In this passage from Hegel he states that freedom is terribly misunderstood in its formal subjective sense, and has been far removed from its essential purpose and objectives. People think that they should be able to do whatever they want and that is what freedom is, and that anything that limits desires, impulses and passions is a limitation of freedom. Hegel is saying that this is not true, but that these limitations are simply the condition from which one must free oneself, and that society and government are the place where freedom is actualized. What I think he means by this is that without limits we wouldn't know what freedom is. If you could always do what you always wanted, the thought of not being able to do something would be so foreign to you that you wouldn't understand what it means to not have freedom, after all you wouldn't understand what it was to have freedom O. This is why it is impossible to have 100% freedom percent, because if we ever achieved one hundred percent freedom we would trample on the freedoms of others because not everyone wants the same thing. This is what I believe Hegel is trying to say is that freedom is simply the process of progress of freedoms, not a tangible goal because no matter how free you might think you are, you still have laws and limitations and that's okay, it should be seen as a reminder of what freedom we have. Hegel says that the nature of the exact opposite of spirit is matter. And the essence of matter is gravity and the essence of spirit is freedom. Matter is contained outside of itself, but spirit has an autonomous existence. This self-contained knowledge and existence is the essence of self-consciousness, therefore of consciousness itself. The first awareness... middle of the paper... of ethics and any deterioration of that ethics. This responsibility often seems overlooked in history, but Hegel warns against pessimistic preachers of arrogant ideals that are ill-defined and cannot be maintained. Often, he says, people complain that history has been immoral without choosing moral ideals that are truly universal, rather than simply subjective. Overall I mostly agree with the points Hegel makes. I agree that freedom is misunderstood and that true freedom can never be achieved, it is simply about gaining freedom one limitation at a time. And at the moment I think I'm as free as I can be, but in a thousand years people might look back and say I had no freedom. So freedom is a very subjective thing and is truly an invention of man. But with the society and governments that most deem necessary for men, it is necessary to limit some freedoms.