into the sphere of the assertion of his own body, through the denial of it
by another individual, as a direct and mental pain which is entirely
separated and different from the accompanying physical suffering
experienced from the act or the vexation at the loss. To the doer of
wrong, on the other hand, the knowledge presents itself that he is in
himself the same will which appears in that body also, and which asserts
itself with such vehemence; the one phenomenon that, transgressing the
limits of its own body and its powers, it extends to the denial of this
very will in another phenomenon, and so, regarded as will in itself, it
strives against itself by this vehemence and rends itself. Moreover, this
knowledge presents itself to him instantly, not _in abstracto_, but as an
obscure feeling; and this is called remorse, or, more accurately in this
case, the feeling of _wrong committed_.
_Wrong_, the conception of which we have thus analysed in its most general
and abstract form, expresses itself in the concrete most completely,
peculiarly, and palpably in cannibalism. This is its most distinct and
evident type, the terrible picture of the greatest conflict of the will
with itself at the highest grade of its objectification, which is man.
Next to this, it expresses itself most distinctly in murder; and therefore
the committal of murder is followed instantly and with fearful
distinctness by remorse, the abstract and dry significance of which we
have just given, which inflicts a wound on our peace of mind that a
lifetime cannot heal. For our horror at the murder committed, as also our
shrinking from the committal of it, corresponds to that infinite clinging
to life with which everything living, as phenomenon of the will to live,
is penetrated. (We shall analyse this feeling which accompanies the doing
of wrong and evil, in other words, the pangs of conscience, more fully
later on, and raise its concept to distinctness.) Mutilation, or mere
injury of another body, indeed every blow, is to be regarded as in its
nature the same as murder, and differing from it only in degree. Further,
wrong shows itself in the subjugation of another individual, in forcing
him into slavery, and, finally, in the seizure of another’s goods, which,
so far as these goods are regarded as the fruit of his labour, is just the
same thing as making him a slave, and is related to this as mere injury is
to murder.