Comments on: 215

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:56:52 +0000

§ 215: Laws must be public

Whoever must obey a law must know it. That is his right.

Two equal wrongs:

Dionysius the Tyrant hung up the laws so high that no one could read them. That is the one wrong.

The other: People bury the laws in thick, learned books, in a foreign language. Only experts find their way around in them. That is exactly the same wrong.

Who helps?

Rulers who gave their people a clear code of laws are great benefactors. They have done a great act of justice.

Only for experts?

Lawyers often see knowledge of the laws as their privilege. But you do not need to be a shoemaker to know whether your shoes fit. Right concerns freedom, the most sacred thing in a human being. So everyone must be able to know it.

Summary: Everyone must be able to know and understand the laws. To hide them away is a wrong. A clear code of laws is a great act of justice.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 14:00:49 +0000

The class of jurists, who possess special knowledge of the laws, often regard this as their monopoly, and whoever does not belong to the profession is not to have a say. Thus the physicists took it amiss that Goethe wrote a theory of colors, because he did not belong to the trade, and was a poet to boot. But just as little as anyone needs to be a shoemaker in order to know whether his shoes fit him, just as little does he need to belong to the trade at all in order to have knowledge of matters that are of general interest. Right concerns freedom, the worthiest and most sacred thing in man, which he himself must know, insofar as it is to be binding for him.

By: Hegel (Encyclopedia 1830)

Hegel (Encyclopedia 1830) — Sat, 18 Sep 1830 23:06:32 +0000

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830), § 530:

§ 530. 2. The positive form of the laws, to be pronounced as laws and made known, is the condition of external bindingness toward them, in that, as laws of strict right, they concern only the abstract (i.e. itself in itself external) will, not the moral or ethical will. The subjectivity to which the will has a right in this respect is here only the being known. This subjective existence is, as the existence of that which is in and for itself in this sphere, that of right, at the same time externally objective existence, as universal validity and necessity. The rightfulness of property and of private transactions concerning it receives, in accordance with the determination that what is rightful is something posited, recognized, and thereby valid, its universal guarantee through the formalities.

By: Hegel (Encyclopedia 1827)

Hegel (Encyclopedia 1827) — Thu, 24 May 1827 23:06:32 +0000

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1827), § 530:

§ 530. 2) The positive form of the laws, to be pronounced as laws and made known, is the condition of the external bindingness toward them, in that, as laws of strict right, they concern only the abstract (i.e. itself in itself external) will, not the moral or ethical will. The subjectivity to which the will has a right in this respect is here only the being known. This subjective existence is, as the existence of that which is in and for itself in this sphere, that of right, at the same time objective existence, as universal validity and necessity. The rightfulness of property and of private transactions concerning it receives, in accordance with the determination that what is rightful is something posited, recognized, and thereby valid, this aspect of universal guarantee through the formalities.