Hegel's Philosophy of Right

I. The philosophic science of right has as its object the idea of right, i.e., the conception of right and the realization of the conception.

Note. — Philosophy has to do with ideas or realized thoughts, and hence not with what we have been accustomed to call mere conceptions. It has indeed to exhibit the onesidedness and untruth of these mere conceptions, and to show that, while that which commonly bears the name “conception,” is only an abstract product of the understanding, the true conception alone has reality and gives this reality to itself. Everything, other than the reality which is -established by the conception, is transient surface existence, external accident, opinion, appearance void of essence, untruth, delusion, and so forth. Through the actual shape, which it takes upon itself in actuality, is the conception itself understood. This shape is the other essential element of the idea, and is to be distinguished from the form, which exists only as conception.