[p. 220]
|220| its own way contributes to the attainment of the fundamental purpose. One, however, is more closely akin to this than another. Reflection therefore has to compare the drives, to see whether they are akin to the fundamental purpose and whether it is furthered the more by their satisfaction. In reflection the transition begins from the lower faculty of desire to the higher. The human being is therein no longer a merely natural being, or no longer stands in the sphere of necessity. Something is necessary in so far as only this and not something else can happen. Before reflection there stands not only the one immediate object, but also another, or its opposite.
§ 12
This reflection just described is, however, properly only a relative one. It does go beyond something finite, but always comes again to something finite; e.g. if we go beyond a place in space, another, larger one presents itself to us, but it is always a bounded space or place, and so it goes on to infinity. Likewise, if we go back from the present time into the past, we can represent to ourselves a period of ten or even of thirty thousand years. Such reflection does indeed proceed from a determinate point in space, in time, to another, but out of space or out of time itself it does not come. So it is also in practical-relative reflection. It leaves an immediate inclination, desire or drive and goes to another drive, desire or inclination, leaves this too again, and so on. In so far as it is relative, it only ever falls again into a drive, only drives about among desires and does not raise itself above this whole sphere of drives.
Practical absolute reflection, however, raises itself above this whole sphere of the finite, or leaves the sphere of the lower faculty of desire, wherein the human being is determined by
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