The use of the word 'process' in the proceeding exhortation is critical. Britton might assert that the
United States never experienced the Thermidore, but the forces set in motion by this 'process' did have to
work themselves out through any number of travails, not the least of which would be the Civil War, a
blood-letting that even the Terror pales beside. But this problem is related to a not dissimilar one
addressed by Pico and Ficino and Renaissance thinkers more generally. It can be identified in both the
conceptualizations of perfection and God. Neither is properly understood in any static external state.
Perfection is not an existence to be striven for. It is rather a process of development, not located beyond
our meager reach as pitiful humans, but situated in our achievement. Similarly, and this is perhaps a
central contribution of Christianity, God is not some unapproachable, unattainable existence somewhere            
'out there,' but is to be found within each of us, as Dante discovered. We are thus transformed and more
than made noble. We are the hand of God on earth, or as John Paul II urged in Montreal not so many
years ago, "You are Christ." This is the basic element of the notion of the filoque in especially western
Christendom, and harkens back to the earlier comments of human nature and governance.
     It represents a resurrection of man. Having fallen or possessed of a fallen nature, we are capable of
transcending that state and 'arising' to not merely a noble stature, but effectively a divine condition  is the
recognition of our identity. But government must function in that calculation both as a constraint upon the
still existent problematic state of man, for whom the choice is a constant one, but also as the active
cultivation of the process, that same categorical imperative.
     As much a theology as it is a philosophy, it is the view not only of the Framers in their formulizations,
but of the process they initiated of reparation. This, then, is the essence of the American soul, even as it
bears some degree of commensurablity with Feuerbach's Christian essence. That it need not be 'Christian'
per se is as important as Paul's ministry to the Gentiles. If it represents a secularization of Christianity, the
point must be carefully understood, for such secularization should not be taken to entail, as the term often
does, extension into the 'profane,' except probably in the manner which Jesus would reach out to
Magdelene. Nor may it properly be taken to pose fixation on the 'Christian' aspect. Christianity, after all,
came out of a long and rich tradition, and must here be viewed in that context, transcending
organizational forms.


     It should be pointed out that America's civic religion has a high level of compatibility with an
important character in political philosophy even though there is relatively little to interface our political
culture in any direct manner with him. He represents in fact a 'missing link' in the genealogy of our
tradition. The movement which grew into what became this republic can be traced back readily to the
emergence of Europe from what is popularly known as the Dark Ages. The confluence of forces which
engendered that evolution encompasses an emergent trading and artisan group which helped usher in the
capitalist revolution that fueled the growth of the nation-state even as it emersed the entire project in a
collection of forces flowing out of the east and north Africa which we know as the Renaissance. While
that stream of events can be charted, probably no one encapsulates the totality of that picture so much as
does the immortal Dante. He wrote in Italian and became a crucial element in the development of the
culture around that which coalesced into the 'nation' of Italy, so that he clearly represents the nation-state
aspect of the portrait. He also was effectively an 'agent' of the emergent capitalist class in that his
contribution and impact as well as his foundation was in certain respects 'on their shoulders.'  And the
philosophical bases of his system are grounded in conceptualization of the empowerment of human beings
as effectively the hands of the Almighty on earth. In this he not only epitomizes the Renaissance spirit, but
the entire 'civilizing' character of the complete confluence.

     Tracing the development of the university is one path to establishing this road. While it is said that the
first such institution in the 'modern' west was located in Bologna, followed closely by that in Paris,
actually there had been earlier such constructs in Muslim Spain as extension of similar establishments
stretching back through the university at the mosque of Sankore in Timbuktu, the institute in Cairo, and
the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. Indeed, the roots of the European Renaissance are clearly seen growing
out of the Timurid that spread throughout the Islamic world. This paradigm fused into Europe via a
number of routes, including the trade between especially Italian city-states and the middle east and north
Africa, as well as through both Spain and Constantinople. Islam may have been 'stopped' at Tours, but its
influence could not be halted and the impact of centuries of Islamic influence in the Iberian did not vanish
even with the Reconquista. It may be that in some ways the real motivation behind the Crusades was to
extinguish the flames, but they in fact facilitated this spread into Europe.

     The 'Renaissance' rolled through Europe and into England at the time of the Tudors. In a great many
respects, the entire movement for classical liberalism there, politically, economically, and socially, was a
reflection of that. The spirit played an important part in the establishment of the Commonwealth and
related events subsequent to it, including the Commonwealth Party. It invigorated English society and
informed the work of such as Sidney and Milton (who wrote his own 'Divine Comedy,' more specifically
relevant to the British and American situations) and that spirit was an essential part of the psychology
carried across to the new colonial world in North America where it took root and prospered, and where it
became a rudimentary part of the culture that developed largely unencumbered by much of the baggage
Europe was weighted under.

       Thus, while the case for American exceptionalism can be thereby made, and while the tradition
which bore such fruit here can be traced to a number of sources from urbanization, humanism,
empowerment, trade, capitalism, and the Timurid to the nation-state, Dante marks at least an important
roadmark along the way. And whether we look to the Timurid, Milton or Dante, the religious strain at the
core of each was an important characteristic of the emergent culture which determined not merely to build
a 'city on a hill,' but determined to construct what Dante saw at the apex of his heavenly staircase. This is
the soul of American politics which Diggins could not find, it having been lost in the cacophony of the
counter languages (ala Bellah) which echoed across America in a challenge formed by combining the
impacts of slavery, leveling, jacobinism, and other such relics of the medieval European past.  Clearly,
therefore, Bellah has misspecified his American languages such that there may be seen a common thread,
a common denominator, that animates many of the languages while it has seemingly been missed in the
confounded conversation he identifies. In effect, Bellah has conjured up a tower of Babel in America in
which the many in E Pluribus Unum becomes more important than the oneness.


     Even so, the Alegharian aspect has been an essential concept in the development of our political
culture, and given its religious allegory, this unifying character can be viewed a crucial component of our
civic religion. And to whatever degree the Alegharian aspect has been overlooked, its multi-tiered
influence remains, and is nevertheless clearly audible even in the cacophonic clatter. Capitalism itself
makes the point. Whether or not the immortal cantor of Dante echoed through the souls of those who built
this city per se, it remains an indispensable ingredient in the glue which bonds the community that was in
fact the reattainment of Milton's lost paradise.

     The philosopher carried the argument much further than the poet, but it may have been the poet who
carried the day. There is considerable confluence between at least Hegel's idea of the Geist and John
Donne's famous quote regarding our mutuality and interconnectedness. That "no man is an island. We are
all intricately bound up with one another, so that the death of any man diminishes every man. Therefore,
never send to ask for whom the bell tolls -- it tolls for thee," as Martin Luther King was fond of quoting,
in many respects parallels the philosopher's national, or cultural, even human, spirit. It may be that
however much they approximate each other, in its possessing a degree of universality and being not so
bound by historical contexts, the tolling of the bell argument represents more of a categorical imperative --
indeed, expresses the categorical imperative of our process -- than does 'Geist.'

     Dr. King certainly was making a spiritual statement, but the words are just as applicable in societal
and economic reasoning. Indeed, the old argument that the production of a single cup of coffee is reliant
on the labor of all of humanity is most useful in understanding this. But, a logical extension of very little
distance is required to carry the point further. Hence, to the extent that any man does not willfully or
cannot seek to achieve their potential, he is thus diminishing every man. And in a world which teeters on
the brink between subsistence and existence for many of its billions, it can be suggested that anyone who
does not shoulder their 'burden' of civilization is effectively contributing to starvation and death. The
opposite case would follow equally in validity. If that reaches beyond Hegel's Geist, it does not extend
beyond the American spirit. There may be something here that sets the Renaissance paradigm of Donne
above the Enlightenment mind of Hegel, but their compatibility is substantive, nonetheless.

     Hegel's owl may be flying well before dark. It may have been fooled by a faulty conception of
perfectibility in Hegel as compared to Donne, sensing in its constrained universe that the day has ended
when in fact there is no such end. The philosopher may be just as delimited, growing as he did, on Kant
and Descartes, while the poet is Prometheus unbound.

     Not to be unfair to Hegel (he certainly can take the heat, anyway), it should be remembered that the
'owl' represents retrospective judgment and the  'end' as goal, not necessarily conclusion, may complicate
the above commentary, but this still does not dissuade me from the perspective taken here for the
categorical imperative become the end goal.

     For Kant, the Cartesian dualism is still a problem, but with Hegel, and even moreso those who follow
in the Hegelian tradition and perhaps most notably Marx who takes the point much further, the dichotomy
between the ideal and the real begins to be resolved in the movement toward materialism. On Hegel,
history must be understood as a rational progress toward human freedom as our self-conscious  and
increasing mastery of the universe serves to increase our level of power. It is a Newtonian extension of
Kant's view of knowledge as power. Theodicy is transformed into anthrodicy as we begin to realize the
potential  in human nature.

      This Geist may not be the filoque exactly, but it tracks along the same path. Hegel's system is quite
less bound than that of Karl Marx. The spirit of the times is certainly more manipulable by will than
dialectical materialism and economic and historic determinism. And it is also worthy of note that the vast
Hegelian project was very much theological, aiming as it does at a reconciliation of God and man, but in
this it also seems to follow in the footsteps of Kant's imperative even as it does republican virtue. If the
goal of human history is the achievement of freedom in large measure accomplished through the
overcoming of obstacles which block our path to it, the challenge which that entails of discovering new
boundaries and methods of surpassing or circumventing them, the Geist may synchronize very closely to
the categorical imperative of republican virtue.

     As with Kant, for Hegel there are free rational agents other than man himself. Personalities, not
limited to man, inhere in nations, as well. Kant, in fact, at least in this respect, resonates through Hegel.
Although the latter clearly moves beyond the more metaphysical realm Kant reposes within, it is not
certain that the fundamental dualism issue is completely resolved, but Hegel analogizes the various phases
of individual development of humans with similar developments in human history, each characterized by
its own unique spirit as one giant collective subjective, as it progresses through  its 'life history.' Man
began with an inadequate understanding, but as we advance, we can discover the process of development.
Just as the oak is in the acorn and the potential for which they will become lies in children, the same is
true  for human history. His project is such a comprehensive interpretation of human history which can be
plotted by its trajectory so that it is possible to discern rationally the ultimate goal of existence. His Geist,
then, is the very soul of the human race. He takes the golden rule of Kant which develops an essentially 
Judeo-Christian morality which is independent of but complementary to Christianity itself, and similarly
fashions an analogy of Christian eschatology. Hegel adds history to the mix, and while he undoubtedly
suffered from a rather shallow history, this contribution of time and space to Kant's imperative at least
begins to mold the metaphysical and physical together. The Hegelian system would discern the lawfulness
of the development of the Geist. And, even as each epoch has its own spirit, the development of rationality
and freedom not only is reflected of and by it, but contributes to overall development. This spirit becomes
more conscious of itself as rationality and freedom develop and as it grows, it also becomes more
conscious of the world around it. This potential for autonomous rationality in Hegel is effectively the
beginning of an overlapping of the phenounua and neumena, cloaking, in effect, the physical with a
metaphysical aura. As the spirit is learning of the world and the ability, as in Newtonian physics, of
control of nature, it is also learning of itself as a free, rational and separate existence from nature. This is
a rather well established notion in the western tradition. Both the use of perspective in art and
Renaissance humanism more generally are seen as consistent with the spirit of the time. Similarly, with
the Enlightenment, philosophy and art match scientific developments. The cultural products of a society
are consistent with this spirit of the time. In spite of the relevance of this notion of spirit in Hegel for this
discussion, however, he certainly did not cut the Gordian knot. A key flaw in his system, and where he
may diverge from the essence of the spirit under consideration here, even as his Geist in many aspects
closely conforms to it, involves the whole issue of ends. Hegel's trajectory has the human species on  a
path toward ultimate if not absolute knowledge and power. There is an end or finish to all this even as
there is an end or goal. He rationally discerns man's purpose as we move up the ladder to the product of
self-consciousness. And when we have completed this purpose of spirit, the owl of Minerva flies at dark.
Now, if this also can be taken to describe the process of retrospection toward understanding, it is also the
case that as human beings realize their self-consciousness, their potential, they are becoming the Geist. 
Ultimately, the completion of this track is to converge on perfection and, indeed, God. As we come to
recognize the entirety of human self-consciousness, man is reconciled with God. The problem here is that
there is no such 'end.' It actually located the idea of perfection and God 'out there.' Certainly, there  is a
prospect of approaching them, but even if we reject Zeno's paradox, the locus is crucial. This issue was
joined earlier. These matters involve 'process,' not 'ends' or static states, much as was pointed out in
connecting the categorical imperative to the filoque.       

     That is not to deny that, as the acorn has its natural purpose to become an oak tree buried within it, we
have some such spirit embedded at the species level. Hegel may have approached what Aristotle termed
the Intellecky, but, then, they both may suffer similar problems on this question of process as opposed to
ends. It is dynamic, not static. If the progressive laws of history in Hegel are extended into the material
world by Marx, for Hegel, these laws are not causative determinism -- they are nature's law, as with Kant,
still somewhat characterized by a dualism that splits the world. Man's nature is bound up with the laws of
freedom and rationality which are the laws of history, and knowledge of this makes us essentially more
'divine' as we progress. We are part of a great 'spirit' and become increasingly aware of our part in this
immense intelligence, and Geist is the realization (of the process breeding realization) of the career of
spirit in human history. It is the Christian theology  of reconciliation in a new logical form, but it in not
quite the filoque(though the filoque may be the essence of any particular Geist).

     In some sense, then, it might be appropriate to locate Hegel in the Enlightenment spirit as opposed to
that of the Renaissance, although as medieval notions of the relationship of God and man moved with the
Renaissance to a locus of man in relation to God and god to nature in the enlightenment (hence, social
contractarianism and the laws of nature were crucial to that period), for Hegel the primary concern is with
history rather than nature, or man or God.

     The realization of man in history, on Hegel and those who built on him, opens the door to a new
society. This notion permeates much of subsequent philosophy and politics. One can see it in Comte,
Marx, even Woodrow Wilson, or American Exceptionalism. There is a difference perceived with the 'end
of history' whether that involves the new socialist man, the war to end all wars, or the first new nation.
The static trap is sprung once more. As useful as the concept of Geist may be for purposes here, and as
fitting as its application may be, there must stand this caveat. And it may also be that the 'lost soul' of
Diggins was in search of the Geist constrained by such hindrances. Diggins may be trapped in Hegel's (or
is it Dante's ) purgatory.
     But Hegel also argues in THE CIVIC COMMUNITY what may almost be a movement of the
individual into the Geist. This involves a recognition of the isolate person of his connection and mutuality
with others:
	"The Concrete Person, who as particular is an end in himself, is a totality of wants
	and a mixture of necessity and caprice. As such he is one of the principles of the 
	civic community. But the particular person is essentially connected with others. Hence,
	each establishes and satisfies himself by means of others, and must call in the assistance
	of the form of universality. This universality is the other principle of the civic community ..."
	(3)
     In the next section of this treatise, he contends that "the self-seeking end is conditioned by the
universal" and that "hence is formed a system of mutual dependence" such that "The general right and
well-being form the basis of the individual's right and well-being, which only by this connection receives
actuality and security."(4)Only through conformity to the universal can individuals "become a link in the
chain of the whole."(5) And the system by which this can be brought to fruition is the external state. It is
through a culture of education that cultivates rationality that the conditions of the concrete person may be
transcended so that freedom of spirit is only to be realized by a conscious submersion of the individual
spirit in the universal spirit. And Hegel summarizes:
	"The civic community contains three elements:
		A. The recasting of want, and the satisfaction of the individual through his work,
			through the work of others, and through the satisfaction of their wants.
			 This is a system of wants.
		B. Actualization of the general freedom required for this, i.e., the protection of 
			property by the administration of justice.
		C. Provision against possible mischances, and care for the particular interest
			as a common interest, by means of policies and the corporation ..."(6)

The human being is differentiated from other animals by a special instrument of a social element (7)
which entails a specialization of labor (8) in its attainment:
	"The universal and objective in work is to be found in the abstractions which, giving 
	rise to the specialization of means and wants, causes the specialization of production.
	This is the division of labor. By it the labor of the individual becomes more simple, his 
	skill in his abstract work greater, and the amount he produces larger. The result of the 
	abstraction of skill and means is that men's interdependence or mutual relations is 
	completed. Moreover, the abstraction of production causes work to be continually more
	mechanical, until it is at last possible for man to step out and let the machine take his
	place ..."(9)

     It is thus that enhanced wealth generation for the individual preserves and increases the general
wealth. While there is an apportionment of individuals within this scheme into "general masses" or a
"cluster of classes or estates," there is an ethic arising from the role of each in the system for which
"public institutions" are set as guarantee. The 'public utility' becomes the function of 'public power.' And
so it is that:
	"The state is the realized ethical idea or ethical spirit."(10)

     Now, it may be that some will construe constructions on this which can seek to justify subjugation of
the individual. One may find nuances of that in utilitarian, Marxist, or national socialist systems. But that
really contravenes the arguments, for in Hegel the ethical spirit presupposes enhancement of the general
wealth as part and parcel of individual wealth, but both on the side of generation as well as satisfaction or
consumption. Without that, the conditions for Hegel's civic community are not fulfilled. The community is
the Geist.


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