§ 511. The all-round contradiction, expressed by this repeated _ought_, with its absoluteness which yet at the same time is _not_—contains the most abstract ’analysis’ of the mind in itself, its deepest descent into itself. The only relation the self-contradictory principles have to one another is in the abstract certainty of self; and for this infinitude of subjectivity the universal will, good, right, and duty, no more exist than not. The subjectivity alone is aware of itself as choosing and deciding. This pure self-certitude, rising to its pitch, appears in the two directly inter-changing forms—of _Conscience_ and _Wickedness_. The former is the will of goodness; but a goodness which to this pure subjectivity is the _non-objective_, non-universal, the unutterable; and over which the agent is conscious that _he_ in his _individuality_ has the decision. Wickedness is the same awareness that the single self possesses the decision, so far as the single self does not merely remain in this abstraction, but takes up the content of a subjective interest contrary to the good. § 512. This supreme pitch of the “_phenomenon_” of will,—sublimating itself to this absolute vanity—to a goodness, which has no objectivity, but is only sure of itself, and a self-assurance which involves the nullification of the universal—collapses by its own force. Wickedness, as the most intimate reflection of subjectivity itself, in opposition to the objective and universal, (which it treats as mere sham,) is the same as the good sentiment of abstract goodness, which reserves to the subjectivity the determination thereof:—the utterly abstract semblance, the bare perversion and annihilation of itself. The result, the truth of this semblance, is, on its negative side, the absolute nullity of this volition which would fain hold its own against the good, and of the good, which would only be abstract. On the affirmative side, in the notion, this semblance thus collapsing is the same simple universality of the will, which is the good. The subjectivity, in this its _identity_ with the good, is only the infinite form, which actualises and developes it. In this way the standpoint of bare reciprocity between two independent sides,—the standpoint of the _ought_, is abandoned, and we have passed into the field of ethical life. Sub-Section C. The Moral Life, Or Social Ethics(161).