都陷入水深火热之中。"火运开时祸蔓延" ,战火一发而不可收拾，"万人后死万人生"，上万人死上万人死里逃生，"海波能使江河浊"，战争不只是在江河上，更是在海上。"境外何殊在目前"，境外的情况（欧洲）和中国的情况（列强相争，战火连天）也没什么区别。 第三九象 壬寅 巽下兑上 颐 （日本侵华的预言） 铁血网提醒您：点击查看大图 图：山上有一鸟，旭日正东升 谶曰： 鸟无足 山有月 旭初升 人都哭 颂曰： 十二月中气不和 南山有雀北山罗 一朝听得金鸡叫 大海沉沉日已过 金圣叹：「此象疑一外夷扰乱中原，必至酉年始得平也。」 解：金老先生猜得很准。正是那倭寇外夷扰乱中原。 "鸟无足, 山有月" 是个岛字（图鸟在山上，也暗示的是“岛”字），岛国作乱也。"旭初升，人都哭"，日本开始强大，人人都在哭泣。"十二月中气不和"，十二月中为农历六月，即公历7月7日，"南山有雀北山罗"，雀，精卫鸟也――汪精卫。罗，爱新觉罗――伪满国。南面有日本扶植的汪精卫政权，北面有日本扶植的伪满国政权。"一朝听得金鸡叫，大海沉沉日已过"，到了鸡年（1945年），日本军国主义就日沉大海了。 〖 lbtGIQ〗 第四十象 癸卯 （中华民国在台湾的命运，国家分裂为两岸三地的预言） 铁血网提醒您：点击查看大图 图：三个小孩玩飞盘 谶曰： 一二叁四 无土有主 小小天罡 垂拱而治 颂曰： 一口东来气太骄 脚下无履首无毛 若逢木子冰霜涣 生我者猴死我雕 金圣叹：「此象有一李姓，能服东夷，而不能图长治久安之策，卒至旋治旋乱，有兽活禽死之意也。」 解：此像争议历来很大。其实，这一象是一个很宏观的象，描述的是国家分裂的状态（从图可以看出，两岸三地），时间跨度也很长，从民国建立到民国真正灭亡。推背图时间跨度很长的预言很多，比如第二象预言唐朝气数，时间跨度就有上百年。所以，这一象，并不影响下两象（文革和四人帮）的发生，请大家特别注意，否则会得出错误的看法和不符合现实的悲观论点。由于在台的民国目前还没有真正灭亡，说明第40象的预言并没有终结，所以我们在研究第43象（统一之象）时，不能忽视此象，它为我们研究在台湾的中华民国的灭亡提供了重要的线索。 先看图，三个小孩，分别代表大陆、台湾和香港， 他们玩的小飞盘，只有通过下面的小孩来传递。明白它的含义了吧，很形象吧。 再看诗文：“一二叁四”，很难理解，大家的分歧也很大。一说，“一二叁四”指的是在台湾的中华民国只有四位总统，蒋家父子、李登辉、陈水扁，所以在大选前人们就预言连宋不可能当选。 另一解，建国初的中国分为四块，大陆、台湾、香港、澳门。“无土有主”，如第一句按第一种解释，那这句应是指民国虽然丢了国土，但还宣称是这些国土的主人。 按第二种解释，如果将一二三四理解为大陆、台湾、香港、澳门，这句话的意思是，中国终将收回失去的土地。还有一解是说大陆土改，没有土地的人有人给他们做主了。“小小天罡，垂拱而治”，指的是逃到台湾的国民党小朝廷把小小台湾治理的还是很繁荣。“一口东来气太骄”，很明显是暗示我们伟大领袖?毛泽东的名字，（还有人说“来”字也暗示了周恩来），联想主席的诗“数风流人物，还看今朝！”，是够骄的，他把中华民国赶出了大陆。“脚下无履首无毛”，工农红军不就是没有鞋子，没有帽子，一穷二白，小米加步枪打的天下，同时，也暗示首领是姓毛。另一解，蒋介石是光头，这一句是暗示他狼狈逃台的情景。“若逢木子冰霜涣，生我者猴死我雕”，此句至为关键，玄机很深，他暗示了民国诞生和民国的灭亡。 “若逢木子冰霜涣”，木子，李也――李登辉，冰霜涣，水变――水扁也，一个姓李的，一个叫水扁的是使中华民国灭亡的关键人物。真乃千古绝佳字谜。“生我者猴死我雕”，这句显然暗示民国的诞生与灭亡。猴，狲也――孙中山，雕――美国国鸟也。明白了吧，是姓孙的人建立的民国，让国鸟为雕的（另解，名字与雕字有关的人，目前还没有端倪）灭亡了。 推测不是美国许可水扁废民国宪法改国号，就是美国出卖了台湾逼台与大陆统一。 〖 hi8Qgl〗 第四十叁象 丙午 （祖国统一的预言） 铁血网提醒您：点击查看大图 图： 衣衫一般的大官人预打一服饰华贵的小贵人 谶曰： 君非君 臣非臣 始艰危 终克定 颂曰： 黑兔走入青龙穴 欲尽不尽不可说 惟有外边根树上 叁十年中子孙结 金圣叹：「此象疑前象女子乱国未终，君臣出狩，有一杰出之人为之底定，然必在叁十年后。」 解：截止到第42像以前的推背图都已成为历史（除第40象的最后一句话），从第43像开始，是我们正在经历或将要经历的现实和未来。而第43像，正是我们现在正经历的台海风云，祖国统一的预言。 先看图，有一个服饰一般略显贫寒的大官人（大陆，大却穷），和一个小的服饰华丽的小贵人（台湾，小却富），小贵人站于大官人东侧，正好和大陆与台湾的位置相符。在看他们的姿势和神色，大官人虽气色温和，但却正要举手打那小贵人。那小贵人一脸的不满与不懈，显然是不服，正抬手护着头，但也没怕到哪去，始终摆个防御的样子。看到此，你是不是不得不惊叹这幅图的惟妙惟肖。“君非君 臣非臣”，说的是他们的关系，互不隶属。“始艰危 终克定”，开始的时候，充满了艰难和危险，最终可以克服安定下来（又一解，“克”字当攻克讲，“定”当平定讲，即武统）。“黑兔走入青龙穴”，象是预言时间，当是兔龙相交之年，最有可能的是2012年春节前后（3.20总统选举日），还有人根据年历认为2024年才是黑兔青龙年，另有人认为此象不是在预言时间，因陈水扁的生肖为黑兔，而青龙位在八卦中为东南方，即台湾的位置，所以应是指陈水扁当了民国总统，连系下一句，“欲尽不尽不可说”，他想独又不敢宣布，也有一定道理。“惟有外边根树上”，指的是台湾外面台商的根大陆，“叁十年中子孙结”，三十年了，台商的子孙都满堂了。 哈哈 是指的现在 论坛的 朋友自己解一下吧[/I] 第四十五象 戊申 （第二次中日战争） 铁血网提醒您：点击查看大图 图：两个面向西的武士用长矛指着太阳冲来 谶曰： 有客西来 至东而止 木火金水 洗此大耻 颂曰： 炎运宏开世界同 金乌隐匿白洋中 从此不敢称雄长 兵气全销运已终 金圣叹：「此象于太平之世复见兵戎，当在海洋之上，自此之后，更臻盛世矣。」 解：我猜肯定是美国瞧我们站了它的世界领袖之位，心生嫉妒，挑唆日本争夺钓鱼岛，（也有可能是因为台湾问题，也许第43象同第40象一样，时间跨度很长）引发战争，美日同盟两个打我们一个，但我们最终取得胜利，我们取代美国成为日本的宗主国。（想起我们现在提的和平崛起的理论，简直好笑，我们必须做好军事斗争的准备。） [/size] 推背图第四十四象 丁未 谶曰 日月丽天 群阴慑服 百灵来朝 双羽四足 颂曰 中国而今有圣人 虽非豪杰也周成 四夷重译称天子 否极泰来九国春 金圣叹注解： 此象乃圣人复生，四夷来朝之兆，一大治也。 铁血网提醒您：点击查看大图 本文内容于 2013/4/11 18:43:46 被31nr编辑 647 热门评论快捷回复 军衔:陆军上尉 7楼毛毛虫008 一副画,几个字,全部用猜的. 事情发生后,总能把字画上的元素套到现实中. 就像买彩票研究走势图,等到开奖后把号码往走势图中一放,TMD!我早就想到要开这个号了....... 顶[106]回复 军衔:陆军列兵 26楼a3319876 第四十三像谶曰： 君非君 臣非臣 始艰危 终克定 颂曰： 黑兔走入青龙穴 欲尽不尽不可说 惟有外边根树上 叁十年中子孙结 我认为此像说的是改革开放三十年。君非君 臣非臣说的是邓小平。始艰危 终克定说的是改革开放开始比较艰难，最终取得了成功。黑兔走入青龙穴说的是邓小平是只黑兔却占居了青龙穴《毛岸青》。欲尽不尽不可说是说他想否定毛主席又不敢完全否定毛主席。惟有外边根树上说的是改革开放，吸引外资。叁十年中子孙结说的是改革开放三十年才逐渐有了成效。 背图第四十四象 丁未 谶曰 日月丽天 群阴慑服 百灵来朝 双羽四足 颂曰 中国而今有圣人 虽非豪杰也周成 四夷重译称天子 否极泰来九国春 日月丽天说的是中央终于真正为老百姓做主了。群阴慑服说的是贪官污吏再也不敢嚣张了。百灵来朝说的是彭丽媛。双羽四足说的是习近平。 中国而今有圣人指习近平。虽非豪杰也周成指的是习近平经历了各种锻炼已经具备了做为国家领导人应该具备的素质。四夷重译称天子说的是习近平最终赢得了全国人民的拥护和爱戴。否极泰来九国春说的是中国终于实现了国富民强的梦想。 顶[54]回复 军衔:陆军中士 12楼31nr 推背图第四十四象 丁未 谶曰 日月丽天 群阴慑服 百灵来朝 双羽四足 颂曰 中国而今有圣人 虽非豪杰也周成 四夷重译称天子 否极泰来九国春 金圣叹注解： 此象乃圣人复生，四夷来朝之兆，一大治也。 神奇预言2013的中国！！两千年的历史都已 顶[32]回复 军衔:陆军列兵 21楼zjf6329 四十四象． 关健点；百灵来朝， 双羽四足． 原意是指：有一只百灵来到了朝堂之上．一：百灵是鸟类中叫唱得最动听的，人类中唱得最出色就称为歌唱家．意指有个歌唱家来到朝堂上． 二：双羽四足 原意是指两只翅膀四只脚．但没有对应之动物，那只能找对应的器物．考虑到作者处的年代，最常见的器物主要是日用家具．如桌椅，床柜．．．．这种器物的共性是要放置物件的和供人使用的，同时以上这些器物均有四只脚．要实现其功用必定要水平放置的．但四只脚的这些器物不是完全平的．(三点决定一平面)只能说是近似平或者说接近平．三．双羽 习的繁体字是羽＋白．另外一羽是百灵鸟的数量词． 已出现的字眼：朝堂，歌唱家，近平，习等关健字样，想必大家均已明白．如对歌唱家还有疑问，可参考(烧并歌）．多年前我已猜出，对中华的未来和时势充满期待．十年内日本的结局已有答案．否极泰来九国春． 顶[25]回复 您可能对这些帖子感兴趣 被95式步枪打中身体就是这个效果 好凶残! 我国首批在伊被困人员成功撤离 已抵达巴格达 咱网友曾在香港服役 内有驻港部队女神哦! 大59战车惨被96坦克当靶子打 负重轮都变形了 长发年轻美女赤裸穿行闹市 部分车主减速拍照(图) [原创]爱狗人士们，请停下你们的脚步 [原创]爱狗人士与心理变态 2014年高考分数线出来了 ，河南百万考生落泪 [原创]中国如果衰败，会是一场怎样的可怕场景？ 人民的狗保杜玉凤被其同类爆料内情，痛骂其丑陋！ 文扬：香港反对派何来如此大的胆气？ 台湾广场舞大妈大笑，张志军说了啥？ 社科院一名所长：个别研究员成为他国间谍 央视《焦点访谈》曝光南阳三杰盛世城建房用“瘦身钢筋”。 世界惊奇，毛主席的惊世24预言全部实现 发表评论 27条评论 28楼tiantian8882014/4/30 12:28:55 2017年****。国门咋开，突入其来。突，东突之意。其，共和国的共加二为共之意。 顶[0]打赏回复 27楼tiantian8882014/4/30 12:20:28 40像到43像是中国内乱之意 顶[0]打赏回复 26楼a33198762014/4/25 1:48:38 第四十三像谶曰： 君非君 臣非臣 始艰危 终克定 颂曰： 黑兔走入青龙穴 欲尽不尽不可说 惟有外边根树上 叁十年中子孙结 我认为此像说的是改革开放三十年。君非君 臣非臣说的是邓小平。始艰危 终克定说的是改革开放开始比较艰难，最终取得了成功。黑兔走入青龙穴说的是邓小平是只黑兔却占居了青龙穴《毛岸青》。欲尽不尽不可说是说他想否定毛主席又不敢完全否定毛主席。惟有外边根树上说的是改革开放，吸引外资。叁十年中子孙结说的是改革开放三十年才逐渐有了成效。 背图第四十四象 丁未 谶曰 日月丽天 群阴慑服 百灵来朝 双羽四足 颂曰 中国而今有圣人 虽非豪杰也周成 四夷重译称天子 否极泰来九国春 日月丽天说的是中央终于真正为老百姓做主了。群阴慑服说的是贪官污吏再也不敢嚣张了。百灵来朝说的是彭丽媛。双羽四足说的是习近平。 中国而今有圣人指习近平。虽非豪杰也周成指的是习近平经历了各种锻炼已经具备了做为国家领导人应该具备的素质。四夷重译称天子说的是习近平最终赢得了全国人民的拥护和爱戴。否极泰来九国春说的是中国终于实现了国富民强的梦想。 顶[54]打赏回复 23楼a33198762014/4/25 1:21:08 背图第四十四象 丁未 谶曰 日月丽天 群阴慑服 百灵来朝 双羽四足 颂曰 中国而今有圣人 虽非豪杰也周成 四夷重译称天子 否极泰来九国春日月丽天说的是中央终于真正为老百姓做主了。群阴慑服说的是贪官污吏再也不敢嚣张了。百灵来朝说的是彭丽媛。双羽四足说的是习近平。 中国而今有圣人指习近平。虽非豪杰也周成指的是习近平经历了各种锻炼已经具备了做为国家领导人应该具备的素质。四夷重译称天子说的是习近平最终赢得了全国人民的拥护和爱戴。否极泰来九国春说的是中国终于实现国富民强的梦想。 顶[3]打赏回复 22楼a33198762014/4/25 1:16:18 推背图第四十四象 丁未 谶曰 日月丽天 群阴慑服 百灵来朝 双羽四足 颂曰 中国而今有圣人 虽非豪杰也周成 四夷重译称天子 否极泰来九国春日月丽天说的是中央终于真正为老百姓做主了。群阴慑服说的是贪官污吏再也不敢嚣张了。百灵来朝说的是彭丽媛。双羽四足说的是习近平。 中国而今有圣人指习近平。虽非豪杰也周成指的是习近平经历了各种锻炼已经具备了做为国家领导人应该具备的素质。四夷重译称天子说的是习近平最终赢得了全国人民的拥护和爱戴。 回复：神奇预言2013的中国！！两千年的历史都已被印证！奇书推背图 顶[0]打赏回复 21楼zjf63292014/4/25 1:06:29 四十四象． 关健点；百灵来朝， 双羽四足． 原意是指：有一只百灵来到了朝堂之上．一：百灵是鸟类中叫唱得最动听的，人类中唱得最出色就称为歌唱家．意指有个歌唱家来到朝堂上． 二：双羽四足 原意是指两只翅膀四只脚．但没有对应之动物，那只能找对应的器物．考虑到作者处的年代，最常见的器物主要是日用家具．如桌椅，床柜．．．．这种器物的共性是要放置物件的和供人使用的，同时以上这些器物均有四只脚．要实现其功用必定要水平放置的．但四只脚的这些器物不是完全平的．(三点决定一平面)只能说是近似平或者说接近平．三．双羽 习的繁体字是羽＋白．另外一羽是百灵鸟的数量词． 已出现的字眼：朝堂，歌唱家，近平，习等关健字样，想必大家均已明白．如对歌唱家还有疑问，可参考(烧并歌）．多年前我已猜出，对中华的未来和时势充满期待．十年内日本的结局已有答案．否极泰来九国春． 顶[25]打赏回复 20楼a33198762014/4/25 0:39:09 君非君 臣非臣[ 始艰危 终克定 颂曰： 黑兔走入青龙穴 欲尽不尽不可说 惟有外边根树上 叁十年中子孙结 我认为此像说的是改革开放三十年。君非君 臣非臣说的是邓小平。始艰危 终克定说的是改革开放开始比较艰难，最终取得了成功。 黑兔走入青龙穴说的是邓小平是只黑兔却占居了青龙穴《毛岸青》。欲尽不尽不可说是说他想否定 毛主席又不敢完全否定毛主席。惟有外边根树上说的是改革开放，吸引外资。叁十年中子孙结说的是改革开放三十年才逐渐有了成效。 顶[0]打赏回复 19楼ltx3072014/4/7 16:01:46 是真是假让我们去见证就好了，现在下结论都为时尚早，咱们看看这两象是否能应验：四十五象乃中日第二次战争，以我们赢为结局，四十四象应该是习马会，而且台湾和平统一，拥有军队，如果这两象应验，那可就真神了！ 顶[0]打赏回复 18楼ltx3072014/4/7 15:57:51 7楼毛毛虫008 一副画,几个字,全部用猜的. 事情发生后,总能把字画上的元素套到现实中. 就像买彩票研究走势图,等到开奖后把号码往走势图中一放,TMD!我早就想到要开这个号了....... 四十五象乃中日第二次战争，以我们赢为结局，四十四象应该是习马会，而且台湾和平统一，拥有军队，如果这两象应验，那可就真神了！ 顶[0]打赏回复 16楼hengang12013/11/6 10:12:41 无知，共64象，有缺，自己找吧，胡闹什么？ 顶[2]打赏回复 15楼31nr2013/4/11 18:49:05 http://www.tuibt.com/ 你自己去研究下吧 顶[0]打赏回复 14楼31nr2013/4/11 18:48:19 你自己我研究一下吧 http://www.tuibt.com/ 顶[2]打赏回复 13楼31nr2013/4/11 18:47:33 你自己研究一下吧 http://www.tuibt.com/ 顶[0]打赏回复 12楼31nr2013/4/11 18:46:09 推背图第四十四象 丁未 谶曰 日月丽天 群阴慑服 百灵来朝 双羽四足 颂曰 中国而今有圣人 虽非豪杰也周成 四夷重译称天子 否极泰来九国春 金圣叹注解： 此象乃圣人复生，四夷来朝之兆，一大治也。 神奇预言2013的中国！！两千年的历史都已

道家打坐入门

第一步　　收心求静 　　 法诀 　　初打坐，练静动，全身内外要放松。 　　二目垂帘守祖窍，舌闭天池津自生。 　　深细长匀调呼吸，心定念止是正功。 　　身心两忘万籁寂，形神俱妙乐在中。 　　掐子午，除杂念，祖炁修足玄关现。 　　脸似蚁爬丹田暧，口满津液要吞咽。 　　下座拂面舒筋气，浑身上下搓一遍。 　　筑基炼己全赖此，静极而动一阳现。 　　功法详解 　　收心求静，是道家的修身养性、打坐参禅，也是性命双修基本功。入坐前，先将衣服上的钮扣解开，宽衣解带，全身内外放松，心里预先要有一种愉快感，用舒畅愉快、乐在其中的情绪来帮助入静。 　　取坐势，在床上、沙发上、椅凳上皆可。身上披的衣服应根据自己的身体以及气候变化增减，慎勿着凉感冒。 　　打坐时的面向：面向正东或正南，夜间要面向窗户亮光处，以免神昏易睡。 　　坐功要领：盘膝端坐，脚分阴阳，手掐子午，二目垂帘，眼观鼻，鼻观心。闭口藏舌，舌顶上腭，呼吸绵绵，微降丹田。心神意念守祖窍，三花聚顶秋月圆。下座拂面熨双睛，浑身上下搓一遍。伸臂长腰舒筋气，静极而动一阳现。要领详解如下： 　　盘膝端坐：盘膝有单盘、双盘、五心朝天之分。初学者可采用自然单盘膝，不要勉强。所谓端坐，是上体自然正直，不前俯后仰，百会与会阴成垂直一线，但务必放松自然。须知松则气顺，经脉舒畅；僵则气滞，有碍气血流通。只有全身内外放松，才能给入静创造条件。 　　脚分阴阳：盘膝时左脚属阳在外，右脚属阴在内，为阳抱阴，但不是绝对的，如感到不舒服可改换。对此不要太拘泥。 　　手掐子午：左手拇指掐本左手中指午位，右手大拇指进入左手内掐住左手无名指的根部子位，两手相抱放在小腹部，这为阴抱阳。但必须说明：掐子午不等于掐诀念咒。因子午这两道脉通寸、关、尺，而寸、关、尺之脉通心，心通脑，掐子午是为减轻动脉撞心的力量，使其少生杂念，有助于入静。丹经云“手脚和合扣连环，四门紧闭守正中”是也。 　　二目垂帘：即是二目似闭非闭，微开一线同观鼻尖，看似对眼。太闭则神气昏暗，太光则神光外驰。故古人有云：“日月合并，金木和合，回光返照，返观内视。含眼光，凝耳韵，调鼻息”，“内观其心，心无其心；外观其形，形无其形；远观其物，物无其物；三者既悟，惟见于空；观空不空，是乃真空；观空乃空，是为顽空。”这是古人的所谓“长生久视之道”。 　　眼观鼻，鼻观心：二目垂帘，眼看鼻尖，神定则心定。两眼同看鼻准，活动的思维，纷纭复杂的意念就能安定下来。眼观鼻而心不在鼻，由观而达到忘观，外观其形，形无其形。所谓鼻观心，是为了下颌微收，使气嗓管调直，呼吸自然流畅。 　　闭口藏舌，舌顶上腭：上腭是天池穴，在上牙内寸许凹陷处，口念“儿”字时，舌尖所触部位。闭天池，一是方面是为了开玄膺（玄膺穴在巧舌之后），使真息往来畅通无阻；另一方面则是闭口免伤真炁。再则，舌根下有生津两穴，左为金井，右为石泉，闭上天池易于生津。静坐往往津液满口，并有清而甜之感，此时应用吞律法将津液吞入腹内。即舌顶上腭不动，将津液吮至舌根，待欲喷呛时引颈吞下。这样引吞，可直接入任脉，化为阴精，是造精之捷径，健身之妙法。 　　呼吸绵绵，微降丹田：调理呼吸，又谓调息，是初步入静的重要环节。用功时既然是闭口，无疑要用鼻呼吸，要求深、细、长、匀。不论是顺呼吸还是逆呼吸，都要求腹式呼吸，这样才能深。所谓细，即连自己也听不到呼吸声。长，是将呼吸拉长，要息息归根，下降丹田，不要憋气，要放松自然。匀，即快慢均匀，务要心息相依，不即不离，达到息不调而自调。甚至，至虚极，守静笃，会出现呼吸顿断。初学者，要用自然呼吸。呼吸绵绵，深、细、长、匀，能扩大肺活量，促进和加强内脏各个部位的功能，尤其对消化系统功效更为显著。 　　心神意守祖窍：祖窍，在二目中心，是过去经书不载、历代祖师秘而不传的一窍。余师千峰老人曰：“天下地上安祖窍，日西月东聚先天。玄关之后谷神前，正中有个空不空”。此窍是玄关出人、明心见性的门户，是锁心猿拴意马的桩柱，也是延年益寿的阶梯。初步炼性先守此窍。含眼光，两眼观此窍；凝耳韵，两耳听此窍。这即是古人所谓：“常有欲以观其窍，常无欲以观其妙”。守窍是为了忘窍，故有“知而不守是正功”之说。“以有心求则有相，以五心守则落空”。故云：无忘无助，似守非守。性要自悟，命要师传。心静念止是先天，意动神驰是后天。只有守定祖窍，才能使瞬息万变的活动思想安静下来。百尺竿头再进一步，做到心静念止，身如槁木，心若止水，意似寒灰，一念不起，一意归中，万籁俱寂，身心两忘，恍恍惚惚，杳杳冥冥，此时感到一股电流在身上奔腾咆哮，犹如触电，全身酥麻，其舒服感妙不可言。这正是形神俱妙，了在其中。此景过后，但觉眼明心亮，神清气爽，精神振奋。如能得到五分钟的真静，足能消除一天的疲劳。如能每日坚持坐功，即使得不到真静，有时也会感到手脚出汗、丹田发暧、脸似蚁爬、头顶气旋。这些现象，都是坐功的收获，日积月累，祖炁修足自然玄关出现。 　　三花聚顶秋月圆：三花即精花、炁花、神花。只有精炁神修足，才有三花聚顶秋月圆的现象。秋月即玄关。玄关与祖窍同样都是过去道家三口不说、六耳不传之秘。玄关与祖窍往往连在一起，实际玄关是玄关，祖窍是祖窍。可以说：祖窍是玄关出人的门户。玄关不在身上，祖窍不在身外。玄关者乃玄妙之机关也，不在身上，离身难寻。《节要篇》云：“一窍玄关要路头，非心非肾最深幽。膀胱谷道空劳力，脾肾泥丸实可羞。神气根基常恍惚，虚无窟穴细搜求。原来只是灵明处，养就还丹跨鹤游。”又道：玄关不在心肾，不在口鼻，不在肝肺，不在肚轮，不在尾闾，不在谷道，不在两肾中间一穴，不在腰间脐后，不在明堂泥丸，不在关元气海，不在脐下一寸三分。又道：“道发三千六百门，门门各执一苗根，惟有些子玄关窍，不在三千六百门”。又说，此玄关一窍乃人生死之穴，无极之根，太极之母，是父母未生前先天真一之炁。过去把玄关说得神乎其神，玄之又玄，好像谁能知道玄关所在之处，就能立地升仙似的。玄关到底是何物，又在何处呢？根据余祖师千峰老人及父亲继承道教龙门派传统的说法，通过收心求静，静极而动，炁发则收炁，精动则下手炼精化炁，补脑养神，精炁神足，坐静时，眼前出现一圆光，这即是玄关，又叫慧光、神光、灵光。历代修持者都把玄关看成超凡入圣的阶梯，故不轻易传人。虽然从经书上偶有透露，也只是一些不易看懂的隐语，况且其说不同，使人无所适从。 　　下座拂面熨双睛：每逢坐完功后，先将两手搓热，趁热用手捂住两眼，热散后两手猛然向两侧分开，两眼同时随之使劲一睁，如此三至五次，再左右转睛。左转9周，再向右转九周。经常坚持，不但保持眼球灵活不得眼疾，还使通眼脑气筋通畅，保持眼睛不花。拂面是用两手搓拂两颊，使脸色滋润，推迟生长皱纹及老斑。 　　全身上下搓一遍：全身干搓，又叫干沐浴，是非常行之有效的健身方法。紧接拂面熨眼转双睛之后，两手从头部开始搓起，继而由前额、两太阳穴、迎香、两耳前后，大脑、小脑、风池、风府、两臂内外至两手背，再由胸前肺部、两胁，两手并行搓小腹两侧、肚脐、两腰眼、两腿外侧内侧、膝盖、脚心。两手搓时必搓热，最后再揉睾丸。以上各点，搓时最好用数字来约束，以免点到从事。干沐浴倘能持之以恒，定有意想不到的功效。重点是鼻窝、脖颈、腰眼、睾丸、尾胝涌泉。搓完后舒筋气。 　　伸臂长腰舒筋气：干沐裕后，仍坐床上，上身坐正，两腿伸直，舌顶上腭，然后上身后仰，两臂随之向上伸舒。同时鼻子吸气，两眼向上翻看，脚尖前绷，脚跟后收，身体整个仰卧床上。然后，上身由仰卧坐起前扑，以头靠拢两膝，两手打两脚涌泉穴，两眼往下看，鼻子呼气，两脚尖向里勾，脚跟向前蹬。如此一仰一俯，反复七次为止。此法有舒筋活络，长腰增力，抻筋活腰，强肺健胃，通带踵、养大脑的作用。 　　收心求静，也是为了求动。这种动是通过坚持不懈的用功，并能经常入静，在坐静中大脑得到充足的调养，日积月累，脑气胞日渐充实，身体日渐强壮，面色日渐红润，精神面貌几有焕发青春之感。当然由于年龄、的不同，体质强弱的各异，以及用功的勤怠，入静的程度深浅，必然会在每个人的进度上出现千差万别。尽管在进度上每人有快慢之分，但从静中得来的心身日渐愉快和健壮必有同样之感。 　　静极而动，是在静坐时，心里清清静静丝毫杂念没有的前提下，外阳勃然而起，这即是活子时到。此时不等念起，急用转法轮收炁降龙法，将这初步静养来的养生至宝收归我有。具体做法详见第二步功法。 　　收心求静即是筑基炼己的功夫。所谓炼己即是炼心、炼性。炼即是锻炼的意思。心不炼不死，性不炼不活，神不炼不灵。只有炼得识死、性活，神自然会灵。吕祖云：“七返还丹，在人先须炼己待时。”柳华阳祖师曰：“若不炼己还虚，则临时熟景难忘，神驰炁散，安能夺得造化之机。”应该怎样炼呢？柳祖又云：“眼虽见色而内不受纳者曰炼，耳虽闻声而内不受音者曰炼，神虽感交而内不起思者曰炼，见物内醒而不迷者曰炼，日用平常如如，而先炼己纯熟”。上面吕祖所谓炼己待时之时，与柳祖所说的临时之时，同是指的阳举炁发活子时之时，下手采药炼精化炁之时。此时若炼己不纯，意志不坚，很容易顺熟路而去，前功尽弃。故古圣先贤（指善养生者）强调，修性养命，首先必须筑基炼己，打好基础，否则虽有所得，也容易得而复失。只有炼得识死性活，对景无心，常寂常静常觉照，性自圆明神自灵。在静中求动，动中采补，循序渐进，待精尽化炁，亏损补满，则筑基炼己才算告一段落。 　　初步收心求静，与各家静养功大致相同。所不同的是龙门派的静养功是小还虚，是吕祖沁园春词中的炼己待时。这个“时”正是静极而动一阳炁发的活子时，时来炁发为之命动，命动炁发即收回才算性命双修；不知炁动收炁、精动炼精，就不算性命双修。 　　第二步　　收炁降龙、安炉立鼎 　　 法诀 　　一阳初动本无心，收炁必须先提根。 　　吸从督脉升泥丸，呼由任脉降会阴。 　　以神领炁行周天，后升前降转法轮。 　　七口呼吸阳不缩，无孔笛吹要紧跟。 　　无孔笛，两头吹，一提一降自然回。 　　收炁古称是降龙，龙归大海不乱飞。 　　玄酒味淡休妄动，静等二侯响春雷。 　　珍惜自身活子时，逢动必收炁不亏。 　　功法详解 　　第二步功夫，按道家传统说法，是安炉立鼎。鼎，又谓玉鼎，在大脑中心，内藏一胞为先天真性所居之处，即元神室也。其两边各有一管，联于眼珠，下通于心，故曰：性者，心也，发于二目。实际鼎原无鼎，真炁发时与性合一而得名。炉谓金炉，又名真炁穴。前对肚轮后对肾，上有黄庭下关元，后有幽阙前命门，是存神养炁之所，又叫丹田。炉原无炉，气发则有此名。玉鼎、金炉是道家炼内丹假设的无形器具。 　　一阳初动本无心，收心必须先提根。 　　在初步收心求静的静坐中，当坐到一念不起，身心两忘，虚极静笃之时，自己的外阳勃然兴起，这是自身的活子时到来。因其无念，是先天性的产物，机不可失，不等念起，急用转法轮收炁法即刻收回。 　　收炁法：原坐式不动，收气必须先提根，即用力一提会阴，鼻根吸气，眼往上翻看，以神领气，心意随之。再由子位生死窍即会阴穴向后走尾闾、夹脊、玉枕至午位百会一停。吸时：鼻吸、眼看、神领、意随同时并举，协调一致。一吸由督脉上来稍停，再一呼鼻根呼气，眼往下看，以神领气，心意随之，由午位百会下来，走祖窍、绛官、炁穴（即丹田），直达会阴子位。后升前降正一圆周。简单说，一吸一呼转一遭为一次，如此三至五个呼吸，如用得准确，外阳即可缩回，这即是后升前降转法轮收炁法。日积月累，身体越来越强壮，精力越来越充沛，活子时越来越勤，而外阳兴起的力量也就越来越大。如果从一次呼吸至七次呼吸，外阳仍然不倒，应改用无孔笛颠倒两头吹降龙法来制之。 　　无孔笛颠倒两头吹的具体用法：当转法轮七次降服不住外阳时，原坐不动，立即凝神生死窍，会阴一提，鼻根吸气，意想由生死窍提到脐下一寸三分丹田穴，再用绛宫之气，下沉丹阳，鼻根呼气，心神意随之一沉，一提一降为一次，如此一至三次外阳立缩。 　　若用了七次仍不缩回，就应用第三步功法开通奇经八脉的。等二候到来，虎由水中生，似黄河决口，有一泄千里之势，就用下手炼精化炁的伏虎手段，将欲破关而出的元精化成元炁，仍为我所用。 　　阳生炁发的根源。通过坐功入静增长元炁，亏损的元炁得到补充。静极而动，脑中的先天炁走大脑、小脑、延髓、脊髓，到大推下第七脊骨节夹脊关；夹脊往内通心，心正中有一门，道家称之为戊门，气到门开，直达外阳。外阳得到真气，立刻勃然兴起。这时如果不管不问，也可自消自灭，但是，通过静功得来的养生至宝，就会付之东流。这即是只知修性，不知修命。凡讲性命双修者，无不百倍地珍惜它。故吕洞宾祖师对此写过这样一首诗：“一阳炁发用功夫，日月精华照玉壶，到此关头休妄动，恐防堕落洞庭湖。”性命双修的修性，实际命在其中。当静极而动一阳炁发即是命功。心动收心是修性，炁动收炁、精动收精是修命。 　　静极而动，是阴极阳生，一阳初动，在人身为活子时，在二十四节气为冬至。因一阳初动，是炁发而不是精动，只可用收炁降龙法收之，而不能用下手炼精化炁法来炼之。炁有足亏，药分老嫩，这即是“火候”。丹经云：“古人传药不传火，从来火候少人知。”张三丰祖师云：“性要悟，命要传，休将火候当等闲。” 　　大自然中的一切有形的东西都各有火候。如煎炒烹炸，都要掌握好火候，到什么火候用什么措施，即不过也不及，要恰到好处。功夫到什么阶段，用什么办法，不能用非所需，或需非所用，一定要恰如其分。 　　静极而动，不同于自然而动。因为前者是在一念不起的基础上静养来的炁发，是纯洁的，是先天的产物。后者是通过睡眠，大脑得到休息，当一觉醒来，一般说来外阳是要动的。静极而动，更不同于色情动。因为前者是清，后者是浊；前者是先天性的，后者是后天性的。外阳动，不能认为都是色心动。善养生者不等杂念丛生，即可用后升前降转法轮将炁收回。 　　练性命双修功夫者，把静极而动、一阳炁发视为至宝。每逢阳动炁发立即收归我有，积炁养身，炁越足则体越壮。外阳动得越勤其力越大，只待二候到来，方可下手。 　　静极而动，实际是情动，这情是道情不是人情，无念而来是道情。故龙牙禅师曰：“人情浓厚道情微，道用人情世岂知，空有人情无道用，人情能得几多时。”柳华阳祖师曰：“且此一情字自汉明帝到今注者纷纷，苟不得慧命之法，便谓之春情。识者见之无不笑也。”六祖坛经云：“有情来下种，无情果不生。”看来同是一个情字，就有两种不同的用法。一种是顺其自然用于人情。一种是逆着回来养生是用于道情。而六祖慧能、柳华阳、龙牙禅师，他们都是佛门弟子。他们当然是站在出家人的立场对待人情和道情，而且也是从养生道理上来加以说明。我们今天讲养生之道，既用人情，也用道情。用人情行人世法，生儿育女，使我们民族永远繁荣昌盛。用道情作为养生之道，使人人健康长寿。正因如此，当我们练功时，偏要将顺去的东西，想办法使它逆着回来。这是与一般人不同之处。只有这样，才能向自然规律夺取寿命。古人云，炁归元海寿无穷。这也是性命双修的特异之处。 　　曹还阳祖师云：返观凝神入炁穴，炼精百日黄芽生。 　　伍冲虚祖师云：烹炼铅汞于鼎炉，炼精炼神根本地。 　　柳华阳祖师云：和合凝集转法轮，吸呼薰炼性命存。 　　了空祖师云：督升任降成鼎炉，锻炼五谷化精炁。 　　千峰老人曰：前对脐轮后对肾，中间有个真金炉，十字街前安玉鼎，神炁之宅呼吸根。 　　先父牛金宝对安炉立鼎采小药收炁降龙曾作歌一首： 　　阳生炁发及时收，续命全靠勤添油； 　　后升前降凭意领，吸上呼下赖圆周。 　　笛声吹来龙服驯，剑指点去虎低头； 　　龙虎剑笛皆比喻，鼎炉莫向身外求。 　　第三步 开通奇经八脉 　　法诀 　　开八脉，聚精神，以意领气贯全身。 　　一吸督脉升泥丸，二呼任脉降会阴。 　　三吸带脉至肩窝，四呼阳腧到手心。 　　五吸阴腧胸前定。六呼至带归一根。 　　七吸冲脉到降宫，八呼阳蹻涌泉停。 　　九吸阴蹻升炁穴，十呼还原入窍中。 　　吸呼深长凭意领，水到渠成赖气行。 　　八脉开通身属阳，阴蹻开时百脉通。 　　功法详解 　　开通奇经八脉，又叫十口呼吸调八脉。初学者，因盘腿打坐，两腿受压不习惯，定有两腿麻木之感。用此法立即消除麻木。其功法的主要用途，是用以开通奇经八脉，驱逐阴邪之气，消阴长阳，进而达到全身属阳，百病全无。 　　奇经八脉，道家用以行炁、通关以达到延年益寿。通人脉，又称玉液炼形。 　　奇经八脉，即前任、后督、中冲、横带、阴维、阳维、阴蹻、阳蹻，也是道家行气八脉。开通八脉法，是用十口呼吸，以意领气，心到、意到、神到，气亦随之而到。平时必须经常练习，把心、神、意合而为一。八脉线路要记熟用灵，达到心想哪里，哪里就有所感触。最好每日清晨练习两遍，日久天长，就能随心所欲。 　　一吸督脉升泥丸，是先把心神意下注于会阴，鼻根呼气，心意随之，由会阴往后提起来，经脊骨正中督脉，上升至头顶泥丸即百会稍停；二呼由泥丸下来，走前边任脉，又回到会阴穴；三吸由会阴穴提到脐下一寸三分处之炁穴，分开双行走带脉，从两腰眼至两肩窝一停；四呼由两肩窝走两臂外侧阳腧脉，经中指到两手心劳宫穴稍停；五吸由手心劳宫穴走两臂内侧阴腧脉，到胸前靠近两乳处稍停；六呼从胸前双下至带脉炁穴归并一处，直达会阴处稍停；七吸由会阴穴上来，走任督二脉中间的冲脉，直上到心下一寸二分绛宫穴停住，不要过绛宫；八呼由绛宫下来到会阴分开，走两腋两腿外侧阳蹻脉，经两脚中趾到两脚心涌泉穴稍停；九吸从涌泉穴上升走两腿内侧阴蹻脉，到会阴归一，再上升炁穴稍停；十呼由炁穴，直达会阴生死窍。十口吸呼调八脉，是由生死窍会阴穴为起点，最后终点仍落在生死窍会阴穴，故而道家称它为八脉之总根。千峰老人称此窍：“上通泥丸，下达涌泉，真炁聚散皆以此窍为转移。血脉周流，全身贯通，和气上朝，阳长阴消，水中火发，雪里花开，实乃生炁之根。百姓日用而不知者此也。”十口吸呼调八脉，一吸一呼，升、住、起、止都必须与一意领气同时并举，协调一致；方能奏效。对此慎无忽略。以上是行气八脉。另有通精八脉（此是生精、化精、走精、炼精八脉），即前任，后督，中冲，横带，上通心、下通阳关，上前通脐，上后通肾，这里是以生死窍为轴心说的。道家的传统说法，往往与医家有所不同。 　　第四步　　小周天、下手炼精化炁伏虎法 　　法诀 　　二候到，春雷动，猛虎怒吼要出洞。 　　顺则出去可生人，逆而回来延寿命。 　　手点虎额虎伏地，剑插三峡水倒行。 　　收炁定要收元炁，炼精必须炼元精。 　　顺减寿，逆添油，养生至宝莫外流。 　　下手点住生死窍，急用巽风六候收。 　　橐龠动时阖辟转，升住起止四正求。 　　会得还精补脑法，功夫更上一层楼。 　　功法详解 　　下手练精化炁是道家性命双修功法中的绝秘，非其人不传。即使传人，也必然伴随着一些清规戒律。余今具体详说如下，不经口传万勿轻用。 　　下手炼精化炁法，是在以下情况下采用的：在初步静坐的基础上经过静功的开源节流，增长元炁，日积月累，静极而动、阳生炁发，不等念起，用二步转法轮收炁法收之。当用完七口吸呼，后升前降转够七周，外阳不缩，继用无孔笛降龙法，也转够了七个提降，而外阳依然不倒，此刻应用勒阳关，调外药。调到药产神知，外阳不但不倒，反而似鲤鱼打挺一跃而起，元精突然欲破关而出，这即是二候。就在这千钧一发之际，火候不老不嫩之时，如依熟路顺去，则是生人之道；若逆而回来即是炼精化炁的养生之道。古人有云，顺生人，逆生仙，只在中同颠倒颠，正此之谓也。也正是在这一发千钧的关键时刻，不等思维活动，即不等念起，急速下手，剑插海底，向左侧身，左腿蜷曲，右腿伸直成半躺半坐势，用小周天炼精化气法诀，将这欲夺关而出的元精（因无思欲从静而来）化成元炁。古人所谓“巽风运坤火，风吹火化”，即以鼻呼吸（巽风即鼻中呼吸之气），头转眼随，由自身会阴子位起，向自身左上方旋转，用鼻连吸三吸，眼随头转，走子卯午，眼看头顶午位。从午位眼随头转向自身右下方向，鼻子呼气，连呼三呼，即午酉子。连吸三吸，是由子位向后，上走身后督脉三关，即尾闾、夹脊、玉枕，是为子进阳火。连呼三呼，是由午位向前，走前任脉三田，即祖窍、绛宫、炁穴，此为午退阴符。鼻子呼吸，眼随头转，必须同时并举，协调一致。下边一度一度地精撞阳关，上边则子卯午、午酉子地急收。来得急，收得快，来得缓，收得慢。如磁石吸铁，不即不离。精来多少度，而收炼多少度。待精不动时，即精已化炁，药已归炉。此时仍不撤剑指，身躯由半躺半坐而坐正，再用封固口诀，照前两步转法轮收气法，连收三次，是为牢封固。然后撒手撤剑，下边干干净净，一滴不漏，行将顺出的有形之精，经风吹火化已成为养生保命的无形之炁、这就是小周天下手炼精化炁法，也是道家千古不传之秘。 　　下手炼精化炁，必须建立在纯静的基础上。从静极一阳初动，到药产神知的二候到来，其来源必须是不加杂丝毫杂念，纯属先天性的。也必须按照术数的要求，即“和于术数”。必须转够七圆圈。当转够七周外阳依然不缩，方可用无孔笛颠倒两头吹法诀。无孔笛也用够七次，这即是火候。何谓二候呢？当静极而动，阳生炁发，龙从火里出为一候。当勒阳关调外药，调到药产神知，阳挺精动，虎自水中生为之二候，故有二候采牟尼之称。自古传药不传火，从来火候少人知。从历来丹经道书上看，确实找不到具体用法，更寻不着真正的口诀、火候。虽有的微露端倪，也只是藏头露尾的只言片语，以及隐晦莫解之词。 　　下手炼精化炁，又谓小周天。陈泥丸曰：“天上分明十二辰，人间分作炼丹程。若言刻漏无凭信，不会元机药不成。”所谓的大小周天，是道家借喻周天度数来阐述采药炼丹的道理，以及如何运用周天火候作为养生之道。在下手炼精化炁的过程中，充分地体现了这一点。但并非必须记住周天路线。二候一到，下手点窍，任督接通，方可采药，心静神清，非常重要。吸升呼降，眼随头转，前三后三，呼吸贯穿，火逼金行，左右盘旋，吸舐撮闭，坎离抽填，采药归炉，片刻之间，一字没有，记啥周天，千古绝秘，全赖口传。“吸舐撮闭”是下手采药炼精化炁的四字诀：吸是鼻内吸气，舐是用舌接督脉弦，撮是紧撮谷道，闭是闭任开督。 　　下手炼精化炁，在《黄帝内经》中有这样一段记载：“黄帝曰：余闻上古有真人者，提挈天地，把握阴阳，呼吸精气，独立守神，肌肉若一，故能寿敝天地，无有终时。”把握自身的坎离阴阳，而呼吸精气，当然是自身的精炁了。肌肉若一还可以，而寿敝天地，无有终时，则太夸张。 　　如果真能在静中产生的二候到来之时，按照炼精化炁之法，将有形之精化为无形之炁，并收归我有，则这时人的精神面貌就会产生很大的变化，从大脑中枢神经系统，到五脏六腑，尤其是五官面貌，都能出现异乎寻常的特征。比如，从前眼花，可以恢复视力，变成不花。智力、记忆力必有明显的恢复。精力充沛，面色红润，虽不能返老还童，也必有自觉年轻了十年之感。当然要达到这一步，绝非一朝一夕之功。不过只要坚持不懈，运用得法，必然会功到自然成。其进度快慢，要根据个人体质的强弱，和用功的勤怠来决定的。功夫不负有心人，只要有恒心，必定成功，那时推迟衰老，延长寿命，是不难做到的。 　　释家所说的断三淫是指淫身、淫心、淫根。三者最主要的是淫根。淫根不动则身心安静，淫根一动则牵连身心。断淫必须先断淫根，而下手炼精化炁，正是斩断淫根的利剑。道家把离中炁发称为火龙，把坎中精动称为水虎。故吕祖诗曰：“降龙须要志如天，伏虎心雄气似烟。痴蠢愚人能会得，管教立地作神仙。”又诗曰：“大道玄机颠倒颠，掀翻地府要寻天。龟蛇共穴孰能见，龙虎同宫谁敢言。九夏高山生白雪，三冬备火种金莲。叮咛学道诸君子，好把无毛猛虎牵。”李虚庵祖师云：“识得乾坤颠倒颠，金丹一粒是天仙。要寻不必深山里，所得无非在眼前。忙里偷闲调外药，无中生有采先天，信来认得生身处，下手功夫在口传。”以上所说都是指下手炼精化炁的功夫。 　　修性必须先炼心，心定则神安，心死则神活，修命必须先炼精，精是养性命之根源，故《金仙证论》云：精为万物之美，人身内有精则生，无精则死。精足而不知持满，即不能炼而化之，定有满而自溢丢失之患。精是命宝，极难生产而最易消耗。故炼性必先练心，七情不动，五贼不乱，六根大定，精难动摇，方有助于炼功。所谓七情即喜怒哀乐爱恶欲，五贼即眼、耳、鼻，舌、身。眼、耳、鼻、舌、身、心又为六欲。是以眼见色则爱起而贼精，耳听声则欲起而摇精，鼻闻香则贪起而耗精，口尝味则嗜起而走精，身意遇触则痴起而损精。人身之精能有几何，一旦精竭气枯，则命尽身亡。我们今天要讲的性命双修，既不主张断绝七情六欲，更不赞成夫妇隔离，不过善养生者应知精是保命至宝，万不可毫无节制地抛弃罢了。 　　下手炼精化炁，正是《黄帝内经》上所说的“把握阴阳，呼吸精气”，也是还精补脑，壮骨实髓，说来复杂，行之简便的延寿法。炼精化炁，在我要介绍的十三步功夫中，是非常重要、非常关键的一步。对于推迟衰老，延长寿命，能起决定性的作用。但欲想做到药产神知（这里所说的药产是指自家身内之元精欲突关而出，神知是指自己的元神立知），二候一到，便能下手点窍即下手采药，就必须行有为之法，存无为之心，运用自如，毫无勉强，夺天地之造化于片刻之间。要做到准确无误，应在用功之余，加以练习，方不致临时无所措手足。所谓练习是指意领神会，头手动作比划而已。切不可热火煮空铛，空转法轮，更不可以手淫作练习，应戒之，慎之。另有一种说法：以后升前降空转法轮为小周天，从百会到涌泉转一圈为大周天。完全以意领空转，在初练阶段作为止念法还可以，如果认为这即是性命双修的大小周天实大错而特错。这样空想空转无异于锅里无水，釜底加火。只有锅里有水，经火化才能成气，也只有坎中的精动（元精），才能用收精法炼而化之。正如丹经所说的“起巽风，运坤火”，风吹火化将元精化为元炁，进一步将元炁再化为元神。若有人问，精收回去能否成病呢？我的回答是不会成病，因为下手炼精化炁，风吹火化而成炁，是道家秘而不传的法子。只要照口传心授的法诀去做是万无一失的。不过只从书本里、文字上实难寻到妙处。据我几十年的亲身经验，不论是静中得来还是睡梦中得来，都可用下手法收回，也都是有益无损的。不过若不是由纯静与火候足得来的，只能养身而不能结丹。 　　千峰老人曰：“此诀是各丹经道书所谓的下手法。精顺出者是元精能生人，逆回者是元炁能生丹，正在中间颠倒颠，可不是采空气，炼的是真阳之精，将身补足可延年益寿。”其所著《性命法诀明指》有云：“身、心、意谓之三家，精、气、神谓之三宝，又谓之三元。以身心意为主，以精气神为用。三元合一而丹成。摄三归一在于虚静。虚其心则神与性合，静其身则精与情寂，意大定则三元混一。情合性谓之金木并，精合神谓之水火交，意大定谓之五行全。然而精化为炁者，由身之不动也。炁化为神者，由心之不动也。神化为虚者，由意之不动也。这即道家所谓的三花聚顶，三华即精花、炁花、神花。所谓的五气朝元，即身不动则精固而肾水气朝元，心不动则气固而心火气朝元，真性寂则魂藏而肝木气朝元，妄情忘则魄伏而肺金气朝元，四大安和则意定而脾土气朝元，这即是三花五气皆聚于顶成为这个元极，道家谓之炼已。以上是小周天下手炼精化炁法。欲穷千里目，更上一层楼，循序渐进，柳暗花明又一村。再接再厉将下手炼精化来之炁，再炼炁合神，使神炁合一，功夫更上一层楼（炼炁合神为采内药卯酉周天）” 　　下手炼精化炁是道家的绝秘，历来不著于文字，惟独千峰老人所著的《性命法决明指》与本书将此法合盘托出，但不经师传恐难使用。 　　（一）炼精化炁小周天，从古到今少人传。 　　比龙喻虎谈阴阳，指天划地论坤乾。 　　明明都是简易法，偏偏故意弄虚玄。 　　现将此法公于世，愿与同道共钻研。 　　（二）养生功法数千年，黄帝内经露真诠。 　　提挈天地斡坤乾，把握阴阳颠倒颠。 　　呼吸精气壮骨髓，独立守神自湛然。 　　比喻隐晦难猜测，说破消息在眼前。 　　（三）抽得坎阳离中填，二炁合一结金丹。 　　待到精尽化炁时，我命由我不由天。 　　下手炼精炁，必须口传，不经口传，万勿乱用以防出偏。因为此法从来不著于文字，用文也实难表达清楚。虽说简便，但差之毫厘，谬之千里，极易出偏。故再三强调，必经口传，甚至有的功法必须三番五次方能领悟。望后来之者慎之慎之。 　　第五步　　外文武火金木合并法 　　法诀 　　两手捧香肩臂松，眼观香头二自睁。 　　聚精会神屏呼吸，涕泪交流即收兵。 　　闭目养神应求静，心存已炁门自生。 　　渣滓提净药方纯，泪管输通眼更明。 　　文火七，武三成，药采之后好用功。 　　日月同宫金木合，心火下降肾水升。 　　眼球常转眼不花，耳鼓常敲耳更灵。 　　常用此法除百病，能化五谷饮食精。 　　功法详解 　　外文武火，是用后天之火引出先天之火。二火合一，既能提出在炼精化气中的渣滓，澄洁药物，又能化五谷饮食之精，提出五脏之病，使人益寿延年。了空祖师曰：“外武火者是移火也；外文火者是以火也。”这是专为提出五脏内之渣滓化泪流出之法，又是炼四相和合、五行攒簇归根、回光返照、日月合并之功。其用法如下： 　　在初步静坐的基础上，收心入静十分钟后，夜间须燃香一炷（白天可用红头筷子一根），双手捧香或筷子，放在目前三寸许，高低与二目齐平，二目睁开同视香头。约两、三分钟后，两眼似辣椒水洗一样难受，此时必须坚持强睁二目，待眼泪鼻涕一同流出来为止，然后将香火捏灭，眼泪擦净，闭目养静，是为文火。坐到无人无我、身心两忘是为正功。久之心火下降，肾水上升，口中津液清而且甜，吞下入十二气嗓管，再降到炁穴化为阴精，由春弦入睾丸化为阳精。阳精出输精管，上至膀胱顶分两边，至尿道口入内肾，即藏精之所。善养生者百倍珍惜口中津液，津液常足，也证实肾水常足，肾水足而两眼炯炯有神，皂白分明，这样人身就健康无病。所以说：外文武火不但能使二目有光，保持眼睛不花，而且能提出五脏之病，治五脏之病于未发之前，除病根于未萌芽之时。 　　外文武火是专炼二目，生理学有云“父母初结胎时，细胞内先生二目，至十二日后用显微镜看内有黑睛。”古经亦云；“人初结胎时，天一生水生黑睛而有瞳仁通肾，地二生火而有两眦通心，天三生木而有黑珠通肝，地四生金而有白珠通肺，天五生土而有上下眼胞通脾，故五脏之精华皆聚于二目，而人之灵神在脑，亦发之于目。”人的两眼又谓心灵的窗户。道家认为，人之一身皆属阴，谁独两眼属阳（指男子），仰仗这点真阳，方能不被群阴所剥。修士必须由此入手修炼，利用这点真阳来战胜群阴，而进一步达到纯阳之体。 　　外文武火，有文七武三之别。比如从两眼同视香头到涕流用了三分钟，闭目静养时要用七分钟，当然静养时间越长越好。越是心静念止，越感觉神清气爽。炁从已门生，身如在云端，万籁俱寂，神形俱妙，事后眼睛特别清亮。 　　千峰老人曰：“外武火者，是将神火注于炉中，为火中火引也。古名移火。移者移动身内病管开张，即是移动内里真火，二火相磨相激，阳火必胜乎阴精，精融灌溉周身，而渣滓出净，病从何来。”外文火者，是温养恢复还原之法。因在用武火时，五行攒簇，内管张开，渣滓提出后，必须用文火使其恢复原状。文火又谓以火，以者以温养之法，闭目塞兑，意守正中，气降真炁穴，身空意空方为正功。 　　外文武火，是非常有效的炼眼法。但也要伴之以熨眼、转睛、眼呼吸等法。所谓熨眼法在初步养静中已谈到，不再重述。 　　转睛：每天晨起，坐立皆可，二目睁开，头颈不动，独转眼球。眼看极下方，由极下方向左上方转到极上方，由极上方向右下方转到极下方为一周。如此转九周一停，再继续转四个九周，共三十六周。再由右上左下转四个六周，共二十四周。如此使两眼的脑炁筋、输泪管活跃有力，畅通无阻，使两眼灵活而有神。 　　眼呼吸：用此法应在空气清洁之处，最好在树林内或河边。早晨面向东方，两脚并立，两臂下垂，浑身放松，二目平视前方。两眼与鼻根部同时吸气，徐徐将气吸足，然后两眼与鼻根同时呼气，连做九次吸呼。这样吸进氧气，呼出二氧化碳，吐故纳新，既锻炼眼睛，又增强五脏新陈代谢的功能。眼呼吸与转眼球，都是为了促使两眼通脑的脑炁筋灵敏活跃，畅通无阻，保持二目常明。久而炼之，还可用以上同样方法看早晨、中午、日落时之太阳。这必须有明师指导，自己不要无师自通。如照此法炼之，日久可目视中午的太阳如看月亮一般。少者可目视太阳一两分钟，久炼可目视半小时，斯时两目寒光四射，无人敢于对视。 　　外文武火图解 　　（—）燃炷真香棒目前，两眼看香目睁圆。 　　待到涕泪交流时，闭目养我炁浩然。 　　（二）文武二火莫看轻，专化五谷饮食精。 　　常用此法眼不花，二目炯炯亮晶晶。 　　（三）采药之后炼此功，去其渣滓要留精。 　　精华炼成舍利子，冲开三关上离宫。 　　（四）离宫即是泥丸顶，舍利原本神炁凝。 　　龙虎铅汞皆比喻，身上去找无此名。 　　第六步　　卯酉周天进阳火退阴符 　　法诀 　　进阳火，退阴符，卯酉周天炁合神。 　　闭目四九子进阳，开关四六午退阴。 　　左旋上升照乾顶，右转下行照脐轮。 　　炉中有火金可化，釜内无水莫增薪。 　　铅投汞，炁合神，采内药，保命根。 　　周天三百六十五，卯酉沐浴始通心。 　　采药炼丹皆比喻，离开神炁别无真。 　　此是自身阴阳配，休向身外错问津。 　　功法详解 　　在下手炼精化炁采药归炉后，紧跟着用进阳火，退阴符，卯酉周天，炼炁合神，又谓采内药。千峰老人曰：“此法是采内药，左旋右转，一起一伏用目下照。从左上照乾顶，从右下照坤脐至中心为一度。如此三十六转是为进阳火。开关从午卯子酉转一回，如此二十四转为退阴符。”十六步功夫，一三五七九是单练，二四六八十是紧密相连用的。经四步下手炼精化炁采药归炉后，紧接着用六步卯酉周天采内药炼气合神的功夫。其用法：坐如初，收神内敛，闭目养神片刻，二目外闭而内睁，凝神下照坤脐，闭目转睛由下向左上右下转，睛转头随，转一周为一次，每转九次稍停，闭目看光。如此转四个九次为进阳火三十六，然后开关，即睁开眼从上往左下右上转晴，转四个六圆周，每转六次稍停，闭目看光。如此转四个六次为退阴符二十四。在外两个眼球左旋右转，在内则金本交并，阴阳和合，神炁合一。千峰老人曰：“外药（即炼精化炁）保身无病，内药保命；命者元炁也。卯酉周天之火，炼内药之法，亦为内交媾。系汝已系充足之外药，彼时因风火相激，真炁上升于脑，眼睛左旋右转一起一伏，脑炁筋与神经系和合，斯时脑髓充满发涨，顿觉荣光发现，有形无相采内药，俗名炼丹是也。”且药归炉后，非用阳火阴符周天三百六十五度四分之一火候，不能将精炁化为荣光，成为内丹之苗。在人身上：子是生死窍，午是泥丸宫，卯是夹脊关，酉是绛宫，卯酋通心，故稍停为沐浴。曹还阳祖师云：“子卯午酉定真机，颠倒阴阳三百息。” 　　子卯午酉为四正，是五行生死之位。且有系管以通五脏六腑，必停其息以意薰蒸之，脏腑方得滋润。故丹经以沐浴为火候之秘机，为炼精炼炁之要诀。金木水火土为五行，在世道中寓生死之理。 　　子卯午酉为四正、四生、四死之位，在性命双修养生功法全过程中起着非常重要的作用。故古人将看四正，或四正理摆在非常重要的位置。尤其在下手炼精化炁，转手炼炁化神的功法上，更视为火候秘机。千峰老人歌曰：“进阳火，退阴符，闭目四九转神轮，开关四六度数真，此是卯酉周天火，差之毫厘炁不生。” 　　功到此步，每到坐静时，眼前就会出现圆陀陀、光灼灼的一个圆光。这即是玄关，又叫慧眼开。这时人就会变得更聪明，精力更充沛，四肢百骸，身体发肤更加春气融融。 　　进行卯酉周天采内药，进阳火，退阴符，是在下手炼精化炁之后，万不可在采外药之前用此功夫。应知炉内有火金可化，釜中无水莫增薪。且忌烈火煮空铛。功夫到此，每当坐静时，眼前出现圆光，此光即是丹苗，又叫玄关，心定则神光凝，心动则神光散，心驰则神光飞。当神光欲飞时，应用第七步收光法收之。 　　四正即子、卯、午、酉，在整个内丹功中占主要地位，不明四正之理，是无法采药炼丹的。图像动作不太明显，仅做参考。 第七步　　龙虎二炁翕聚收光法 　　法诀 　　龙虎精，乌兔髓，凝结翕聚炼光辉。 　　坎离交媾天地泰，戊己合时成刀圭。 　　三花聚顶三心天，四相和合万象飞。 　　皓月当空心宜静，慧光远去意莫随。 　　玄关走，眼莫追，休教前功一风吹。 　　凝神聚光急收剑，子卯午酉子收回。 　　津液为主气当伴，眼鼻同吸意同归。 　　送归土釜牢封固，日月合并照紫微。 　　功法详解 　　此七步功夫是日月合并，守中抱一，翕聚祖炁，聚光、炼光、收光之法，道家也谓之炼丹法。 　　千峰老人曰：“守中抱一是全功，祖炁聚会性命同，坎戊离已日月合，龙虎二体光中升。”又云“守中抱一，日月合并之功也。离己是日光，坎戊是月精，此龙虎二炁也。天地之交精，日月之交光，盘旋于祖窍之前为混元真一之精，此即是精炁神聚在一处，三家相见，四相和合归一，心空意空，无他无我，祖窍之前真气曰太极，曰金丹，曰元觉，先天乾坤，后天坎离，实为四个阴。”从初步收心求静到四步为下手法。从五步到九步为炼丹法。此七步功夫是在前六步的基础上通过小周天转法轮采药收炁降龙、开八脉、下手炼精化炁、文武火、卯酉周天进阳火退阴符等非只一次的自身采补。此时身上百病皆无，神清目明，精炁神足，三花聚于目前，如皓月当空，这即是玄关。玄关者，乃玄妙之机关也。丘祖云：“但著在形体上摸索皆不是，亦不可离形体而外向寻求，因其机发始成窍，机息复渺茫。”《性命圭旨》云：“空洞无涯是玄窍，知而不守是工夫。”千峰老人曰：“静极玄关出现，若有一念使落后天，倏然不见一无所有。如再求之，了不可得，因著色相之故。”此时必须存无守有。所谓存无是存无为，无人无我，忘心忘形，万籁俱寂。所谓守有，即守中抱一，在虚极静笃之时，一轮明月出现目前即玄关。 　　当坐静时眼前出现一圆光，此时务要心定念止。二目合并似含光凝神，此为回光返照，照见真炁之光，盘旋于祖窍之前，自然翕聚此炁不散。越翕聚炁光越圆。当翕聚此光圆陀陀、光灼灼时，即是戊已二土、龙虎二炁合并而刀圭成。千峰老人曰：“坎离交而天地奉，龙虎交而戊己合，戊己合为一体，则四象会合中宫大药生矣。”这里所谓的大药即是玄关。 　　当玄关性光盘旋于祖窍之前渐渐远去时，仍须以静待之，二目既不要随之而去，也不要立即收回。当玄光恍惚欲飞去时，火候已到，急用二目鼻根同时吸气，眼吸意随着四正，心意由下子位左上到卯至午，再右下到酉至子，再抬头开关吸收，用子卯午酉子，将炁光收回。此时金液满口，引吞下入十二重楼，送归土釜即真炁穴牢牢封固。千峰老人曰：“先天真一之炁自虚无中来，但见玄关忽动离远，而后方可翕聚此祖炁收入腹中炁穴，真气往来跳动，口中清香无比为证。”药有老嫩，光有圆缺即足与不足之分。经不断采补，日积月累，真炁内足发于外为光。当此炁光恍恍惚惚不定，或由小变大复归于无，这都属于嫩而不足。还要继续用功，必须炼至眼前出现圆陀陀、光灼灼，方是正玄关。红色者为血玄关，白色者才是正玄关。这即是修真养性的真性，性命合一的真性。精炁神足就出现眼前。吕纯阳云：“目前咫尺长生路，多少愚人不醒悟。”释曰：“终朝常对面，不识是何人。”实际都是指的出现在目前的先天真一之炁——玄关。 　　第八步　　蛰藏炁穴 　　法诀 　　朝北斗，对明星，吸呼绵绵意守中。 　　回光返照炁自动，一点一点意引行。 　　下降不可过丹田，上升只能到绛宫。 　　久动而静炁入窍，大定得之蛰藏功。 　　心肾交，神炁凝，气归元海寿无穷。 　　乾坤日月要和合，戊己坎离交姤升。 　　小定七日不食睡，大定七七呼吸停。 　　识死性活根蒂固，形神俱妙四大空。 　　功法详解 　　蛰藏功法，是道家养生功法中的高级功法。所谓蛰藏，正像蛰虫冬藏于地下，不食不动，似死非死。小定数日，大定能达数十日。这种功夫只能适用于过去入庙出家之人。而对我们当代人来说，是不适宜的。今公诸于世，是让人们知道我们的祖先也有这步蛰藏功法，尤其给研究道家养生功法者，提供点参考罢了。 　　千峰老人曰：“此蛰藏之法，是将祖窍前翕聚那一点阳神炁收归于炁穴之内，名为凝神入炁穴。此炁穴有内外两窍；外窍为阴阳之宅，胎息之根，呼吸之祖；内窍者，长胎住息之所，入大定之室。内呼吸上不过心，下不过肾。久而久之，真气入窍，忽然大定得矣。” 　　用法：基于七步翕聚收光法，将远去欲飞之炁光，用子卯午酉子收回，送归土釜牢牢封固。此时如初坐，用回光返照朝北斗对明星，下视丹田。出息微微，入息绵绵。久视静极，但觉丹田有一股热流，蠕蠕融融动荡其中。此时心不外驰，以意引导，将此热流向上运于心下绛宫，再由绛宫运于肾位丹田炁穴。即上不过心，下至肾。久动而静，忽然入了窍中窍，真炁穴。此刻呼吸顿断，重入胎胞，再造乾坤。实乃心肾相交，神炁合一之功。尤如蛰虫之蛰藏，道家谓之入定，释家谓之禅定。小定数日，大定数十日，而自己的识神则茫然无知矣。古人所谓炁归元海寿无穷即指此步功夫。 　　对于丹田、炁穴的位置究竟在哪里，其说法不一，用我们的传统说法：是在脐下一寸三分处，上有黄庭下关元，前有幽阙后命门，前七后三中悬一穴即丹田。了空祖师说：“炁穴在动静二脉之中心，分出二脉合成一管，下通小肠之中心，有四层网脂油皆连络小肠，首层名曰黄庭，二层名曰金炉，三层名曰炁穴，四层名曰关元是也。” 　　另外佛教瑜珈功，有的功深者，埋在地里数十日，仍可复活。我国道家的蛰藏功，也能口鼻无呼吸，六脉皆停，大定七七四十九日。这与释家三禅脉住，同一道理。这说明道家也有这步功法，不过不易达到罢了。 　　蛰虫冬眠待春生，人能入定享高龄。 　　小定七日呼吸断，大定七七六脉停。 　　年老无事尚可用，在职工作行不通。 　　介绍此法无他意，说明道家有斯功。 　　第九步　大周天蒂踵呼吸法 　　法诀 　　大周天，神宜凝，呼吸往来在蒂踵。 　　消息引动相兼连，法轮自转是正功。 　　真气上升后天降，真气下降后天升。 　　四个呼吸不用鼻，功到气足自然灵。 　　细引气，慢扇风，息往息来神入中。 　　且忌烈火煮空铛，江里有水船可撑。 　　真人蒂踵呼吸法，道家称为炼丹程。 　　功夫到此防夜漏，闭关上锁再加封。 　　功法详解 　　蒂踵呼吸法，是道家内丹术的炼丹法，丹即是神炁的和合凝集。道家把下手炼精化炁谓采药，把炼炁合神谓之丹，是取其药能治病，丹能延命之意。实则也是强名而已。 　　蒂踵呼吸是在八步蛰藏功后，方可进行，否则就如烈火煮空铛，旱河撑船劳而无功。 　　其用法：坐如初，二目合并合光凝神，由祖窍吸气，心意由祖窍往里至玉枕。接着由玉枕再往祖窍呼气。吸呼往来于祖窍与玉枕之间。从祖窍到玉枕一吸为之消，从玉枕到祖窍一呼为之息，用这一吸一呼的消息来引动真人呼吸处。千峰老人说：“祖窍内一吸气，心意由祖窍至延髓梗（即玉枕）为消，后天真气由踵管上升到尾闾过夹脊、玉枕至泥丸宫，此为根生于踵。又呼于蒂，是由延髓至祖窍，下通任脉管根即生死窍。延髓至祖窍一呼气，心意由延髓至祖窍为息，后天真气由蒂管至祖窍过十二重楼、绛宫、炁穴至生死窍，此为发于蒂。此是后天两个吸呼。蒂踵消息，不用口鼻吸呼气。此踵蒂消息久练，自然先天真炁被后天气引动，先天真炁升，后天真气降，先天真炁降，后天真气升，此是四个呼吸不用口鼻之气，为大周天，无时无候无间断也。”此又谓法轮自转。 　　在用蒂踵消息吸呼时，吸呼越长越细越好。无论是吸还是呼都要发出壶水在火上似开未开的声音。这种从延髓到祖窍，由祖窍到延髓的一呼一吸是引子，如做饭拉风箱一样，待引得先天炁与后天气彼此升降时，法轮自转，引子也就失去作用。 　　了空祖师曰：“四个吸呼分先后，若用口鼻道不真，吸踵呼蒂连真炁，这个消息引转轮。”又曰：“后天吸呼在山根，先天真炁丹田升，二炁一合连上下，差之毫厘不转轮。” 　　千峰老人曰：“这踵之头在后脑海即延髓，下通脚后根，一吸踵处至山根即是蒂处，其后天气由脚后根上升至尾闾过夹脊、玉枕至泥丸宫，此是后天一吸踵之处。这蒂之头在山根即祖窍内，下通生死窍，一呼蒂处至后脑海，其后天气由泥丸宫下降，通上鹊桥、玄膺穴、十二重楼，过绛宫，下降真炁穴至生死窍，此为后天一呼蒂之处。此是后天两个吸呼。用蒂踵消息引动先天真炁由炁穴内生出，下通尾闾一度一度上升至乾顶，后天气一点一点下降至生死窍。先天炁由乾顶一度一度下降坤处，后天气由生死窍进尾闾关，一点一点上升至乾顶，此为先后天吸呼四个往来不用口鼻。” 　　八步蛰藏入定，九步踵蒂吸呼都是炼养舍利的功法。也是属于小周天即将完成，大周天即将开始，因为大小周天是一个整体，绝不能截然分开。当小周天炼精化炁而成舍利，大周天就是炼炁化神而结胎，所谓胎即神炁的结晶，即比舍利更高一级的精、炁、神三者的产物。 　　第十步　固精关门法 　　法诀 　　真炁动，响警钟，谨防夜漏失元精。 　　勤修苦炼来不易，休让命宝一旦倾。 　　睡用五龙盘体法，醒有降龙伏虎功。 　　龙虎穴，在掌中，两手中指点劳宫。 　　提根吸气转四九，舌接督脉鼓巽风。 　　头转眼随循子午，后升前降气归中。 　　功毕两手搓腰眼，关门上锁再加封。 　　会得固精关门法，益寿延年信非空。 　　功法详解 　　固精关门法，是道家养生功法中最重要的一步，是用来预防夜间睡熟后丢失元阳的方法，也是医治梦遗滑精非常有效的方法，万勿等闲视之。 　　当通过九步功法的勤修苦炼，筑基将成未成之时，须谨防夜间丧失元阳。原因是由于坚持不懈地练功，日积月累，精炁越来越足，身体越来越健康，百病全无，此时正是俗语所说的井满自流之时。但每逢夜间丢丹，白天必有真炁跳动之景，即淫根会阴穴处跳动。这即是夜漏的警钟，已预报夜失元阳的信息。白天得信息，晚上不要忽略。入睡前要用固精关门法将精门关闭，方能高枕无忧。最好是多用功少睡眠。 　　固精关门法：坐如初步，平心静气，将左手中指曲回，所点之处即龙穴，再用右手中指去点住左手中指所点之处，左手中指自然伸开去点右手劳宫处之虎穴。此时左手掌心向上手背向下，右手在上掌心向下，两手掌心合在一起，除两手中指相互点穴外，其余各指自然伸开，两手合掌横放在脐下。舌接上齿外唇内人中处之督脉弦。同二步转轮法收炁一样，提肛吸气，眼随头转，由会阴子位向左上泥丸午位，随之鼻子一呼气，从午位由上向右下复到子位为一圆周，如此转一吸一呼一圆周，转九圆周一停。每转九周一停，共转四个九周。大致用三四分钟左右。但务必上下相随，完整一气。转完四九三十六周，再静坐十至二十分钟，然后用两手掌心搓腰眼，发热为止，这即是关门上锁再加封。这样入睡就比较安全了。正是：关门再睡倒，免得丧真宝，久练能固精，自然身体好。 　　两手心的龙虎二穴之脉，通寸关尺之脉，寸关尺之脉内通心肾，即左手龙穴通心，右手虎穴通肾，将龙虎二穴点住，能闭心肾之炁不动，再用神气将精炁管封住，其精就不能自然而出。 　　五龙盘体法，是卧功，又谓卧禅。睡眠时侧身而卧，一手曲肱、一手摸脐，一腿卷曲、一腿伸开，舌顶上腭，行深呼吸，未睡心先睡目，心息相依，致虚极，守静笃，达到身心两忘，形神俱妙而至入定。 　　睡眠姿势：侧身卧，一腿伸开，一腿卷曲，一手捂睾丸，一手曲于面部，或双手捂睾丸。这样有两个好处，一是使睾丸发暖，二是睡熟后如精撞阳关一撞即醒，便于手点生死窍（用四步炼精化炁法炼而化之），而不致精撞阳关醒来手足无措。 　　宴息法，也是道家卧功的睡禅功。在入睡前用打咯法，将浊气略出，易于入睡。在睡前和坐前都应用打饱咯似的宴息法，七日后再入坐或入睡，对于入静入睡都有帮助。 　　关门固精是为了养精蓄锐，精足而炼精化炁，炁充而炼炁化神，神满而炼神还虚，故有精满不思淫，炁满不思食，神满不思睡之说。固精不是固守死精，必须使之运转不息，应知流水不腐，户枢不蠹，生命在于运动，这与炼精化炁同一道理。 　　固精关门法，正如古人所说：“运罢河车君再睡，来朝依旧接天根。” 　　精为炁之母，神为炁之子，有神无炁不能生，有炁无神不能死。 　　第十一步 虚室生白蟾光现 　　法诀 　　蟾光现，心莫惊，须知炉内丹炁充。 　　虚室生白非是幻，三花聚顶暗室明。 　　欲知舍利足不足，一盏明灯九转功。 　　转罢一九闭目看，丹足圆月亮晶莹。 　　有暗光，丹未成，继续温养再加烹。 　　寂静犹似龙养珠，谨慎处女怀孕同。 　　且戒十损勿伤炁，不思食睡神自灵。 　　神炁合一舍利就，六景现时丹已成。 　　功法详解 　　虚室生白，蟾光出现，是通过前面十步功夫即下手炼精化炁、转手炼炁化神以及文烹武炼神炁合一养成舍利，这时三家相见精炁神三宝养足，混融一团，道家谓之结丹。充于内必形于外，固能出现虚室生白的征兆。由于蟾是三足，故道家将精炁神三足发于外的光称为蟾光。 　　当夜间坐在暗无光亮的屋子里，忽然眼前白光一片，室内所有的东西清晰可见，但一闪即逝。如果经常出现这种景象，心里不必惊慌，这就是虚室生白，蟾光出现，是神炁合一丹已成的征兆。此时宜以至静为主，似龙养珠，如处女初孕，意思是要小心谨慎而已（龙养珠是道家一种术语）。 　　自己身内的舍利即内丹怎样才知足不足呢？检验的方法是：古时用棉油灯一盏，现在可改用一号手电筒将蒙子去掉，立起来，灯头朝上放在面前。二目高低与灯泡平，距离一尺三寸左右。心定念止，二目睁开注视灯光，头颈盘旋，二目仍视灯光，头转眼不转。头转时依然走子卯午酉四正路线，即由下子位向左上午位，由午位不停紧接着向右下子位这为一转。如此一气转九转，转时不一定配合呼吸。九转功完后闭目看光，若眼前是圆光，圆满晶莹亮如秋月，这即是内丹已足。如果眼前之光不圆或内有暗光，这是内丹不足之征兆，应继续用功，过一段时间再检验一次，只待此光圆陀陀、光灼灼，晶莹皎洁亮如秋月，方知自己内丹已足。但此功不宜太勤，练得太勤会感到头晕。 　　这步功夫道家谓之取火提火。取火者是取外界之灯火，提火者是提身内的真火，即神火。此是检验自身内丹足与否的办法。功夫至此应静坐滋养舍利为主。每日参禅打坐，两眼合并，下照坤腹，炼得脸上虫食作痒，又如珠网罩面，蚂蚁爬行，左耳龙吟，右耳虎啸，通身酥麻，其身如在云端，形神俱妙，乐不可言。练功坚持不懈，自然会神满不思睡，炁满不思食，精满不思淫，外阳缩如怀抱幼儿。此时谨防走失元炁，故有谨戒十损勿伤炁之说。 　　所谓十损，是久行损筋、久立损骨、久坐损血、久睡损脉、久听损精、久视损神、久言损气、久思损脾、久淫损命、食饱损心。以上所说都是指过劳而言，而对于行功、立功、坐功、卧功那是另外一回事。另外在坐功时还有六不可，即一不可起念，念起则火炎；二不可意散，意散则火冷；三不可外视，外视则神驰而伤魂；四不可外听，外听则精散而伤魄；五吸呼不可骤，骤则散漫无归；六吸呼不可停，停则继续无力。忽断忽续，或躁或寒，皆有害于舍利成就。必须安神于炁穴之内，勿忘勿助，似守非守，绵绵不绝，念兹在兹，先存后忘，入于混沌之中，这是滋养舍利惟一妙诀。 　　虚室生白现蟾光，绝非幻觉，而是精炁神三宝养足自然凝结成舍利。精足眼前出现的为慧光。舍利足出现的光为蟾光。慧光蟾光本属一体，蟾光是由慧光发展而来的。慧光如月光，蟾光似金光。蟾光是精中的真阴炁，二目合并发出的光是真阳炁，阴阳二炁和合所发出的宝光谓之金光。 　　第十二步 舍利养足现六景 　　法诀 　　舍利足，六景来，无根树上花正开。 　　金光一现择静地，早结道侣备法财。 　　二现止火不用风，四项不全花莫摘。 　　五炁朝元归祖窍，三花聚顶见如来。 　　龙又吟，虎又欢，仙乐齐鸣在耳边。 　　身涌鼻搐遍体酥，丹田火炽两肾煎。 　　马阴藏相老返童，金光三现过大关。 　　筑基炼己功成就，性命合一结金丹。 　　功法详解 　　这步功夫说的是景象以及为过大关而做的准备工作。 　　一切物体的本身，无不充实于内而表现于外。当一个人身内无病，精力充沛，其外貌必然是精神焕发，红光满面。相反，若身内有病，则必然面黄肌瘦，形容憔悴，精神萎靡不振。即连草木花卉、瓜果桃李，当其成熟时，其表面都会出现异样光彩。道家的养生功法亦然。 　　当精炁神三宝炼足，三花聚于顶，心肝脾肺肾五脏之炁朝元，舍利养足必然会出现六景。何谓六景？一眼前有金光，二脑后有鹫鸣即仙乐鸣，三左耳龙吟，右耳虎啸，四丹田火炽，五身涌鼻搐，六马阴藏相。此六景是舍利养足的征兆，也是道家历代养生功法实践经验的总结。现将六景详解如下： 　　眼前金光的出现：炼功至此当以静养为主。因为此时已达到精满不思淫，炁满不思食，神满不思睡，舍利子已足，淫根自缩，只有用虚静来温养舍利使之足之又足。在未现金光之前，有时眼前常发现刷的一道电光，道家术语谓金机飞电。这是金光出现之前的征兆。出现此征兆仍须静定，应终日二目下视丹田，当眼前出现皎洁如电的性光时仍须静定。在久久静定中忽然在眼前皎洁的性光中又出现金光，此即是金光一现，是真正的精炁神足，三花聚顶，五脏之炁聚，五炁朝元，舍利已足。此时须准备法、财、侣、地，做服食过大关的准备工作。 　　法：包括过大关的法诀，防危虑险的法器。 　　财：即钱财，是供道侣生活用的费用。 　　侣：即道侣二至三人，其中必须有精通过大关口诀的。 　　地：选择离城镇不远的偏僻处，当然庙宇山洞不受干扰之处，更为合宜。 　　龙吟：似隐隐气笛之声；虎啸：似呼呼的风声；鹫鸣脑后：似音乐之声。这是精炁神是之真火发出的音响，不同邪火上升的耳鸣。 　　丹田火炽：两肾汤煎，即身内三昧真火充于内而形于外。三昧真火即君火、相火、民火。精为民火，炁为相火，神为君火。 　　身涌鼻搐：是身在动，鼻在抽搐。 　　马阴：是外阳缩回如在胎胞；藏相：是脖下相骨缩回。相骨即气嗓管突出的疙瘩。 　　另外还有珠网罩面，浑身奇痒等等征兆。 　　金光二现当止火，止火是采药不用吸呼气之巽风。当止火而不止火，势必导致炉崩丹飞前功尽弃之患。比如水已烧沸、饭已做熟，还继续加火，岂不将饭烧焦锅烧化吗？爆羊肉、涮羊肉要掌握火候，不老不嫩，炼内丹是同一道理。 　　如果法财侣地四项没备好，当金光二现再采药时只能用意领，而不能用吸呼巽风，火逼金行的功法。只好用意领，继续补养舍利，并百倍注意夜间丢丹。正如正阳祖师所云：“丹熟不须行火候，更行火候必伤丹。”用传统的说法：此时应戒七情、九气、十损。十损在十一步已有。九气：怒则气上，恐则气下，喜则气缓，悲则气消，惊则气乱，思则气结，劳则气耗，寒则气收，热则气泄。 　　以上这些征兆，是证实舍利子已足。性命双修养生功法十六步，步步功能都有其各自的特征。不是空谈某某已达到如何境界，而是到什么火候，有什么特征，用什么办法，必须恰如其分。当然达到十二步六景出现已属不易。自古传功不传景。因为如先说景，恐怕初学者在坐功时，意念注于景，致生出幻景，被幻景所误。 　　第十三步 采大药服食过大关大周天 　　法诀 　　入静室，万念室，金光三现再用功。 　　六根震动产大药，五龙捧圣上离宫。 　　真宝遇阻动后引，侣搓髓解关自通。 　　羊鹿牛车各献力，吸舐撮闭吸托升。 　　过三关，升泥丸，上下鹊桥要堵严。 　　阳火阴符化甘露，润吞金液入丹田。 　　从此已得天上宝，神炁合一了大还。 　　男子马阴女缩乳，返老还童寿延年。 　　功法详解 　　当法、财、侣、地四项备齐，即可入静室用大功。此时此刻应万念皆空，入坐前用状如馒头的木底座，裹上丝棉，抵住谷道，以防鹊桥漏丹。每日盘膝端坐，二目下视丹田，静久六景自现。待眼前金光三现，正是采大药的火候已到，此时用六根震动的口诀，将舍利震出发动。谷道已有木底座抵住，舌舐上腭，再用吸舐撮闭、五龙捧圣、三车上牵之法，将舍利子升到泥丸宫，再用进阳火三十六，退阴符二十四，经金乌玉兔左旋右转地搅动，将祖窍内的真性炁与乐穴中的真命炁，阴阳二炁合一，化成真种子脱落，走鼻根玄膺穴，此刻上鹊桥漏丹处鼻窍已用木来年堵塞。只有润吞，下降十二重楼，过绛宫下入丹田温养于中，这是采大药过大关的全过程。 　　何谓六根震动、五龙捧圣？过关服食的具体做法又如何呢？ 　　六根即眼、耳、鼻、舌、身、意六根。如睡觉打呼噜，可使六根震动。舍利子被震动后，势必下行，下鹊桥前有五龙捧圣，即双手十指叠成五指，用两手中指抵住生死窍喻为五龙，捧圣是指捧舍利子。下边阳关、谷道已闭，舍利子只有沿着督脉上行，此刻道侣急搓尾闾，搓热髓解，等舍利自动撞关时，两手往上一捧，两眼慢慢地从左往上一转，如羊拉车，其力在尾。轻微上引，舌顶上腭，随其真宝自动之机，鼻内往回一吸气，腰眼一挺，但觉尾闾关咕嘟一下通过。且记必须真宝先动而后引，万勿先引而后动。尾间已过，道侣急搓督脉，真宝一度一度上升。至夹脊关真宝遇阻不动。真宝不动，一意不动，万勿不动先引。道侣轻搓夹脊，热而髓解。待真宝自撞夹脊关时，借真宝自动之机，两手往上一捧，两眼迅速地往上一转，如同鹿拉车，轻而快，其力在脊，舌顶上腭，随真宝自动之机，鼻子一吸气；腰眼往上一挺，咕嘟一下真宝渡过夹脊。道侣向上急搓，真宝一度一度上升，至玉枕关遇阻不动。真宝不动，一意不动。道侣急搓玉枕，热而髓解，真宝忽然自动撞关，随其自动之机，两手往上一捧，舌舐上腭，鼻子一吸气，两眼用力往上一转，如牛拉车快而猛，其力在项颈，但觉咕嘟一下渡过玉枕关。道侣仍急搓风府，真宝进人风府与延髓结合，过小脑、脑桥，进人大脑中心，性神室。此是真命炁之宝与真性神之宝，二宝神炁合一，道家谓之性命同宫。道侣此时用木来年堵塞鼻窍，以防上鹊桥鼻根漏丹。真宝进入神室后，再用进阳火、退阴符之功，即大周天炼炁化神功法。 　　男子藏相女缩乳，返老还童寿延年。采舍利子过大关，必有明显特征，即男子马阴藏相，女子两乳缩回。马阴即外阳完全缩回，如胎儿在母腹时外阳藏于腹内，出生后使劲一哭外阳才被努出来。藏相是下巴颏下气嗓疙瘩缩回，如五六岁婴儿。女子两乳缩回，像五六岁幼女，进而白发变黑，齿落重生，这方是真正的返老还童。 　　采大药过关服食，是道教性命双修养生功法中极高深的一步。是由初步修性开始，静极一阳来复，炁动收炁，精动则炼精化炁，是为下手法。经过日积月累地下手采炼，精满炁足神炁合一而产舍利。舍利养足，金光三现过关服食，为大周天转手炼炁化神。大功至此阳关自闭，应以温养为主，在定静中时有法轮自转之妙境。 　　下手炼精化炁，采药归炉后，眼前出现的光为慧光。经过卯酉周天与翕聚炼光封固蛰藏，蒂踵呼吸一系列温养锻炼后，出现的光为蟾光。当舍利养足，在月白的蟾光中出现金黄色的光为金光，又谓阳光。金光一现，准备法、财、侣、地。金光二现当止火。金光三现采大药过大关。如过三现不采，等金光四现即金逢望远不堪尝矣，所以古人以金光三现为不老不嫩的火候。金光四现是应该止火而没止火，舍利子遂被四现之火化成有形之精溢于外，而致前功尽弃，对此万勿忽视。 　　过关服食又谓金液还丹。金液不同于津液。前者是经过大周天乾坤交姤，阳火阴符化甘露，真种子脱落，甘甜如蜜。后者是在初步入静后，心火下降，肾水上升，由舌下金井石泉所生的津液，又名玉液。而金液是由真性炁与真命炁，阴阳二炁合一化成先天真种子脱落而来。所谓服食，正是吞服这先天真种子化成的金液、甘露。将这先天真种子，种在炁穴，使其开花结子，是谓养道胎。故有小周天炼精化炁而结丹，大周天炼炁化神而结胎。用现在的话来解释，丹与胎都是精炁神的化合物、结晶品。 　　采大药过关服食之后，关窍已通，此后不用意领，法轮自转。此时应以二目之神光时时刻刻下照坤腹，久而久之大定得之，息停，脉住，功夫更上一层楼，即佛家所谓初禅念住，二禅息住，三禅脉住。 　　了空师祖偈曰：“一意不动真种生，二炁和合神运功，三车牵上昆仑顶，四相合一空不空，五龙捧圣朝天贺，六根震动真宝升，天地交泰生万物，乾坤交姤产圣婴。” 　　十三步性命双修养生功法，都是我父亲得之恩师千峰老人口授心传，并由父亲口授心传于我。由于时代的不同，在阐述理论和名词上有所取舍与改革，但在具体功法上仍保持原诀未动。十三步功法概括地说只是两节：即小周天下手炼精化炁，大周天转手炼炁化神。只此十三步，即使有志之士，也一生用之不尽。 　　道家性命双修全部功法共四大手，即：一、下手炼精化炁。二、转手炼炁化神。三、了手炼神还虚。四、撒手炼虚化无。千峰老人又把每手分为四步功法，合四四一十六步。由于后三步养道胎、出阳神、粉碎虚空过于深奥、玄虚，用现代科学方法难以解释，所以本书没有作具体的叙述。但为了让大家对本功全貌有所接触，本书附录中特将千峰祖师的十六步口诀，全文录出，以供参考。 　　炼炁化神大周天，前人历来不轻传。 　　余今泄尽千古秘，献给同道做参研。 　　功法虽然十三步；正是养生延寿录。 　　登峰造极老还少，一生用之无尽处。