III.3. The State: The Internal Constitution

§ 272. The constitution is rational in so far as the active working divisions of the state are in accord with the nature of the conception. This occurs when every one of its functions is in itself the totality, in the sense that it effectually contains the other elements. These elements, too, though expressing the distinctions of the conception, remain strictly within its ideality, and constitute one individual whole.

Note.—Concerning the constitution, as concerning reason itself, there has in modern times been an endless babble, which has in Germany been more insipid than anywhere else. With us there are those who have persuaded themselves that it is best even at the very threshold of government to understand before all other things what a constitution is. And they think that they have furnished invincible proof that religion and piety should be the basis of all their shallowness. It is small wonder if this prating has made for reasonable mortals the words reason, illumination, right, constitution, liberty, mere empty sounds, and men should have become ashamed to talk about a political constitution. At least as one effect of this superfluity, we may hope to see the conviction becoming general, that a philosophic acquaintance with such topics cannot proceed from mere reasonings, ends, grounds, and utilities, much less from feeling, love, and inspiration, but only out of the conception. It will be a fortunate thing, too, if those who maintain the divine to be inconceivable and an acquaintance with the truth to be wasted effort, were henceforth to refrain from breaking in upon the argument. What of undigested rhetoric and edification they manufacture out of these feelings can at least lay no claim to philosophic notice.

Amongst current ideas must be mentioned, in connection with § 269, that regarding the necessary division of the functions of the state. This is a most important feature, which, when taken in its true sense, is rightly regarded as the guarantee of public freedom. But of this those, who think to speak out of inspiration and love, neither know nor will know anything, for in it lies the element of determination through the way of reason. The principle of the separation of functions contains the essential element of difference, that is to say, of real rationality. But as apprehended by the abstract understanding it is false when it leads to the view that these several functions are absolutely independent, and it is one-sided when it considers the relation of these functions to one another as negative and mutually limiting. In such a view each function in hostility to or fear of the others acts towards them as towards an evil. Each resolves to oppose the others, effecting by this opposition of forces a general balance, it may be, but not a living unity. But the internal self-direction of the conception, and not any other purpose or utility, contains the absolute source of the different functions. On their account alone the political organization exists as intrinsically rational and as the image of eternal reason.

From logic, though indeed not of the accepted kind, we know how the conception, and in a concrete way the idea, determine themselves of themselves, and thereby abstractly set up their phases of universality, particularity, and individuality. To take the negative as the point of departure, and set up as primary the willing of evil and consequent mistrust, and then on this supposition cunningly to devise breakwaters, which in turn require other breakwaters to check their activity, any such contrivance is the mark of a thought, which is at the level of the negative understanding, and of a feeling, which is characteristic of the rabble (§ 244).—The functions of the state, the executive and the legislative, as they are called, may be made independent of each other. The state is, then, forthwith overthrown, an occurrence which we have witnessed on a vast scale. Or, in so far as the state is essentially self-contained, the struggle of one function to bring the other into subjection effects somehow or other a closer unity, and thus preserves only what is in the state essential and fundamental.

Addition.—In the state we must have nothing which is not an expression of rationality. The state is the world, which the spirit has made for itself. Hence it has a definite self-begun and self-related course. Often we speak of the wisdom of God in nature, but we must not therefore believe that the physical world of nature is higher than the world of spirit. Just so high as the spirit stands above nature, the state stands above the physical life. We must hence honour the state as the divine on earth, and learn that if it is difficult to conceive of nature, it is infinitely harder to apprehend the state. That we in modern times have attained definite views concerning the state in general, and are perpetually engaged in speaking about and manufacturing constitutions, is a fact of much importance. But that does not settle the whole matter. It is necessary further that we approach a reasonable question in the mind of rational beings, that we know what is essential, and distinguish it from what is merely striking. Thus, the functions of the state must indeed be distinguished; and yet each must of itself form a whole, and also contain the other elements. When we speak of the distinctive activity of any function, we must not fall into the egregious error of supposing that it should exist in abstract independence, since it should rather be distinguished merely as an element of the conception. If the distinctions were to subsist in abstract independence, it is as clear as light that two independent things are not able to constitute a unity, but must rather introduce strife. As a result, either the whole world would be cast into disorder, or the unity would be restored by force. Thus, in the French Revolution at one time the legislative function had swallowed up the executive, at another time the executive had usurped the legislative function. It would be stupid in such a case to present the moral claim of harmony. If we cast the responsibility of the matter upon feeling, we have indeed got rid of the whole trouble. But, necessary as ethical feeling is, it cannot evolve from itself the functions of state. Whence it comes to pass that since the definite functions are the whole implicitly, they comprise in their actual existence the total conception. We usually speak of the three functions of state, the legislative, executive, and judicial. The legislative corresponds to universality, and the executive to particularity but the judicial is not the third element of the conception. The individuality uniting the other two lies beyond these spheres.

§ 273. The political state is divided into three substantive branches

(a) The power to fix and establish the universal. This is legislation.

(b) The power, which brings particular spheres and individual cases under the universal. This is the function of government.

(c) The function of the prince, as the subjectivity with which rests the final decision. In this function the other two are brought into an individual unity. It is at once the culmination and beginning of the whole. This is constitutional monarchy.

Note.—The perfecting of the state into a constitutional monarchy is the work of the modern world, in which the substantive idea has attained the infinite form. This is the descent of the spirit of the world into itself, the free perfection by virtue of which the idea sets loose from itself its own elements, and nothing but its own elements, and makes them totalities; at the same time it holds them within the unity of the conception, in which is found their real rationality. The story of this true erection of the ethical life is the subject matter of universal world-history.

The old classification of constitutions into monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy is based upon the substantive unity which has not yet been divided. This unity has no internal distinctions, is not an intrinsically developed organization, and has not attained depth and concrete rationality. From the standpoint of the ancient world the classification is correct, because the unity of the ancient state was a substantive whole, not as yet fully mature and unfolded. The distinctions predicated of it must hence be external, and refer merely to the number of persons in whom this substantive unity should find an abode. But these various forms of the state, which belong in this way to different wholes, are in constitutional monarchy lowered to their proper place as elements. In monarchy we have a single person, in its executive several, in legislation the multitude. But, as we have said, such merely quantitative distinctions are superficial, and do not account for the conception. Similarly, it is not to the point to speak so much as we do of the democratic or aristocratic element in the monarchy for the phases, described by these terms, just in so far as they occur in a monarchy, are no longer democratic and aristocratic.

It is thought by some that the state is a mere abstraction which orders and commands, and that it may be left undecided, or be regarded as a trifle, whether one or several or all stand in the chief place in the state.—“All these forms,” says Fichte (“Naturrecht,” Pt. I., p. 196), “are right, and can produce and preserve universal right, if only there be present an ephorat.” The ephorat was invented by Fichte, and defined as a needful counterpoise to the highest power. Such a view springs from a shallow conception of the state. It is true, indeed, that in a primitive condition of society these distinctions have little or no meaning. So Moses, when giving rules to the people in the case of their choosing a king, made no other alteration in the institutions than to command that the king’s horses and wives should not be too numerous, or his treasure of gold and silver too large (Deut. xvii. 16, and fol.).—Further, it is true that in one sense these three forms are even for the idea a matter of no concern. I mean monarchy in its limited and exclusive signification, in accordance with which it stands by the side of democracy and aristocracy. But such a remark has a meaning the opposite of Fichte’s. It would mean that these forms are a matter of indifference, because they collectively are not in accordance with the idea in its rational development (§ 272); nor can the idea in any one of them attain its right and actuality. Hence, it is idle to ask which of these forms is to be preferred. We speak of them now as having only an historical interest.

Here, as in so many other places, must be recognized the penetrating vision of Montesquieu, who discusses this question in his celebrated description of the principles of these forms of government. But this description we must not misunderstand, if we are to do it justice. He, as is well known, stated that virtue was the principle of democracy. Democracy does in fact rest upon sentiment as upon a form which is merely substantive. And it is still under this form that the rationality of the absolute will exists in democracy. But he goes on to say that England in the seventeenth century proved by a beautiful spectacle that its efforts to found a democracy were unavailing owing to a lack of virtue in the leaders. And he adds that, when in a republic virtue disappears, ambition seizes upon those whose minds are capable of it, and greed seizes upon all, and the state, becoming a general prey, maintains its strength only through the power of some individuals and the extravagance of all. Upon this view it must be remarked that when society becomes civilized, and the powers of particularity are developed and freed, the virtue of the rulers is not enough. Not mere sentiment, but the form of rational law is required, if the whole is to be able to keep itself together, and give to the developed powers of particularity the right to expand positively as well as negatively.

Similarly should be set aside the misconception that, since in a democratic republic the sentiment of virtue is the substantive form, it is wanting, or at least unnecessary, in a monarchy; and also the misconception that the legally constituted agencies of a systematized organization are opposed to and incompatible with virtue.

Moderation, or the principle of aristocracy, implies the incipient separation of public power and private interest. And yet these two are here in such close contact that aristocracy is always by its very nature on the verge of passing into the severest form of tyranny or anarchy, and so bringing on itself destruction. Witness Roman history.

Montesquieu, by crediting monarchy with the principle of honour, refers, it is clear, not to the patriarchal or any of the ancient monarchies, nor, on the other side, to the monarchy which has developed into an objective constitution, but to a feudal monarchy, in which the relations of political right to lawful private property and the privileges of individuals and corporations are confirmed. Since in this form of constitution state-life depends upon privileged persons, in whose liking is laid a large part of what must be done for the maintenance of the state, the objective element of these transactions is grounded not on duty but on imaginative thought and opinion. Thus, instead of duty it is only honour which keeps the state together.

Here it is natural to put a second question:—Who shall frame the constitution? This question seems intelligible at first glance, but on closer examination turns out to be meaningless. It presupposes that no constitution exists, but merely a collection of atomic individuals. How a heap of individuals is to obtain a constitution, whether by its own efforts or by means of others, whether by goodness, thought, or force, must be left to itself to decide, for with a mere mass the conception has nothing to do. If the question, however, takes for granted the existence of an actual constitution, then to make a constitution means only to modify it, the previous existence of the constitution implying that any change must be made constitutionally. But it is strictly essential that the constitution, though it is begotten in time, should not be contemplated as made. It is rather to be thought of as above and beyond what is made, as self-begotten and self-centred, as divine and perpetual.

Addition.—The principle of the modern world as a whole is freedom of subjectivity, the principle that all essential aspects of the spiritual whole should attain their right by self-development. From this standpoint one can hardly raise the idle question, as to which form is the better, monarchy or democracy. We venture to reply simply that the forms of all constitutions of the state are one-sided, if they are not able to contain the principle of free subjectivity, and do not know how to correspond to completed reason.

§ 274. Spirit is real only in what it knows itself to be. The state, which is the nation’s spirit, is the law which permeates all its relations, ethical observances, and the consciousness of its individuals. Hence the constitution of a people depends mainly on the kind and character of its self-consciousness. In it are found both its subjective freedom and the actuality of the constitution.

Note.—To think of giving to a people a constitution a priori is a whim, overlooking precisely that element which renders a constitution something more than a product of thought. Every nation, therefore, has the constitution which suits it and belongs to it.

Addition.—The state must in its constitution penetrate all its aspects. Napoleon insisted upon giving to the Spanish a constitution a priori, but the project failed. A constitution is not a mere manufacture, but the work of centuries. It is the idea and the consciousness of what is reasonable, in so far as it is developed in a people. Hence no constitution is merely created. That which Napoleon gave to the Spanish was more rational than what they had before, yet they viewed it as something foreign to them, and rejected it because they were not sufficiently developed. In a constitution a people must embody their sense of right and reproduce their conditions. Otherwise the constitution may exist externally, but it has no significance or truth. Often, indeed, the need of and longing for a better constitution may arise in individuals, but that is different from the whole multitude’s being saturated by such a notion. This general conviction comes later. The principle of morality and inner conviction advocated by Socrates came of necessity into being in his day; but time had to elapse before it could reach general self-consciousness.

§ 275. The function of the prince contains of itself the three elements of the totality (§ 272), (1) the universality of the constitution and the laws; (2) counsel, or reference of the particular to the universal; and (3) the final decision, or the self-determination, into which all else returns and from which it receives the beginning of its actuality. This absolute self-determination, constituting the distinguishing principle of the princely function, as such, must be the first to be considered.

Addition.—We begin with the princely function or the factor of individuality, because in it the three phases of the state are inter-related as a totality. The I is at once the most individual and the most universal. The individual occurs also in nature, but there reality is equal to non-ideality, and its parts exist externally to one another. Hence it is not self-complete existence; in it the different individualities subsist side by side. In spirit, on the other hand, all differences exist only as ideal or as a unity. The state as spiritual is the interpretation of all its elements, but individuality is at the same time the soul, the vital and sovereign principle, which embraces all differences.

§ 276. (1) The basal principle of the political state is the substantive unity, which is the ideality of its elements, (α) In this ideality the particular functions and offices of the state are just as much dissolved as retained. Indeed, they are retained only as having no independent authority, but such and so extensive an authority as is yielded them in the idea of the whole. They proceed, therefore, from the power of the state, and are the flexible limbs of the state as of their own simplified self.

Addition.—This ideality of elements is like the life of an organized body. Life exists in every part. There is but one life in all points, and there is no opposition to it. Any part separated from it is dead. Such is also the ideality of all individual occupations, functions, and corporations, great as may be their impulse to subsist and do for themselves. It is as in the organism, where the stomach assumes independence, and yet is at the same time superseded and sacrificed by becoming a member of one whole.

§ 277. (β) The particular offices and agencies of the state, being its essential elements, are intimately connected with it. To the individuals, who manage and control them, they are attached in virtue not of their direct personality but of their objective and universal qualities. With particular personality, as such, they are joined only externally and accidentally. The business and functions of the state cannot therefore be private property.

Addition.—The agencies of the state are attached to individuals, who nevertheless are not authorized to discharge their offices through natural fitness, but by reason of their objective qualification. Capacity, skill, character, belong to the particularity of the individual, who must, however, be adapted to his special business by education and training. An office can, therefore, be neither sold nor bequeathed. Formerly in France seats in parliament were saleable, and this is still the case with any position of officer in the English army below a certain grade. These facts depended, or depend, upon the mediaeval constitution of certain states, and are now gradually vanishing.

§ 278. These two characteristics, namely (β) that the particular offices and functions of the state have independent and firm footing neither in themselves, nor in the particular will of individuals, but (a) ultimately in the unity of the state as in their simple self, constitute the sovereignty of the state.

Note.—This is sovereignty on its inner side. It has an outer side also, as we shall see.—In the older feudal monarchy the state had an outer aspect, but on its inner side not only was the monarch at no time sovereign, but neither was the state. Partly were the several offices and functions of the state and civic life dispersed in independent corporations and communities (§ 273, note), while the whole was rather an aggregate than an organism. Partly, too, were these functions the private property of individuals who, when it was proposed that they should act, consulted their own opinion and wish.

The idealism, which constitutes sovereignty, is that point of view in accordance with which the so-called parts of an animal organism are not parts but members or organic elements. Their isolation or independent subsistence would be disease. The same principle occurs in the abstract conception of the will (see note to next §) as the negativity, which by referring itself to itself reaches a universality, which definitely moulds itself into individuality (§ 7). Into this concrete universality all particularity and definiteness are taken up, and receive a new significance. It is the absolute self-determining ground. To apprehend it we must be at home with the conception in its true substance and subjectivity.

Because sovereignty is the ideality of all particular powers, it easily gives rise to the common misconception, which takes it to be mere force, empty wilfulness, and a synonym for despotism. But despotism is a condition of lawlessness, in which the particular will, whether of monarch or people (ochlocracy) counts as law, or rather instead of law. Sovereignty, on the contrary, constitutes the element of the ideality of particular spheres and offices, in a condition which is lawful and constitutional. No particular sphere is independent and self-sufficient in its aims and methods of working. It does not immerse itself in its own separate vocation. On the contrary, its aims are led by and dependent upon the aim of the whole, an aim which has been named in general terms and indefinitely the well-being of the state.

This ideality is manifested in a twofold way. (1) In times of peace the particular spheres and businesses go their way of satisfying their particular offices and ends. According to mere unconscious necessity self-seeking here veers round to a contribution in behalf of mutual preservation and the preservation of the whole (§ 183). But, also, through a direct influence from above is it that these employments are continually brought back and limited by the aim of the whole (see “Function of Government,” § 289), and led to make direct efforts for its preservation. (2) In circumstances of distress, internal or external, the organism consisting of its particulars, comes together into the simple conception of sovereignty, to which is intrusted the safety of the state, even at the sacrifice of what is at other times justifiable. It is here that idealism attains its peculiar realization (§ 321).

§ 279. (2) Sovereignty, at first only the universal thought of this ideality, exists merely as a subjectivity assured of itself, and as the abstract and so far groundless self-direction and ultimate decision of the will; by virtue of this quality the state is individual and one. But in the next place subjectivity exists in its truth only as a subject, and personality as a person. In the constitution, which has matured into rational reality, each of the three elements of the conception has its own independent, real, and separate embodiment. Hence, the element which implies absolute decision is not individuality in general but one individual, the monarch.

Note.—The internal development of a science, whose whole content is deduced out of the simple conception—the only method which is deserving of the name philosophic,—reveals the peculiarity that one and the same conception, here the will, which at the beginning is abstract because it is the beginning, yet contains itself, condenses of itself its own characteristics, and in this way acquires a concrete content. Thus it is fundamental in the personality, which is at first in simple right abstract. It then develops itself through the different forms of subjectivity, and at last in absolute right, the state or the complete, concrete objectivity of the will, attains to the personality of the state and its conscious assurance of itself. This final term gives to all particularities a new form by taking them up into its pure self. It ceases to hesitate between reasons ;pro and con., and deciding by an “I will,” initiates all action and reality.

Personality, further, or subjectivity generally, as infinite and self-referring, has truth only as a person or independent subject. This independent existence must be one, and the truth which it has is of the most direct or immediate kind. The personality of the state is actualized only as a person, the monarch.—Personality expresses the conception as such, while person contains also the actuality of the conception. Hence the conception becomes the idea or truth, only when it receives this additional character.—A so-called moral person, a society, congregation, or family, be it as concrete as it may, possesses personality only as an element and abstractly. It has not reached the truth of its existence. But the state is this very totality, in which the moments of the conception gain reality in accordance with their peculiar truth—All these phases of the idea have been already explained, both in their abstract and in their concrete forms, in the course of this treatise. Here, however, they need to be repeated, because we, while easily admitting them piecemeal in their particular forms, do not so readily recognise and apprehend them in their true place as elements of the idea.

The conception of monarch offers great difficulty to abstract reasonings and to the reflective methods of the understanding. The understanding never gets beyond isolated determinations, and ascribes merit to mere reasons, or finite points of view and what can be derived from them. Thus the dignity of the monarch is represented as something derivative not only in its form but also in its essential character. But the conception of the monarch is not derivative, but purely self-originated. Akin to this mistaken notion is the idea that the right of the monarch is based upon and receives its unconditional nature from divine authority. The misconceptions that are allied to this idea are well-known; besides, philosophy sets itself the task of conceiving the divine.

The phrase “sovereignty of the people,” can be used in the sense that a people is in general self-dependent in its foreign relations, and constitutes its own state. Such are the people of Great Britain, for example. But the people of England, Scotland, Ireland, Venice, Genoa, or Ceylon, have ceased to be a sovereign people, since they no longer have independent princes, and the chief government is not exclusively their own. Further, it may be said that internal sovereignty resides in the people if, as was already pointed out (§§ 277-278), we speak in general terms, and mean that sovereignty accrues to the whole state. But the sovereignty of the people is usually in modern times opposed to the sovereignty of the monarch. This view of the sovereignty of the people may be traced to a confused idea of what is meant by “the people.” The people apart from their monarch, and the common membership necessarily and directly associated with him, is a formless mass. It is no longer a state. In it occur none of the characteristic features of an equipped whole, such as sovereignty, government, law-courts, magistrates, professions, etc., etc. When these elements of an organized national life make their appearance in a people, it ceases to be that undefined abstraction, which is indicated by the mere general notion “people.”

If by the phrase “sovereignty of the people” is to be understood a republic, or more precisely a democracy, for by a republic we understand various empirical mixtures which do not belong to a philosophic treatise, all that is necessary has already been said (§ 273, note). There can no longer be any defence of such a notion in contrast with the developed idea.—When a people is not a patriarchal tribe, having passed from the primitive condition, which made the forms of aristocracy and democracy possible, and is represented not as in a wilful and unorganized condition, but as a self-developed truly organic totality, in such a people sovereignty is the personality of the whole, and exists, too, in a reality, which is proportionate to the conception, the person of the monarch.

The element of the ultimate self-determining decision of will does not appear as an immanent vital element of the actual state in its peculiar reality, so long as the classification of constitutions into democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy can be made. When this classification prevails we are, as we have said, at the stage of the undeveloped substantive unity, which has not yet reached infinite difference and self-immersion. But even in these incomplete forms of the state the summit must be occupied by an individual. Either he appears in actual fact, as in those monarchies, which are of this type. Or, under aristocratic, or more especially under democratic governments, he appears in the person of statesmen or generals, according to accident and the particular need of the time. Here all overt action and realization have their origin and completion in the unity of the leader’s decision. But this subjectivity of decision, confined within a primitive and unalloyed unity of functions, must be accidental in its origin and manifestation, and also on the whole subordinate. Accordingly, a pure and unmixed decision was looked for outside of and beyond this conditional summit, and was found in a fate which pronounced judgment from without. As an element of the idea it had to enter actual existence, but yet it had its root outside of human freedom, and the compass of the state.—To this source is to be traced the need of oracles, the daimon of Socrates, the consultation of the entrails of animals, the flight of birds, and their way of eating, etc., methods resorted to on great occasions, when it was necessary to have final judgment upon weighty affairs of state. As mankind had not yet realized the profundity of self-consciousness, or come forth from the pure virginity of the substantive unity into self-conscious existence, they had not yet strength to discover such a judgment within the pale of human existence.—In the daimon of Socrates (§ 138) we can discern the beginning of a change; we can see that the will, formerly set upon an object wholly outside of itself, has begun to transfer itself into itself, and recognize itself within itself. This is the beginning of self-conscious and therefore true freedom. This real freedom of the idea, since it gives its own present self-conscious reality to every one of the elements of rationality, imparts to the function of consciousness the final self-determining certitude, which in the conception of the will is the cope-stone. But this final self-determination can fall within the sphere of human liberty only in so far as it is assigned to an independent and separate pinnacle, exalted above all that is particular and conditional. Only when so placed, has it a reality in accordance with the conception.

Addition.—In the organization of the state, that is to say, in constitutional monarchy, we must have before us nothing except the inner necessity of the idea. Every other point of view must disappear. The state must be regarded as a great architectonic building, or the hieroglyph of reason, presenting itself in actuality. Everything referring merely to utility, externality, etc., must be excluded from a philosophic treatment. It is easy for one to grasp the notion that the state is the self-determining and completely sovereign will, whose judgment is final. It is more difficult to apprehend this “I will” as a person. By this is not meant that the monarch can be wilful in his acts. Rather is he bound to the concrete content of the advice of his councillors, and, when the constitution is established, he has often nothing to do but sign his name. But this name is weighty. It is the summit, over which nothing can climb. It may be said that an articulated organization has already existed in the beautiful democracy of Athens. Yet we see that the Greeks extracted the ultimate judgment from quite external phenomena, such as oracles, entrails of sacrificial animals, and the flight of birds, and that to nature they held as to a power, which in these ways made known and gave expression to what was good for mankind. Self-consciousness had at that time not yet risen to the abstraction of subjectivity, or to the fact that concerning the matter to be judged upon must be spoken a human “I will.” This “I will” constitutes the greatest distinction between the ancient and the modern world, and so must have its peculiar niche in the great building of state. It is to be deplored that this characteristic should be viewed as something merely external, to be set aside or used at pleasure.

§ 280. (3) This ultimate self of the state’s will is in this its abstraction an individuality, which is simple and direct. Hence its very conception implies that it is natural. Thus the monarch as a specific individual is abstracted from all other content, and is appointed to the dignity of monarch in a directly natural way, by natural birth.

Note.—This transition from the conception of pure self-determination to direct existence, and so to simple naturalness, is truly speculative in its nature. A systematic account of it belongs to logic. It is on the whole the same transition which is well-known in the nature of the will. It is the process of translation of a content out of subjectivity, as represented end, into tangible reality (§ 8). But the peculiar form of the idea and of the transition, here passed in review, is the direct conversion of the pure self-determination of the will, the simple conception itself, into a specific object, a “this,” or natural visible reality, without the intervention of any particular content, such as an end of action.

In the so-called ontological proof of the existence of God there is the same conversion of the absolute conception into being. This conversion has constituted the depth of the idea in modern times, although it has been recently pronounced to be inconceivable. On such a theory, since the unity of conception and embodiment is the truth (§ 23), all knowledge of the truth must be renounced. Although the understanding does not find this unity in its consciousness, and harps upon the separation of the two elements of the truth, it still permits a belief in a unity. But since the current idea of the monarch is regarded as issuing out of the ordinary consciousness, the understanding, with its astute reasonings, holds all the more tenaciously to the principle of separation and its results. It thereupon denies that the element of ultimate decision in the state is absolutely, that is, in the conception of reason, conjoined with direct nature. It maintains, on the contrary-, the merely accidental character of the conjunction of these two, and hence regards as rational their absolute divergence. Finally, from the irrationality of the co-relation of these two phases proceed other consequences, which destroy the idea of the state.

Addition.—It is often maintained that the position of monarch gives to the affairs of state a haphazard character. It is said that the monarch may be ill-educated, and unworthy to stand at the helm of state, and that it is absurd for such a condition of things to exist under the name of reason. It must be replied that the assumption on which these objections proceed is of no value, since there is here no reference to particularity of character. In a completed organization we have to do with nothing but the extreme of formal decision, and that for this office is needed only a man who says “Yes,” and so puts the dot upon the “i.” The pinnacle of state must be such that the private character of its occupant shall be of no significance. What beyond this final judgment belongs to the monarch devolves upon particularity, with which we have no concern. There may indeed arise circumstances, in which this particularity alone has prominence, but in that case the state is not yet fully, or else badly constructed. In a well-ordered monarchy only the objective side of law comes to hand, and to this the monarch subjoins merely the subjective “I will.”

§ 281. Both elements, the final motiveless self of the will, and the like motiveless existence on the side of nature, indissolubly unite in the idea of that which is beyond the reach of caprice, and constitute the majesty of the monarch. In this unity lies the actualized unity of the state. Only by means of its unmotived directness on both its external and its internal side is the unity taken beyond the possibility of degradation to the wilfulness, ends, and views of particularity. It is thus removed also from the enfeeblement and overthrow of the functions of state and from the struggle of faction against faction around the throne.

Note.—Right of birth and right of inheritance constitute the basis of legitimacy, not as regards positive right merely, but likewise in the idea.—Through the self-determined or natural succession to the vacant throne all factious disputes are avoided. This has rightly been reckoned as one of the advantages of inheritance. However, it is only a consequence, and to assign it as a motive is to drag majesty down into the sphere of mere reasonings. The character of majesty is unmotived directness, and final self-involved existence. To speak of grounds is to propound as its basis not the idea of the state, which is internal to it, but something external in its nature and alien, such as the thought of the well-being of the state or of the people. By such a method inheritance can indeed be deduced through medii termini; but there might be other medii termini with quite other consequences. And it is only too well known what consequences may be drawn from the well-being of the people (salut du peuple).—Hence, philosophy ventures to contemplate majesty only in the medium of thought. Every other method of inquiry, except the speculative method of the infinite self-grounded idea, absolutely annuls the nature of majesty.

Freely to elect the monarch is readily taken as the most natural way. It is closely allied to the following shallow thought:—“Because it is the concern and interest of the people which the monarch has to provide for, it must be left to the people to choose whom it will depute to provide for them, and only out of such a commission arises the right of governing.” This view, as well as the idea that the monarch is chief-officer of state, and also the idea of a contract between him and the people, proceed from the will of the multitude, in the form of inclination, opinion, and caprice. These views, as we long ago remarked, first make themselves good, or rather seek to do so, in the civic community. They can make no headway against the principle of the family, still less that of the state, or, in general, the idea of the ethical system.—That the election of a monarch is the worst of proceedings may be even by ratiocination detected in the consequences, which to it appear only as something possible or probable, but are in fact inevitable. Through the relation involved in free choice the particular will gives the ultimate decision, and the constitution becomes a free-capitulation, that is, the abandonment of the functions of state to the discretion of the particular will. The specific functions of state are thus transformed into private property, and there ensue the enfeeblement and injury of the sovereignty of the state, its internal dissolution and external overthrow.

Addition.—If we are to apprehend the idea of the monarch, it is not sufficient for us to say that God has established kings, since God has made everything, even the worst of things. Nor can we proceed very far under the guidance of the principle of utility, since it is always open to point out disadvantages. Just as little are we helped by regarding monarchy as positive right. That I should have property is necessary, but this specific possession is accidental. Accidental also appears to be the right that one man should stand at the helm of state, if this right, too, he regarded as abstract and positive. But this right is present absolutely, both as a felt want and as a need of the thing itself. A monarch is not remarkable for bodily strength or intellect, and yet millions permit themselves to be ruled by him. To say that men permit themselves to be governed contrary to their interests, ends, and intentions is preposterous, since men are not so stupid. It is their need and the inner power of the idea which urge them to this in opposition to their seeming consciousness, and retain them in this relation.

Although the monarch comes forward as summit and essential factor of the constitution, it must be admitted that in the constitution a conquered people is not identical with the prince. An uprising occurring in a province conquered in war is different from a rebellion in a well-organized state. The conquered are not rising against their prince, and commit no crime against the state, because they are not joined with their master in the intimate relation of the idea. They do not come within the inner necessity of the constitution. In that case only a contract is to the fore, and not a state-bond. “Je ne suis pas votre prince, je suis votre maitre,” replied Napoleon to the delegation from Erfurt.

§ 282. Out of the sovereignty of the monarch flows the right of pardoning criminals. Only to sovereignty belongs that realization of the power of the spirit, which consists in regarding what has happened as not having happened, and cancels crime by forgiving and forgetting.

Note.—The right of pardon is one of the highest recognitions of the majesty of spirit. This right belongs to the retrospective application of the character of a higher sphere to a lower and antecedent one.—Similar applications are found in the special sciences, which treat of objects in their empirical environment (§ 270, footnote).—It belongs to applications of this kind that injury done to the state generally or to the sovereignty, majesty, and personality of the prince, should fall under the conception of crime, as it has already been discussed (§§ 95-102), and should indeed be declared to be a specific crime of the gravest character.

Addition.—Pardon is the remission of punishment, but does not supersede right. Rather right remains, and the pardoned is a criminal as much after the pardon as he was before. Pardon does not imply that no wrong has been committed. Remission of the penalty may occur in religion, for by and in spirit what has occurred can be made not to have occurred. But in so far as remission of penalty is completed in the world, it has place only in majesty, and can be effected only by its unmotived edict.

§ 283. The second element contained in the princely function is that of particularity, involving a definite content and the subsumption of it under the universal. In so far as it receives a particular existence, it is the supreme council, and is composed of individuals. They present to the monarch for his decision the content of the affairs, as they arise, and of the legal cases which necessarily spring out of actual wants. Along with these they furnish also their objective sides, namely, the grounds for decision, the laws which bear on the case, the circumstances, etc. As the individuals who discharge this office have to do with the monarch’s immediate person, their appointment and dismissal lie in his unlimited, free, arbitrary will.

§ 284. The objective side of decision, including knowledge of the special content and circumstances, and the legal and other evidence, is alone responsible. It, that is to say, is alone able to furnish proof of objectivity. It must, therefore, come before a council other than the personal will of the monarch, as such. These councils, advising boards or individual advisers, are alone answerable. The peculiar majesty of the monarch, as the final deciding subjectivity, is exalted above all responsibility for the acts of government.

§ 285. The third element of the princely function concerns the absolutely universal, which consists subjectively in the conscience of the monarch, objectively in the whole constitution and the laws. The princely function presupposes these other elements, just as much as they presuppose it.

§ 286. The objective guarantee of the princely office, or the securing of the lawful succession to the throne by inheritance, lies in the fact that, just as this office has a reality distinct from the other elements determined by reason, so the others have also their independent and peculiar rights and duties. Every member of a rational organism, while preserving itself in independence, preserves also the peculiarities of the others.

Note.—One of the later results of history is such a modification of the monarchical constitution that the succession to the throne is determined by the law of primogeniture. This is, as it were, a return to the patriarchal principle, out of which this mode of succession has historically arisen, although it now bears the higher form of an absolute pinnacle of an organically developed state. This result has a most significant bearing upon public liberty, and is one of the most important elements in a rational constitution, although, as has already been observed, it is not so generally understood as it is respected. The earlier and merely feudal monarchies, and despotism also, reveal in their history the alternation of revolutions, high-handed dealings of princes, rebellion, overthrow of princely individuals and houses, and a general desolation and destruction, internal and external. The reason is that their division of state offices, entrusted as they were to vassals, pashas, etc., was only mechanical. It was not a distinction inherent in the essential character and form, but one of merely greater or less power. Accordingly, each part, preserving and producing only itself, did not preserve and produce the rest. All the elements were thus completely isolated and independent.

In the organic relation, in which members, and not parts, are related to one another, each one preserves the rest while fulfilling its own sphere. The preservation of the other members is the substantial end and product of each one in preserving itself. The guarantees asked for, be they for the stability of succession, for the stability of the princely office generally, or for justice and public liberty, are secured in institutions. Love of the people, character, oaths, force, etc., may be regarded as subjective guarantees; but when we speak of a constitution, we are engaged with only objective guarantees, institutions, or organically intertwined and self-conditioned elements. Thus, public freedom and hereditary succession are mutual guarantees, and are absolutely connected. Public liberty is the rational constitution, and hereditary succession of the princely function lies, as has been shown, in the conception of the constitution.

§ 287. Decision is to be distinguished from its execution and application, and in general from the prosecution and preservation of what has been already resolved, namely, the existing laws, regulations, establishments for common ends, and the like. This business of subsumption or application is undertaken by the executive, including the judiciary and police. It is their duty directly to care for each particular thing in the civic community, and in these private ends make to prevail the universal interest.

§ 288. Common interests of private concern occur within the civic community, and fall outside of the self-constituted and self-contained universal of the state (§ 256). They are administered in the corporations (§ 251) of the societies, trades, and professions, by their superintendents and representatives. The affairs, overseen by them, are the private property and interest of these particular spheres, whose authority depends upon the mutual trust of the associates, and confidence in the securities. Yet these circles must be subordinate to the higher interest of the state. Hence, in filling these posts generally, there will occur a mingling of the choice of the interested parties with the ratification of a higher authority.

§ 289. To secure the universal interest of the state and to preserve the law in the province of particular rights, and also to lead these rights back to the universal interest, require the attention of subordinates of the executive. These subordinates are on one side executive officers and on the other a college of advisers. These two meet together in the highest offices of all, which are in contact with the monarch.

Note.—The civic community is, as we saw, the arena for the contest of the private interests of all against all. It is also the seat of battle between private interest and the collective special interest, and likewise of both private and collective special interests with the higher standpoint and order of the state. The spirit of the corporation, begotten in the course of regulating the particular spheres, becomes by a process internal to itself converted into the spirit of the state. It finds the state to be the means of preserving particular ends. This is the secret of the patriotism of the citizens in one of its phases. They are aware that the state is their substantive being, because it preserves their particular spheres, sustains their authority, and considers their welfare. Since the spirit of the corporation contains directly the riveting of the particular to the universal, it exhibits the depth and strength of the state as it exists in sentiment.

The administration of the business of the corporation through its own representatives is often clumsy, because, while they see and know their own peculiar interests and affairs, they do not discern the connection with remote conditions or the universal standpoint. Other elements contribute to this result, as, e.g., an intimate private relation between the representatives and their subordinates. Circumstances often tend to equalize these two classes which are in many ways mutually dependent. This peculiar territory can be looked on as handed over to the element of formal freedom, in which the knowledge, judgment, and practice of individuals, as also their small passions and fancies, may have room to wrestle with one another. This may all the more easily happen, the more trivial from the universal side of the state is the mismanaged affair, especially when the mismanagement stands of itself in direct relation to the satisfaction and opinion, which are derived from it.

§ 290. In the business of the executive also there is a division of labour (§ 198). The organized executive officers have therefore a formal though difficult task before them. The lower concrete civil life must be governed from below in a concrete way. And yet the work must be divided into its abstract branches, specially officered by middlemen, whose activity in connection with those below them must from the lowest to the highest executive offices take the form of a continuous concrete oversight.

Addition.—The main point which crops up in connection with the executive is the division of offices. This division is concerned with the transition from the universal to the particular and singular; and the business is to be divided according to the different branches. The difficulty is that the different functions, the inferior and superior, must work in harmony. The police and the judiciary proceed each on its own course, it is true, but they yet in some office or other meet again. The means used to effect this conjunction often consists in appointing the chancellor of state and the prime minister, ministers in council. The matter is thus simplified on its upper side. In this way also everything issues from above out of the ministerial power, and business is, as they say, centralized. With this are associated the greatest possible despatch and efficiency in regard to what may affect the universal interests of state. This régime was introduced by the French Revolution, developed by Napoleon, and in France is found to this day. But France, on the other hand, has neither corporations nor communes, that is to say, the sphere in which particular and general interests coincide. In the Middle Ages this sphere had acquired too great an independence. Then there were states within the state, who persisted in behaving as if they were self-subsistent bodies. Though this ought not to occur, yet the peculiar strength of states lies in the communities. Here the government meets vested interests, which must be respected by it. These interests are inspected, and may be assisted by the government. Thus the individual finds protection in the exercise of his rights, and so attaches his particular interest to the preservation of the whole. For some time past the chief task has been that of organization carried on from above: while the lower and bulky part of the whole was readily left more or less unorganized. Yet it is of high importance that it also should be organized, because only as an organism is it a power or force. Otherwise it is a mere heap or mass of broken bits. An authoritative power is found only in the organic condition of the particular spheres.

§ 291. The offices of the executive are of an objective nature, which is already independently marked out in accordance with their substance (§ 287). They are at the same time conducted by individuals. Between the objective element and individuals there is no direct, natural connecting tie. Hence individuals are not set aside for these offices by natural personality or by birth. There is required in them the objective element, namely, knowledge and proof of fitness. This proof guarantees to the state what it needs, and, as it is the sole condition, makes it possible for any citizen to devote himself to the universal class.

§ 292. The subjective side is found in this, that out of many one individual must be chosen, and empowered to discharge the office. Since in this case the objective element does not lie in genius, as it does in art, the number of persons from whom the selection may be made is necessarily indefinite, and whom finally to prefer is beyond the possibility of absolute determination. The junction of individual and office, two phases whose relation is always accidental, devolves upon the princely power as decisive and sovereign.

§ 293. The particular state-business, which monarchy transfers to executive officers, constitutes the objective side of the sovereignty inherent in the monarch. The distinguishing feature of this state-business is found in the nature of its matter. Just as the activity of the officers is the discharge of a duty, so their office is not subject to chance but a right.

§ 294. The individual, who by the act of the sovereign (§ 292) is given an official vocation, holds it on the condition that he discharges his duty, which is the substantive factor in his relation. By virtue of this factor the individual finds in his official employment his livelihood and the assured satisfaction of his particularity (§ 264), and in his external surroundings and official activity is free from subjective dependence and influences.

Note.—The state cannot rely upon service which is capricious and voluntary, such, for example, as the administration of justice by knights-errant. This service reserves to itself the right to act in accordance with subjective views, and also the right to withhold itself at will, or to realize subjective ends. The opposite extreme to the knight-errant in reference to public service would be the act of the public servant, who was attached to his employment merely by want, without true duty or right.

The public service requires the sacrifice of independent self-satisfaction at one’s pleasure, and grants the right of finding satisfaction in the performance of duty, but nowhere else. Here is found the conjunction of universal and particular interests, a union which constitutes the conception and the internal stability of the state (§ 260).

Official position is not based upon contract (§ 75), although it involves the consent of the two sides and also a double performance. The public servant is not called to a single chance act of service, as is the attorney, but finds in his work the main interest of both his spiritual and his particular existence. So also it is not a matter merely external and particular, the performance of which is intrusted to him. The value of such a matter on its inner side is different from the externality of it, and thus is not as yet injured, as a stipulation is (§ 77), merely by non-performance. That which the public servant has to perform is as it stands of absolute value. Hence positive injury or non-performance, either being opposed to the essence of service, is a wrong to the universal content (§ 95, a negative-infinite judgment), and therefore a fault or crime.

The assured satisfaction of particular want does away with external need. There is no occasion to seek the means for alleviating want at the cost of official activity and duty. In the universal function of state those who are commissioned with the affairs of state are protected also against the other subjective side, the private passion of subjects, whose private interests, etc., may be injured by the furtherance of the universal.

§ 295. Security for the state and its subjects against misuse of power by the authorities and their officers is found directly in their responsibility arising out of their nature as a hierarchy. But it is also found in the legitimate societies and corporations. They hold in check the inflow of subjective wilfulness into the power of the officers. They also supplement from below the control from above, which cannot reach down to the conduct of individuals.

Note.—In the conduct and character of the officers the laws and decisions of government touch individuality, and are given reality. On this depend the satisfaction and confidence of the citizens in the government. On this also depends the execution of the government’s intentions, or else the weakening and frustration of them, since the manner in which the intention is realized is by sensibility and sentiment easily estimated more highly than the act itself, even though it be a tax. It is due to this direct and personal contact that the control from above may incompletely attain its end. This end may find an obstacle in the common interest of the official class, which is distinct from both subjects and superiors. Especially when institutions are perhaps not yet perfected, the higher interference of sovereignty for the removal of these hindrances (as for example that of Friedrich II. in the famous Müller-Arnold affair) is demanded and justified.

§ 296. Whether or no integrity of conduct, gentleness, and freedom from passion pass into social custom depends Upon the nature of the direct ethical life and thought. These phases of character maintain the spiritual balance over against the merely mental acquisition of the so-called sciences, dealing with the objects of these spheres of government, against also the necessary practice of business, and the actual labour of mechanical and other trades. The greatness of the state is also a controlling element, by virtue of which the importance of family relations and other private ties is diminished, and revenge, hate, and the like passions become inoperative and powerless. In concern for the great interests of a large state, these subjective elements sink out of sight, and there is produced an habitual regard for universal interests and affairs.

§ 297. The members of the executive and the state officials constitute the main part of the middle class, in which are found the educated intelligence and the consciousness of right of the mass of a people. The institutions of sovereignty operating from above and the rights of corporations from below prevent this class from occupying the position of an exclusive aristocracy and using their education and skill wilfully and despotically.

Note.—At one time the administration of justice, whose object is the peculiar interest of all individuals, had been converted into an instrument of gain and despotism. The knowledge of law was concealed under a pedantic or foreign speech, and the knowledge of legal procedure under an involved formalism.

Addition.—The state’s consciousness and the most conspicuous education are found in the middle class, to which the state officials belong. The members of this class, therefore, form the pillars of the state in regard to rectitude and intelligence. The state, if it has no middle class, is still at a low stage of development. In Russia, for example, there is a multitude of serfs and a host of rulers. It is of great concern to the state that a middle class should be formed, but this can be effected only in an organization such as we have described, namely, by the legalization of particular circles, which are relatively independent, and by a force of officials, whose wilfulness has no power over these legalized circles. Action in accordance with universal right, and the habit of such action, are consequences of the opposition produced by these self-reliant independent circles.

§ 298. The legislature interprets the laws and also those internal affairs of the state whose content is universal. This function is itself a part of the constitution. In it the constitution is presupposed, and so far lies absolutely beyond direct delimitation. Yet it receives development in the improvement of the laws, and the progressive character of the universal affairs of government.

Addition.—The constitution must unquestionably be the solid ground, on which the legislature stands. Hence, the prime essential is not to set to work to make a constitution. It exists, but yet it radically becomes, that is, it is formed progressively. This progress is an alteration which is not noticed, and has not the form of an alteration. For example, the wealth of princes and their families was at first a private possession in Germany; then, without any struggle or opposition it was converted into domains, that is, state wealth. This came about through the princes feeling the need of an undivided possession and demanding from the country, and the landed classes generally, security for the same. There was in this way developed a kind of possession, over which the princes had no longer the sole disposition. In a similar way, the emperor was formerly judge, and travelled about in his kingdom giving the law. Through the merely seeming or external progress of civilization, it has become necessary that the emperor should more and more delegate this office of judge to others. Thus the judicial function passed from the person of the prince to colleagues. So the progress of any condition of things is a seemingly calm and unnoticed one. In the lapse of time a constitution attains a position quite other than it had before.

§ 299. These objects are defined in reference to individuals more precisely in two ways, (α) what of good comes to individuals to enjoy at the hands of the state, and (β) what they must perform for the state. The first division embraces the laws of private right in general, also the rights of societies and corporations. To these must be added universal institutions, and indirectly (§ 298) the whole of the constitution. But that which, on the other hand, is to be performed, is reduced to money as the existing universal value of things and services. Hence, it can be determined only in so equitable a way that the particular tasks and services, which the individual can perform, may be effected by his private will.

Note.—The object-matter of universal legislation may be in general distinguished from that of the administrative and executive functions in this way. Only what is wholly universal in its content falls under legislation, while administration deals with the particular and also the special way of carrying it out. But this distinction is not absolute, since the law, as it is a law, and not a mere general command such as “Thou shalt not kill” (§ 140, note, p. 142), must be in itself definite, and the more definite it is, the more nearly its content approaches the possibility of being carried out as it is. But at the same time such a complete settlement of the laws would give them an empirical side, which in actual execution would make them subject to alteration. This would be detrimental to their character as laws. The organic unity of the functions of state implies that one single spirit both fixes the nature of the universal and also carries it out to its definite reality.

It may occur that the state lays no direct claim upon the many kinds of skill, possessions, talents, faculties, with the manifold personal wealth which is contained in them and is tinged with subjective sentiment, but only upon that form of wealth which appears as money.—The services referring to the defence of the state against enemies belong to the duty discussed in the next section of this treatise. Money is, in fact, not a special kind of wealth, but the universal element in all kinds, in so far as they in production are given such an external reality as can be apprehended as an object. Only at this external point of view is it possible and just to estimate performances quantitatively.

Plato in his “Republic” allows the rulers to appoint individuals to their particular class, and assign to them their particular tasks (§ 185, note). In feudal-monarchy vassals had to perform a similarly unlimited service, and simply in their particularity to discharge such a duty as that of a judge. Services in the East, such as the vast undertakings in architecture in Egypt, are also in quality particular. In all these relations there is lacking the principle of subjective freedom. In accordance with this principle, the substantive act of the individual, which even in the above-mentioned services is in its content particular, should proceed from his particular will. This right is possible only when the demand for work rests upon the basis of universal value. Through the influence of this right the substitution of money for services has been introduced.

Addition.—The two aspects of the constitution refer to the rights and the services of individuals. The services are now almost all reduced to money. Military duty is perhaps the only remaining personal service. In former times claim was made to the concrete individual, who was summoned to work in accordance with his skill. Now the state buys what it needs. This may seem abstract, dead, and unfeeling. It may also seem as if to be satisfied with abstract services were for the state a retrograde step. But the principle of the modern state involves that everything which the individual does should be occasioned by his will. By means of money the justice implied in equality can be much better substantiated. The talented would be more heavily taxed than the man without talents if respect were had to concrete capacity. But now, out of reverence for subjective liberty, the principle is brought to light that only that shall be laid hold upon which is of a nature to be laid hold upon.

§ 300. In the legislative function in its totality are active both the monarchical element and the executive. The monarchical gives the final decision, and the executive element advises. The executive element has concrete knowledge and oversight of the whole in its many sides and in the actual principles firmly rooted in them. It has also acquaintance with the wants of the offices of state. In the legislature are at last represented the different classes or estates.

Addition.—It proceeds from a wrong view of the state to exclude the members of the executive from the legislature, as was at one time done by the constituent assembly. In England the ministers are rightly members of parliament, since those who share in the executive should stand in connection with and not in opposition to the legislature. The idea that the functions of government should be independent contains the fundamental error that they should check one another. But this independence is apt to usurp the unity of the state, and unity is above all things to be desired.

§ 301. By admitting the classes the legislature gives not simply implicit but actual existence to matters of general concern. The element of subjective formal freedom, the public consciousness, or the empirical universality of the views and thoughts of the many, here becomes a reality.

Note.—The expression “The Many” (οἱ πολλοί) characterizes the empirical universality better than the word “All,” which is in current use. Under this “all,” children, women, etc., are manifestly not meant to be included. Manifestly, therefore, the definite term “all” should not be employed, when, it may be, some quite indefinite thing is being discussed.

There are found in current opinion so unspeakably many perverted and false notions and sayings concerning the people, the constitution, and the classes, that it would be a vain task to specify, explain, and correct them. When it is argued that an assembly of estates is necessary and advantageous, it is meant that the people’s deputies, or, indeed, the people itself, must best understand their own interest, and that it has undoubtedly the truest desire to secure this interest. But it is rather true that the people, in so far as this term signifies a special part of the citizens, does not know what it wills. To know what we will, and further what the absolute will, namely reason, wills, is the fruit of deep knowledge and insight, and is therefore not the property of the people.

It requires but little reflection to see that the services performed by the classes in behalf of the general well-being and public liberty cannot be traced to an insight special to these classes. The highest state officials have necessarily deeper and more comprehensive insight into the workings and needs of the state, and also greater skill and wider practical experience. They are able without the classes to secure the best results, just as it is they who must continually do this when the classes are in actual assembly. General well-being does not therefore depend upon the particular insight of the classes, but is rather the achievement of the official deputies. They can inspect the work of the officers who are farthest removed from the observation of the chief functionaries of state. They, too, have a concrete perception of the more urgent special needs and defects. But to this intelligent oversight must be added the possibility of public censure. This possibility has the effect of calling out the best insight upon public affairs and projects, and also the purest motives; its influence is felt by the members of the classes themselves. As for the conspicuously good will, which is said to be shown by the classes towards the general interest, it has already been remarked (§ 272, note) that the masses, who in general adopt a negative standpoint, take for granted that the will of the government is evil or but little good. If this assumption were replied to in kind, it would lead to the recrimination that the classes, since they originate in individuality, the private standpoint and particular interests, are apt to pursue these things at the expense of the universal interest; while the other elements of the state, being already at the point of view of the state, are devoted to universal ends. As for the pledge to respect the public welfare and rational freedom, it should be given especially by the classes, but is shared in by all the other institutions of state. This guarantee is present in such institutions as the sovereignty of the monarch, hereditary succession, and the constitution of the law-courts, much more pronouncedly than in the classes. The classes, therefore, are specially marked out by their containing the subjective element of universal liberty. In them the peculiar insight and peculiar will of the sphere, which in this treatise has been called the civic community, is actualized in relation to the state. It is here as elsewhere by means of the philosophic point of view that this element is discerned to be a mark of the idea when developed to a totality. This inner necessity is not to be confounded with the external necessities and utilities of this phase of state activity.

Addition.—The attitude of the government to the classes must not be in its essence hostile. The belief in the necessity of this hostile relation is a sad mistake. The government is not one party which stands over against another, in such a way that each is seeking to wrest something from the other. If the state should find itself in such a situation, it must be regarded as a misfortune and not as a sign of health. Further, the taxes, to which the classes give their consent, are not to be looked upon as a gift to the state, but are contributed for the interest of the contributors. The peculiar significance of the classes or estates is this, that through them the state enters into and begins to share in the subjective consciousness of the people.

§ 302. The classes, considered as a mediating organ, stand between the government and the people at large in their several spheres and individual capacities. This specific designation of the classes requires of them a sense and sentiment both for the state and government and for the interests of special circles and individuals. This position of the classes has, in common with the organized executive, a mediatorial function. It neither isolates the princely function as an extreme, causing it to appear as a mere ruling power acting capriciously, nor does it isolate the particular interests of communities, corporations, and individuals. Furthermore, individuals are not in it contrasted with the organized state, and thus are not presented as a mass or heap, as unorganized opinion and will, or as a mere collective force.

Note.—It is one of the fundamental principles of logic, that a definite element, which, when standing in opposition, has the bearing of an extreme, ceases to be in opposition and becomes an organic element, when it is observed to be at the same time a mean. In this present question it is all the more important to mate prominent this principle, since the prejudice is as common as it is dangerous, which presents the classes as essentially in opposition to the government. Taken organically, that is, in its totality, the element of the classes proves its right only through its office of mediation. Thus the opposition is reduced to mere appearance. If it, in so far as it is manifested, were not concerned merely with the superficial aspect of things but became a substantive opposition, the state would be conceived of as in decay.—That the antagonism is not of this radical kind is shown by the fact that the objects, against which it is directed, are not the essential phases of the political organism, but things that are more special and indifferent. The passion, which attaches itself to this opposition, becomes mere party seeking for some subjective interest, perhaps for one of the higher offices of state.

Addition.—The constitution is essentially a system of mediation. In despotic lands where there are only princes and people, the people act, if they act at all, in such a way as to disturb or destroy the political organization. But when the multitude has an organic relation to the whole, it obtains its interests in a right and orderly way. If this middle term is not present, the utterance of the masses is always violent. Therefore, the despot treats the people with indulgence, while his rage affects only those in his immediate neighbourhood. So also the people in a despotism pay light taxes, which in a constitutional state become larger through the people’s own consciousness. In no other land are taxes so heavy as they are in England.

§ 303. The universal class, the class devoted to the service of the government, has directly in its structure the universal as the end of its essential activity. In that branch of the legislative function, which contains the classes, the private individual attains political significance and efficiency. Hence, private persons cannot appear in the legislature either as a mere undistinguished mass, or as an aggregate of atoms. In fact, they already exist under two distinct aspects. They are found in the class, which is based on the substantive relation, and also in the class based upon particular interests and the labour by which they are secured (§ 201 and fol). Only in this way is the actual particular in the state securely attached to the universal.

Note.—This view makes against another widespread idea, that since the private class is in the legislature exalted to participation in the universal business, it must appear in the form of individuals, be it that representatives are chosen for this purpose, or that every person shall exercise a voice. But even in the family this abstract atomic view is no longer to be found, nor in the civic community, in both of which the individual makes his appearance only as a member of a universal. As to the state, it is essentially an organization, whose members are independent spheres, and in it no phase shall show itself as an unorganized multitude. The many, as individuals, whom we are prone to call the people, are indeed a collective whole, but merely as a multitude or formless mass, whose movement and action would be elemental, void of reason, violent, and terrible. When in reference to the constitution we still hear the people, that is, this unorganized mass, spoken of, we may take it for granted that we shall be given only generalities and warped declamations.

The view leading to the disintegration of the common existence found in the various circles, which are elements in the political world or highest concrete universality, would seek to divide the civic from the political life. The basis of the state would then be only the abstract individuality of wilfulness and opinion, a foundation which is merely accidental, and not absolutely steadfast and authoritative. That would be like building political life in the air. Although in these so-called theories the classes of the civic community generally and the classes in their political significance lie far apart, yet speech has retained their unity, a union which indeed existed long ago.

§ 304. The distinction of classes, which is already present in the earlier spheres, is contained also within the strict circumference of the political classes generally. Their abstract position is the extreme of empirical universality in opposition to the princely or monarchical principle. In this abstract position there is only the possibility of agreement, and hence quite as much the possibility of antagonism. It becomes a reasonable relation, and leads to the conclusion of the syllogism (§ 302, note), only if its middle term, or element of mediation, becomes a reality. Just as from the side of the princely function the executive (§ 300) has already this character of reconciliation, so also from the side of the classes should one of their elements be converted into a mediating term.

§ 305. Of the classes of the civic community one contains the principle, which is really capable of filling this political position. This is the class, whose ethical character is natural. As its basis it has family life, and as regards subsistence it has the possession of the soil. As regards its particularity it has a will, which rests upon itself, and, in common with the princely function, it bears the mark of nature.

§ 306. In its political position and significance this class becomes more clearly defined, when its means are made as independent of the wealth of the state as they are of the uncertainty of trade, the desire for gain, and the fluctuations of property. It is secure from the favour at once of the executive and of the multitude. It is further secured even from its own caprice, since the members of this class, who are called to this office, do without the rights exercised by the other citizens. They do not freely dispose of their property, nor do they divide it equally among their children, whom they love equally. This wealth becomes an inalienable inheritance burdened by primogeniture.

Addition.—This class has a more independent volition. The class of property owners is divided into two broad parts, the educated and the peasants. In contradistinction to these two kinds stand both the industrial class, which is dependent on and directed by the general wants, and the universal class, which is essentially dependent upon the state. The security and stability of this propertied class may be increased still more by the institution of primogeniture. This, however, is desirable only in reference to the state, since it entails a sacrifice for the political purpose of giving to the eldest son an independent life. Primogeniture is instituted that the state may reckon upon, not the mere possibility belonging to sentiment, but upon something necessary. Now sentiment, it is true, is not bound up with a competence. But it is relatively necessary that some having a sufficient property and being thereby freed from external pressure, should step forth without hindrance and use their activity for the state. But to establish and foster primogeniture where there are no political institutions would be nothing but a fetter clogging the freedom of private right. Unless this freedom is supplemented by the political sense, it goes to meet its dissolution.

§ 307. The right of this part of the substantive class is based upon the nature-principle of the family. But through heavy sacrifices for the state this principle is transformed, and by the transformation this class is set apart for political activity. Hence it is called and entitled to this sphere by birth, without the accident of choice. It thus receives a stable substantive situation intermediate between the subjective caprice and the accidents of the two extremes. While it resembles the princely function (§ 306), it participates in the wants and rights of the other extreme. It thus becomes a support at once to the throne and to the community.

§ 308. Under the other part of the general class element is found the fluctuating side of the civic community, which externally because of its numerous membership, and necessarily because of its nature and occupation, takes part in legislation only through deputies. If the civic community appoints these deputies, it does so in accordance with its real nature. It is not a number of atoms gathering together merely for a particular and momentary act without any further bond of union, but a body systematically composed of constituted societies, communities, and corporations. These various circles receive in this way political unity. Through the just claim of this part to be represented by a deputation to be summoned by the princely power, and also through the claim of the first part to make an appearance (§ 307), the existence of the classes and of their assembly finds its peculiar constitutional guarantee.

Note.—It is held that all should share individually in the counsels and decisions regarding the general affairs of state. The reason assigned is that all are members of the state, its affairs are the affairs of all, and for the transaction of these affairs all with their knowledge and will have a right to be present. This is a notion which, although it has no reasonable form, the democratic element would insert into the organism of state, notwithstanding the fact that the state is an organism only because of its reasonable form. This superficial view fastens upon and adheres to the abstraction “member of the state.” But the rational method, the consciousness of the idea, is concrete and is combined with the true practical sense, which is itself nothing else than the rational sense or the sense for the idea. Yet this sense is not to be confounded with mere business routine, or bounded by the horizon of a limited sphere. The concrete state is the whole, articulated into its particular circles, and the member of the state is the member of a circle or class. Only his objective character can be recognized in the state. His general character contains the twofold element, private person and thinking person, and thinking is the consciousness and willing of the universal. But consciousness and will cease to be empty only when they are filled with particularity, and by particularity is meant the characteristic of a particular class. The individual is species, let us say, but has his intrinsic general actuality in the species next above it. He attains actual and vital contact with the universal in the sphere of the corporations and societies (§ 251). It remains open to him by means of his skill to make his way into any class, for which he has the capacity, including the universal class. Another assumption, found in the current idea that all should have a share in the business of state, is that all understand this business. This is as absurd as it, despite its absurdity, is widespread. However, through the channel of public opinion (§ 316) every one is free to express and make good his subjective opinion concerning the universal.

§ 309. Counsels and decisions upon universal concerns require delegates, who are chosen under the belief that they have a better understanding of state business than the electors themselves. They are trusted to prosecute not the particular interest of a community or a corporation in opposition to the universal, but the universal only. Hence, to the deputies are not committed specific mandates or explicit instructions. But just as little has the assembly the character merely of a lively gathering of persons, each of whom is bent upon instructing, convincing, and advising the rest.

Addition.—In the case of representation consent is not given directly by all, but by those who are qualified, since here the individual voter is no longer a mere infinite person. Representation is based upon confidence; but confidence is different from simply casting a vote. To be guided by the majority of votes is antagonistic to the principle that I must meet my duty as a particular person. We have confidence in a person when we believe in his insight and his willingness to treat my affair as his own according to the best light of his knowledge and conscience. The principle of the individual subjective will also disappears, for confidence is concerned with a thing, the guiding ideals of a man, his behaviour, his acts, his concrete understanding. A representative must have a character, insight, and will capable of participating in universal business. He speaks not in his character as an abstract individual, but as one who seeks to make good his interests in an assembly occupied with the universal. And the electors merely ask for some guarantee that the delegate shall carry out and further this universal.

§ 310. Independent means has its right in the first part of the classes. The guarantee implied in a qualification and sentiment adequate to public ends is found in the second part, which arises out of the fluctuating, variable element of the civic community. It is chiefly found in sentiment, skill, and practical knowledge of the interests of the state and civic community, all of which qualities are acquired through actual conduct of business in the magistracies and public offices, and are preserved by practical use. It is found present, too, in the official or political sense, which is fashioned and tested by actual experience.

Note.—Subjective opinion readily finds the demand for guarantees superfluous or injurious, when it is made upon the so-called people. But the state contains the objective as its distinguishing trait, and not subjective opinion with its self-confidence. Individuals can be for the state only what in them is objectively recognizable and approved. Since this second part of the class-element has its root in particular interests and concerns, where accident, change, and caprice have the right to disport themselves, the state must here look the more closely after the objective.

The external qualification of a certain property appears, when taken abstractly, a one-sided external extreme, in contrast with the other just as one-sided extreme, namely, the mere subjective confidence and opinion of the electors. Each in its abstraction is distinguished from the concrete qualifications, indicated in § 302, which are required of those who advise concerning the business of state.—Nevertheless, in the choice of a magistrate or other officer of a society or an association, a property qualification is rightly made a condition, especially as much of the business is administered without remuneration. This qualification has also direct value in regard to the political business of the classes, if the members receive no salary.

§ 311. Deputies from the civic community should be acquainted with the particular needs and interests of the body which they represent, and also with the special obstacles which ought to be removed. They should therefore be chosen from amongst themselves. Such a delegation is naturally appointed by the different corporations of the civic community (§ 308) by a simple process, which is not disturbed by abstractions and atomistic notions. Thus they fulfil the point of view of the community directly, and either an election is altogether superfluous, or the play of opinion and caprice is reduced to a minimum.

Note.—It is a manifest advantage to have amongst the delegates individuals who represent every considerable special branch of the community, such as trade, manufacture, etc. These individuals must be thoroughly acquainted with their branch and belong to it. In the idea of a loose, indefinite election this important circumstance is given over to accident. Every branch, however, has an equal right to be represented. To regard the deputies as representatives has a significance that is organic and rational, only if they are not representatives of mere separate individuals or of a mere multitude, but of one of the essential spheres of the community and of its larger interests. Representation no longer means that one person should take the place of another. Rather is the interest itself actually present in the person of the representative, since he is there in behalf of his own objective nature.

Of elections by means of many separate persons it may be observed that there is necessarily little desire to vote, because one vote has so slight an influence. Even when those who are entitled to vote are told how extremely valuable their privilege is, they do not vote. Hence occurs just the opposite of what is sought. The selection passes into the hands of a few, a single party, or a special accidental interest, which should rather be neutralized.

§ 312. Of the two elements comprised under the classes, each brings into council a particular modification. As one of these elements has within the sphere of the classes the peculiar function of mediation, and that, too, between two things which both exist, it has a separate existence. The assembly of the classes is thus divided into two chambers.

§ 313. By this separation the number of courts is increased, and there is a greater certainty of mature judgment. Moreover, an accidental decision, secured on the spur of the moment by a simple majority of the votes, is rendered much less probable. But these are not the main advantages. There is, besides, smaller opportunity or occasion for direct opposition to arise between the class element and the government. Or in the case when the mediating element is also found on the side of the lower chamber, the insight of this lower house becomes all the stronger, since it in this case appears to be more unpartisan and its opposition to be neutralized.

§ 314. The classes are not the sole investigators of the affairs of state and sole judges of the general interest. Rather do they form merely an addition (§ 301). Their distinctive trait is that, as they represent the members of the civic community who have no share in the government, it is through their co-operating knowledge, counsel, and judgment that the element of formal freedom attains its right. Besides, a general acquaintance with state affairs is more widely extended through the publicity given to the transactions of the classes.

§ 315. By means of this avenue to knowledge public opinion first attains to true thoughts, and to an insight into the condition and conception of the state and its concerns. It thus first reaches the capacity of judging rationally concerning them. It learns, besides, to know and esteem the management, talents, virtues, and skill of the different officers of state. While these talents by receiving publicity are given a strong impulse towards development and an honourable field for exhibiting their worth, they are also an antidote for the pride of individuals and of the multitude, and are one of the best means for their education.

Addition.—To open the proceedings of the assembly of classes to the public is of great educational value, especially for the citizens. By it the people learn most certainly the true nature of their interests. There prevails extensively the idea that everybody knows already what is good for the state, and that this general knowledge is merely given utterance to in a state assembly. But, indeed, the very opposite is the fact. Here, first of all are developed virtues, talents, skill, which have to serve as examples. Indeed, these assemblies may be awkward for the ministers, who must here buckle on their wit and eloquence to resist the attacks of their opponents. Publicity is the greatest opportunity for instruction in the state interests generally. Amongst a people, where publicity is the rule, there is seen quite a different attitude towards the state than in those places where state assemblies are not found or are secret. By the publication of every proceeding, the chambers are first brought into union with the larger general opinion. It is shown that what a man fancies when he is at home with his wife and friends is one thing, and quite another thing what occurs in a great gathering where one clever stroke annihilates the preceding.

§ 316. Formal subjective freedom, implying that individuals as such should have and express their own judgment, opinion, and advice concerning affairs of state, makes its appearance in that aggregate, which is called public opinion. In it what is absolutely universal, substantive, and true is joined with its opposite, the independent, peculiar, and particular opinions of the many. This phase of existence is therefore the actual contradiction of itself; knowledge is appearance, the essential exists directly as the unessential.

Addition.—Public opinion is the unorganized means through which what a people wills and thinks is made known. That which is effective in the state must indeed be in organic relation to it; and in the constitution this is the case. But at all times public opinion has been a great power, and it is especially so in our time, when the principle of subjective freedom has such importance and significance. What now shall be confirmed is confirmed no longer through force, and but little through use and wont, but mainly by insight and reasons.

§ 317. Public opinion contains therefore the eternal substantive principles of justice, the true content and result of the whole constitution, of legislation, and of the universal condition in general. It exists in the form of sound human understanding, that is, of an ethical principle which in the shape of prepossessions runs through everything. It contains the true wants and right tendencies of actuality.

But when this inner phase comes forth into consciousness, it appears to imaginative thinking in the form of general propositions. It claims to be of interest partly on its own separate account; but it also comes to the assistance of concrete reasoning upon felt wants and upon the events, arrangements, and relations of the state. When this happens, there is brought forward also the whole range of accidental opinion, with its ignorance and perversion, its false knowledge and incorrect judgment. Now, as to the consciousness of what is peculiar in thought and knowledge, with which the present phenomenon has to do, it may be said that the worse an opinion is, the more peculiar and unique it is. The bad is in its content wholly particular and unique; the rational, on the contrary, is the absolutely universal. Yet it is the unique upon which opinion founds its exalted self-esteem.

Note.—Hence it is not to be regarded merely as a difference in the subjective point of view when it is declared on one side “Vox populi, vox dei;” and on the other side (in Ariosto, for example), “Che ’l Volgare ignorante ogn’ un riprenda / E parli più di quel che meno intenda;” both phases are found side by side in public opinion. Since truth and endless error are so directly united in it, either the one or the other is not truly in earnest. It may seem hard to decide which is in earnest; and it would still be hard, even if we were to confine ourselves to the direct expression of public opinion. But since in its inner being public opinion is the substantive, it is truly in earnest only about that. Yet the substantive cannot be extracted from public opinion; it, by its very nature as substantive, can be known only out of itself and on its own account. No matter what passion is expended in support of an opinion, no matter how seriously it is defended or attacked, this is no criterion of its practical validity. Yet least of all would opinion tolerate the idea that its earnestness is not earnest at all.

A great mind has publicly raised the question, whether it be permitted to deceive a people. We must answer that a people does not allow itself to be deceived in regard to its substantive basis, or the essence and definite character of its spirit; but in regard to the way in which it knows this, and judges of its acts and phases, it deceives itself.

Addition.—The principle of the modern world demands that what every man is bound to recognize must seem to him justified. He, moreover, has had a voice in the discussion and decision. If he has given his word and indicated that he is responsible, his subjectivity is satisfied, and he allows many things to go unchallenged. In France freedom of speech has always proved less dangerous than silence. One fears that if a man is silent he will retain his aversion to an object; but reasoning upon it furnishes a safety-valve and brings satisfaction, while the object, in the meantime, pursues its way unmolested.

§ 318. Public opinion deserves, therefore, to be esteemed and despised to be despised in its concrete consciousness and expression, to be esteemed in its essential basis. At best, its inner nature makes merely an appearance in its concrete expression, and that, too, in a more or less troubled shape. Since it has not within itself the means of drawing distinctions, nor the capacity to raise its substantive side into definite knowledge, independence of it is the first formal condition of anything great and reasonable, whether in actuality or in science. Of any reasonable end we may be sure that public opinion will ultimately be pleased with it, recognize it, and constitute it one of its prepossessions.

Addition.—In public opinion all is false and true, but to find out the truth in it is the affair of the great man. He who tells the time what it wills and means, and then brings it to completion, is the great man of the time. In his act the inner significance and essence of the time is actualized. Who does not learn to despise public opinion, which is one thing in one place and another in another, will never produce anything great.

§ 319. The liberty of taking part in state affairs, the pricking impulse to say and to have said one’s opinion, is directly secured by police laws and regulations, which, however, hinder and punish the excess of this liberty. Indirect security is based upon the government’s strength, which lies mainly in the rationality of its constitution and the stability of its measures, but partly also in the publicity given to the assemblies of the classes. Security is guaranteed by publicity in so far as the assemblies voice the mature and educated insight into the interests of the state, and pass over to others what is less significant, especially if they are disabused of the idea that the utterances of these others are peculiarly important and efficacious. Besides, a broad guarantee is found in the general indifference and contempt, with which shallow and malicious utterances are quickly and effectually visited.

Note.—One means of freely and widely participating in public affairs is the press, which, in its more extended range, is superior to speech, although inferior in vivacity.—To define the liberty of the press as the liberty to speak and write what one pleases is parallel to the definition of liberty in general, as liberty to do what one pleases. These views belong to the undeveloped crudity and superficiality of fanciful theorizing. Nowhere so much as in this matter does formalism hold its ground so obstinately, and so little permits itself to be influenced by reasons. And this was to be expected, because the object is here the most transient, accidental, and particular in the whole range of opinion, with its infinite variety of content and aspect. Of course, there is no obscurity about a direct summons to steal, murder, or revolt. But, aside from that, much depends on the manner and form of expression. The words may seem to be quite general and undefined, and yet may conceal a perfectly definite significance. Besides, they may have consequences, which are not actually expressed. Indeed, it may even be debated whether these consequences are really in the expression and properly follow from it. This indefiniteness in the form and in the substance does not admit of the laws attaining in this case the precision usually demanded of laws. Since in this field crime, wrong, and injustice have their most particular and subjective shape, the indefiniteness of the wrong causes the sentence also to be completely subjective. Besides, the injury is in this matter sought to be done to and make itself real in the thought, opinion, and will of others. But it thus comes into contact with the freedom of others, upon whom it depends whether the act is actually an injury or not.

Hence, the laws are open to criticism because of their indefiniteness. By the skilful use of terms they may be evaded; or, on the other hand, it may be contended that the sentence is merely subjective. It may be maintained further that an expression is not a deed but only an opinion, or thought, or a simple saying. Thus, from the mere subjectivity of content and from the insignificance of a mere opinion or saying the inference is drawn that these words should pass unpunished. Yet in the same breath there is demanded as great a respect and esteem for that very opinion of mine as for my real mental possession, and for the utterance of that opinion as for the deliberate utterance of a mental possession.

The fact remains that injury to the honour of individuals generally, as libel, abuse, disdainful treatment of the government, its officials and officers, especially the person of the prince, contempt for the laws, incitement to civil broil, etc., are all crimes or faults of different magnitudes. The greater indefiniteness of these acts, due to the element in which they find utterance, does not annul their real character. It simply causes the subjective ground, on which the offence is committed, to decide the nature and shape of the reaction. It is this subjective nature of the offence, which in the reaction converts subjectivity and uncertainty into necessity, whether this reaction be mere prevention of crime by the police or specific punishment. Here, as always, formalism relies on isolated aspects, belonging to the external appearance, and seeks by these abstractions of its own creation to reason away the real and concrete nature of the thing.

As to the sciences, they, if they are sciences in reality, are not found in the region of opinion and subjective thought, nor does their method of presentation consist in the adroit use of terms, or allusions, or half-uttered, half-concealed opinions, but in the simple, definite, and open expression of the sense and meaning. Hence, the sciences do not come under the category of public opinion (§ 316).

For the rest, the element in which public opinion finds utterance and becomes an overt and tangible act is, as we have already observed, the intelligence, principles, and opinions of others. It is this element which determines the peculiar’ effect of these acts or the danger of them to individuals, the community or the state (§ 218), just as a spark, if thrown upon a heap of gunpowder, is much more dangerous than if thrown on the ground, where it goes out and leaves no trace.—Hence, as the right of science finds security in the content of its matter, so also may an uttered wrong find security, or, at least, toleration, in the contempt with which it is received. Offences, which are in strictness punishable at law, may thus partly come under a kind of nemesis. Internal impotence, by opposing itself to the talents and virtues, by which it feels oppressed, comes in this way to itself, and gives self-consciousness to its own nothingness. A more harmless form of nemesis was found amongst the Roman soldiers in the satirical songs directed against their emperors on the triumphal march. Having gone through hard service, and yet failing to secure mention in the list of honours, they sought to get even with the emperor in this jesting way. But even the nemesis which is bad and malevolent is, when treated with scorn, deprived of its effect. Like the public, which to some extent forms a circle for this kind of activity, it is limited to a meaningless delight in others’ misfortunes and to a condemnation, which is inherent in itself.

§ 320. There is the subjectivity, which is the dissolution of the established state life. It has its external manifestation in the opinion or reasoning, which, in seeking to make good its own random aims, destroys itself. This subjectivity has its true reality in its opposite, namely, in that subjectivity, which, being identical with the substantive will, and constituting the conception of the princely power, is the ideality of the whole; This higher subjectivity has not as yet received in this treatise its right and visible embodiment.

Addition.—We have already regarded subjectivity as existing in the monarch, and in that capacity occupying the pinnacle of the state. The other side of subjectivity manifests itself arbitrarily and quite externally in public opinion. The subjectivity of the monarch is in itself abstract, but it should be concrete, and should as concrete be the ideality which diffuses itself over the whole. In the state which is at peace, all branches of the civic life have their subsistence, but this subsistence beside and out-side of one another the branches have only as it issues out of the idea of the whole. This process or idealization of the whole must also have its own manifestation.