436 THE WORLD AS WILL. bk. iv
liberately and formally exchanged. The fulfilment of the declarations made is, it is assumed, in the power of each. If the other breaks the covenant, he has deceived me, and by introducing merely illusory motives into my knowledge, he has bent my will according to his intention; he has extended the control of his will to another individual, and thus has committed a distinct wrong. On this is founded the moral lawfulness and validity of the contract.
Wrong through violence is not so shameful to the doer of it as wrong through craft; for the former arises from physical power, which under all circumstances impresses mankind; while the latter, by the use of subterfuge, betrays weakness, and lowers man at once as a physical and moral being. This is further the case because lying and deception can only succeed if he who employs them expresses at the same time horror and contempt of them in order to win confidence, and his victory rests on the fact that men credit him with honesty which he does not possess. The deep horror which is always excited by cunning, faithlessness, and treachery rests on the fact that good faith and honesty are the bond which externally binds into a unity the will which has been broken up into the multiplicity of individuals, and thereby limits the consequences of the egoism which results from that dispersion. Faithlessness and treachery break this outward bond asunder, and thus give boundless scope to the consequences of egoism.
In the connection of our system we have found that the content of the concept of wrong is that quality of the conduct of an individual in which he extends the assertion of the will appearing in his own body so far that it becomes the denial of the will appearing in the bodies of others. We have also laid down, by means of very general examples, the limits at which the province of wrong begins; for we have at once defined its gradations, from the highest degree to the lowest, by means of a few
