[p. 225]
|225| their own essence expressed in it. Such a work thus shows itself as truly universal. It receives the greater applause, the more the particular of its author has vanished from it.
It can be the case that one is not conscious of one’s universal will. The human being can believe that something goes completely against his will, although it is nevertheless his will. The criminal who is punished can indeed wish that the punishment be averted from him; but the universal will entails that the crime be punished. It must therefore be assumed that it lies in the absolute will of the criminal himself that he be punished. In so far as he is punished, the demand is present that he also see that he is justly punished, and if he sees it, he can indeed wish to be free of the punishment as an external suffering, but in so far as he grants that he is justly punished, his universal will assents to the punishment.
§ 19
The arbitrary will is freedom, but it is formal freedom, or freedom in so far as my will relates itself to something limited. Two sides must be distinguished here: 1. in so far as the will does not remain therein in equality with itself, and 2. in so far as it remains in equality with itself.
ad 1. In so far as the will wills something, it has a determinate, limited content. To this extent it is thus unequal to itself, because here it is actually determined, but in and for itself is indeterminate. The limited, which it has taken up into itself, is thus something other than itself; e.g. if I will to walk or to see, I am one who walks or sees. I thus behave unequally to myself, because walking or seeing is something limited and is not
equal to the I.
ad 2. But I behave, as to form, in this also in
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