82. Contract establishes general right, whose inner or relative universality is merely a generality based on the caprice of the particular will. In this external manifestation of right, right and its essential embodiment in the particular will are directly or accidentally in accord. In wrong this external manifestation becomes an empty appearance. This seeming reality consists in the opposition of abstract right to the particular will, involving a particular right. But this seeming reality is in truth a mere nullity, since right by negating this negation of itself restores itself. By turning back to itself out of its negation right becomes actual and valid, whereas at first it was only a contingent possibility.
Addition.— When intrinsic right or the general will is determined in its nature by the particular will, it is in relation with a non-essential. This is the relation of essence or reality to outward manifestation. Though the manifestation is in one aspect adequate to the essence, it is in another aspect inadequate; as a manifestation is contingency, essence is in relation with the unessential. Now in wrong this manifestation has the form of a seeming reality, which is to be interpreted as an outward reality inadequate to the essence. It deprives essence of reality, and sets up the empty abstraction as real. It is consequently untrue. It vanishes when it tries to exist alone. By its departure the essence is in possession of itself as its reality, and becomes master over mere semblance. It has thus negated the negation of itself, and become strengthened in the process. Wrong is this mere seeming reality, and, when wrong vanishes, right receives an added fixity and value. What we call essence or reality is the intrinsically universal will, as against which the particular will reveals itself as untrue, and does away with itself. The general will had in the first instance only an immediate being; but now it is something actual, because it has returned out of its negation. Actuality is active and finds itself in its opposite, while the implicit is to its negation passive.
83. Right, as particular and in its diverse shapes, is opposed to its own intrinsic universality and simplicity, and then has the form of a mere semblance. It is a mere seeming reality partly of itself and directly; partly is it so by means of the subject; partly is it established as a pure nullity. There arise therefore (a) unpremeditated or civic wrong, (b) fraud, and (c) crime.
Addition.— Wrong is the mere outer appearance of essence, giving itself forth as independent. If this semblance has a merely implicit and not an explicit existence, that is to say, if the wrong is in my eyes a right, the wrong is unpremeditated. The mere semblance is such for right but not for me. The second form of wrong is fraud. Here the wrong is not such for general right, but by it I delude another person; for me the right is a mere semblance. In the first case wrong was for right only a semblance or seeming wrong; in the second case right is for me, the wrongdoer, only a semblance or pretence. The third kind of wrong is crime. This is both of itself and also for me a wrong. I in this case desire the wrong, and make no use of the pretence of right. The other party, against whom the crime is done, is quite well aware that this unqualified wrong is not a right. The distinction between fraud and crime lies in this, that a fraudulent act is not yet recognized as a wrong, but in crime the wrong is openly seen.