[p. 317]
|317| where the relation of lordship and bondage does not. Where this does exist, however, where one individual is more indifferent, and thus the higher potency, than the other, there is by nature no robbery, except in so far as it is absolutely devastating and destructive, not in so far as it would be robbery proper; and by its passing over into the personal, person measures himself against person, and the one subjugated becomes the bondsman of the other; and this becoming a bondsman is properly the appearance of that relation which, in this relation of subsumption, belongs to each of the individuals; without relation they cannot be side by side. Robbery is the singular subsumption, not bearing on the totality of personality, and in so far that which makes this personal injury the affair of its whole personality must retain the upper hand and make the reversal real, because it posits itself as totality, whereas the other posits itself only as particularity; and the reality of this relation is subjection, while the appearance of its becoming is subjugation.
In the preceding relation the reversal is absolutely annihilating, because the annihilation itself is absolute; hence the reaction, as against a beast of prey, is absolute subjugation or death. In this one, however, the reaction cannot be merely the taking back of what was robbed, for the sake of the personal character of the injury, but is either only a momentary positing of lordship and bondage, so that being subsumed becomes real in the robber only for a moment, and only for this determinacy, according to the determinacy of the personal insult occurring in it; but precisely because the assailant has not staked his whole personality on it, the relation too cannot end with the totality of personality in the relation of subjection, but can only be for a moment; only in the case of war, of personalities that recognise each other mutually, or of need in respect of the whole of life which, as also in war, comes from human beings, – but otherwise from nature, does bondage occur; otherwise the reaction is formally the wholeness of this relation, and admission into the family, but as regards its matter it is likewise singular and particular; for he who has robbed is too base even to be a bondsman, for he has not shown trust in the whole personality of himself, since he remained in the particular.
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