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This content, or the distinct determination of the will, is in the first instance immediate. Thus the will is free only in itself, or for us, or it is the will in general in its concept. Only when the will has itself as its object¹ is it for itself what it is in itself.

According to this determination, finitude consists in the fact that what something is in itself or according to its concept is an existence or appearance different from what it is for itself; thus, for example, the abstract externality of nature is space in itself, but time for itself. Two things are to be noted concerning this: first, that because only the idea is true, if one grasps an object or determination only as it is in itself or in its concept, one does not yet have it in its truth; furthermore, that something as it is as concept or in itself likewise exists, and this existence is a distinct configuration of the object (like space above); the separation of being-in-itself and being-for-itself which is present in the finite constitutes at the same time its mere determinate being or appearance – (as an example of this will immediately occur in the natural will, and then in formal right, etc.). The understanding stops at mere being-in-itself and thus calls freedom, according to this being-in-itself, a capacity [faculty], since in this way it is indeed only a possibility. But the understanding regards this determination as absolute and perennial, and considers its relation to what it wills, and generally to its reality, as merely an application to a given material, which does not belong to the essence of freedom itself; in this way, it deals only with the abstractum, not with its idea and truth.

1. [handwritten:] i.e. has as its content and purpose ↩︎