is unconditionally fixed and posited as something absolute, existing in itself, inwardness—the rebuilding of the lost good faith, the being-one of universal and individual freedom, and ethical life—is made impossible.

In the system of such an externality—and here we refer to the Fichtean system as the most consistent presentation, the one least formal, but which actually attempts a consistent system that would not need an ethical life and religion foreign to it—it is the case, as in everything that proceeds from one conditioned term to another, that either no unconditioned can be exhibited at all, or, if such a thing is posited, it is the formal indifference which has the conditioned, differing terms outside itself: essence without form, power without wisdom, quantity without inner quality or infinity, rest without motion.

The supreme task, in the arrangement operating with mechanical necessity whereby the efficacy of each individual is to be compelled by the general will, is how this general will can be necessarily real in the subjects who are its organs and administrators—a task that presupposes the opposition of the individual will to the general will; the being-one with the general will can thus not be grasped and posited as an inner, absolute majesty, but only as something that is to be brought about through an external relation, or coercion. But here, in reality, in the progression of compelling and supervising that is to be posited, one cannot proceed in an infinite series and leap from the real to the ideal; there must be a supreme positive point from which the compelling, in accordance with the concept of universal freedom, begins; but this point, like every other point, must itself be compelled to compel in accordance with the concept of universal freedom in this way; a point that was not compelled within this general system of coercion would step outside the principle, and would be transcendent. The question, then, is how this highest will likewise, through coercion and supervision, is to be made conformable to the concept of the general will, so that the system remains wholly immanent and transcendental. This could happen in no other way than that the power of the whole be distributed between the two sides that stand opposed to one another, so that the governed are compelled by the government, and the government by the governed. If the power, and hence the possible coercion, is posited as of unequal strength on the two sides, then, to the extent that the one part has more force than the other—by the excess of the one over the other—only one part is compelled, and not the opposing one, which is not what is supposed to be the case. But properly speaking, it is only the overpowering side that has power at all, for in order for something to be a limit to another, it must be equal to it; the weaker side is therefore no limit for the other; both, then, must be compelled reciprocally with equal force

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