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With regard to the evaluation of the drives, the dialectic presents the appearance that, as immanent and thus positive, the determinations of the immediate will are good; man is thus said to be good by nature. Insofar, however, as they are natural determinations, and thus opposed to freedom and to the concept of spirit in general and are the negative, they are to be extirpated; man is thus said to be evil by nature. At this standpoint, subjective arbitrariness is likewise the deciding factor for one assertion or the other.

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