Tag: Concept

β) The particular functions and activities of the state, being essential moments of it, are proper to it, and are attached to the individuals by whom they are administered and exercised not in virtue of their immediate personality, but only in virtue of their universal and objective qualities; they are therefore connected with particular personality…

These two determinations — that the particular functions and powers of the state are neither self-sufficient and fixed in themselves nor in the particular will of individuals, but have their ultimate root in the unity of the state as their simple self — constitute the sovereignty of the state. This is sovereignty internally; it has…

2. Sovereignty — at first merely the universal thought of this ideality — exists only as the self-certain subjectivity, and as the abstract, and to that extent groundless, self-determination of the will, in which the ultimate moment of decision resides. This is the individuality of the state as such, which is itself thereby only one.…

3. This ultimate self of the will of the state is, in this its abstraction, simple, and hence immediate individuality; in its very concept, therefore, lies the determination of naturalness. The monarch is accordingly essentially determined as this individual, abstracted from all other content, and this individual is destined for the dignity of monarch in…

Both moments in their undivided unity — the ultimate, groundless self of the will, and the likewise groundless existence bound up with it, a determination consigned to nature — this Idea of that which is unmoved by arbitrary will constitutes the majesty of the monarch. In this unity lies the actual unity of the state,…

The third moment of the power of the crown concerns the universal in and for itself, which, from a subjective point of view, consists in the conscience of the monarch, and, from an objective point of view, in the whole of the constitution and the laws; the power of the crown accordingly presupposes the other…

b. Governmental Power Distinct from decision is the execution and application of the decisions of the crown, and in general the carrying-on and maintenance of what has already been decided — the existing laws, institutions, arrangements for common ends, and the like. This business of subsumption in general is comprised within governmental power, under which…

c. Legislative Power Legislative power concerns the laws as such, in so far as they require further determination, and those internal affairs which, in their content, are wholly universal. This power is itself a part of the constitution, which is presupposed by it and, to that extent, lies in and for itself outside its direct…

In the legislative power as totality, the two other moments are, in the first place, operative: the monarchical moment, to which the supreme decision belongs; the governmental power, as the moment that deliberates in particular with the concrete knowledge and survey of the whole in its manifold sides and of the actual principles that have…

The estates element has the determination that the universal concern should come to existence not only in itself but also for itself — that is, that the moment of subjective formal freedom, public consciousness as the empirical universality of the views and thoughts of the many, should attain existence in it. The expression the many…

Considered as a mediating organ, the estates stand between the government in general, on the one hand, and the people resolved into its particular spheres and individuals, on the other. Their determination demands of them the sense and the disposition of the state and of the government just as much as of the interests of…

The Estates element contains within its own determination the difference of the Estates already present in the earlier spheres. Its initially abstract position — namely that of the extreme of empirical universality as against the princely or monarchical principle in general, a position in which there lies only the possibility of agreement and hence equally…

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…

II. Sovereignty in Relation to Foreign States Sovereignty in the internal sphere (§ 278) is this ideality insofar as the moments of spirit and of its actuality, the state, are developed in their necessity and subsist as members of it. But spirit, as in freedom an infinitely negative relation to itself, is just as essentially…

Individuality, as exclusive being-for-itself, appears as a relation to other states, each of which is independent in relation to the others. Since it is in this independence that the being-for-itself of actual spirit has its existence, independence is the first freedom and the highest honor of a people. Those who speak of the wishes of…

In existence, this negative relation of the state to itself thus appears as a relation of one state to another, and as if the negative were something external. The existence of this negative relation accordingly takes the form of an occurrence and an entanglement with contingent events coming from outside. But it is the state’s…

This determination, whereby the interest and the right of individuals are posited as a vanishing moment, is at the same time the positive [aspect] of their individuality — an individuality which is not contingent and mutable, but which is in and for itself. This relation, and the recognition of it, is accordingly their substantial duty…

Courage is in itself a formal virtue, because it is the highest abstraction of freedom from all particular purposes, possessions, enjoyment, and life, yet [effects] this negation in an externally actual way; and because the renunciation, as accomplishment, is not in itself of a spiritual nature — its inner disposition may be this or that…

The content of courage as a disposition lies in the true, absolute ultimate end, the sovereignty of the state; the actuality of this ultimate end, as the work of courage, has as its means the surrender of personal actuality. This shape therefore contains the harshness of the highest oppositions: renunciation itself, yet as the existence…

B. External Constitutional Law External constitutional law proceeds from the relation between independent states; what is in and for itself [valid] within this relation therefore takes the form of an ought, because its being actual rests upon distinct sovereign wills.