[p. 227]
|227| – As necessary as it is to have strength of will, which persists in a rational purpose, so repugnant is obstinacy, because it is what is wholly individual and exclusive against others. The truly free will has no contingent content. Only it itself is not contingent.
§ 21
The pure will is not concerned with any particularity. In so far as this is the case with the will, to that extent it is arbitrary will, for this has a limited interest and takes its determinations from natural drives and inclinations. Such a content is a given one and not absolutely posited by the will. The principle of the will is thus that its freedom come about and be maintained. Besides this, it does indeed will many a further determination. It has still many kinds of determinate purposes, institutions, conditions and so on, but these are not purposes of the will in and for itself, but they are purposes because they are means and conditions for the realisation of the freedom of the will, which makes institutions and laws necessary for the limitation of the arbitrary will, of the inclinations and of mere whim, in general of the drives and desires that relate themselves merely to natural purposes; e.g. education has the purpose of making the human being an independent being, i.e. a being of free will. For this intention many kinds of restrictions upon their pleasure are imposed on children. They must learn to obey, so that their individual or own will, further the dependence on sensuous inclinations and desires, be sublated and their will thus be liberated.
§ 22
The human being is a free being. This constitutes the fundamental determination of his nature. Besides this, however, he has still other necessary needs, particular purposes and drives, e.g. the drive to cognition, to the preservation of his life, of his health, and so on. Right does not have the human being
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