Category: Paragraph

The universal estate — more specifically, the estate devoted to the service of government — has, immediately in its determination, the universal as the end of its essential activity; in the estates element of legislative power, the private estate attains a political significance and effectiveness. It can, in this connection, appear neither as a mere…

One of the Estates of civil society contains the principle that is in itself capable of being constituted for this political relation, namely, the Estate of natural ethical life, which has family life, and, with regard to subsistence, landed property, as its basis, and which, in respect of its particularity, thus has in common with…

With regard to its political position and significance, this Estate is more precisely constituted in that its wealth is established as independent alike of the wealth of the state and of the insecurity of trade, the pursuit of profit, and the mutability of possession in general — as well as of the favor of the…

The right of this part of the substantial Estate is thus, on the one hand, grounded on the natural principle of the family, but this principle is at the same time transformed through hard sacrifices made for the political end, whereby this Estate is essentially directed toward activity for this end and, likewise as a…

The other part of the Estates element comprises the mobile side of civil society, which, outwardly on account of the number of its members, but essentially on account of the nature of its determination and occupation, can enter into this relation only through deputies. Inasmuch as these are deputed by civil society, it is immediately…

Since the deputation takes place for the purpose of deliberating and deciding on the universal affairs, it has the sense that, through trust, individuals are determined for it who understand these affairs better than those who depute them, and also that they assert, not the particular interest of a community or corporation as against the…

The guarantee of the qualities and disposition corresponding to this end — since independent wealth already claims its right in the first part of the Estates — is found, in the case of the second part, which proceeds from the mobile and variable element of civil society, chiefly in the disposition, skill, and knowledge of…

The deputation, as proceeding from civil society, further has the sense that the deputies be acquainted with its specific needs, obstacles, and particular interests, and belong to them themselves. Since, in accordance with the nature of civil society, it proceeds from its various corporations (§ 308), and since the simple manner of this process is…

Of the two sides contained in the Estates element (§ 305, § 308), each brings a particular modification into the deliberation; and since, moreover, the one moment has the distinctive function of mediation within this sphere, namely between existing extremes, a separate existence likewise results for it; the assembly of the Estates will thus divide…

Through this separation, not only does the maturity of the resolution obtain a greater security by means of a plurality of instances, and the contingency of a momentary mood, as well as the contingency which the decision might assume through a majority of votes, is removed; but above all the Estates element is less likely…

Since the institution of the Estates is not intended to ensure that the affairs of the state are deliberated on and decided in the best possible way in themselves — in which respect they constitute merely an additional resource (§ 301) — but its distinguishing function consists in the fact that, through their shared knowledge,…

The opening up of this opportunity for knowledge has the more general aspect that public opinion thereby first arrives at true thoughts and at insight into the condition and concept of the state and its affairs, and hence first attains a capacity to judge more rationally about these matters; it also comes to know and…

Public opinion therefore contains within itself the eternal substantial principles of justice, the true content and result of the whole constitution, legislation, and the universal condition generally, in the form of common sense, as the ethical foundation running through everyone in the shape of prejudices, as well as the true needs and correct tendencies of…

Public opinion therefore deserves to be as much esteemed as despised — despised with regard to its concrete consciousness and expression, esteemed with regard to its essential foundation, which, more or less obscured, merely shines through into that concrete form. Since public opinion does not itself possess the standard of discrimination, nor the capacity to…

The freedom of public communication — one of whose means, the press, has the advantage over the other, spoken discourse, of a far wider reach, but falls short of it in vivacity — and the satisfaction of that prickling urge to state one’s opinion and to have stated it, have their direct safeguard in the…