We know the three estates. Which one needs the corporation?

Not the farmer. He already has his universal in the family and in life with nature.

Not the civil servant either. He works for the universal anyway. That is his calling.

But the estate of trade stands in the middle. It aims above all at the particular, at its own gain. So the corporation belongs above all to this estate.

Summary: Farmers and civil servants already have their universal. The estate of trade aims at the particular. So this estate above all needs the corporation.

§ 534. The consciousness of the essential end, the knowledge of the manner of operation of the powers and changeable ingredients of which that necessity is composed, and the holding fast to that end within it and against it has, on the one hand, in relation to the concrete of civil society, the relation of an external universality; this order is, as active power, the external state, which, insofar as it is rooted in the higher, the substantial state, appears as state police. On the other hand, in this sphere of particularity, the end of substantial universality and its actualization remain restricted to the business of particular branches and interests; – the corporation, in which the particular citizen as a private person finds the securing of his property, just as much as he thereby steps out of his individual private interest and has a conscious activity for a relatively universal end, just as he has his ethical life in his legal and estate duties.

§ 534. The consciousness of the essential end, the knowledge of the manner of operation of the powers and changeable ingredients of which that necessity is composed, and the holding fast to this end in the course of the same as a means, has, on the one hand, in relation to the concrete of civil society, the relation of an external universality; this order is, as active power, the external state, the police, which, insofar as it has the substantial state above it, appears as state police; on the other hand, the end of substantial universality and its actualization remain, in this sphere of particularity, restricted to the business of particular branches and interest – the corporation, in which the particular citizen as a private person finds the securing of his property, just as much as he thereby steps out of his individual private interest, and has a conscious activity for a relative universal end, just as he has his ethical life in his legal and estate duties.