grundlinien.de

316

The formal, subjective freedom whereby individuals as such have and express their own judgment, opinion, and counsel concerning universal affairs has its appearance in that aggregate which is called public opinion. In it, the universal in and for itself — the substantial and true — is bound up with its opposite, the self-subsistent idiosyncratic and particular opinion of the many; this existence is therefore the present contradiction of itself — cognition as appearance — essentiality just as immediately as inessentiality.

DE

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  1. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    Public opinion is the unorganized way in which what a people wills and thinks makes itself known. What actually asserts itself in the state must, of course, operate in an organic way, and this is the case in the constitution. But at all times public opinion has been a great power, and it is so especially in our time, where the principle of subjective freedom has this importance and significance. What is now to hold good no longer holds good through force, little through custom and habit, but rather through insight and reasons.

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