This thesis tries to follow closely the process of formation of the consciousness through and to the negative in Hegel s Phenomenology of Spirit. We do so by exploring Hegel s preface section to said book and we do so for the following reasons: first, Hegel himself asserts more than once that the beginning and the end are one an the same, the only difference being the fact that the end is beginning justified; secondly, Hegel himself wrote the preface (and not an epilogue, for instance) just after he finished the book, not before. Those two factors combined together seem to tell us that Hegel himself needed his own formation before he could write the section because it s rooted in the formation itself. In our theses we put forward the notion that, by the same token, if one can close read the preface, one can be said to be formed, the reading of the Preface serving as proof of the conclusion of the formative process.