The Character of Punishment Enc. par. 501

# 501  The instrumentality by which authority is given to intrinsic  right is () that a particular will, that of the 

judge, being  conformable to the right, has an interest to turn against the crime  (which in the first instance, in 

revenge, is a matter of chance), and  () that an executive power (also in the first instance casual) negates  the 

negation of right that was created by the criminal. This negation  of right has its existence in the will of the 

criminal; and  consequently revenge or punishment directs itself against the person or  property of the criminal 

and exercises coercion upon him. It is in this  legal sphere that coercion in general has possible scope − 

compulsion  against the thing, in seizing and maintaining it against another's  seizure: for in this sphere the will 

has its existence immediately in  externals as such, or in corporeity, and can be seized only in this  quarter. But 

more than possible compulsion is not, so long as I can  withdraw myself as free from every mode of existence, 

even from the  range of all existence, i.e. from life. It is legal only as abolishing  a first and original 

compulsion.