The German Constitution

[p. 460]

|460| the contradiction between what it wants to be and what alone is demanded for it, and what it is, strikes the eye.

Or …¹⁰⁾

10) Editors: Rosenkranz (Hegels Leben, Berlin 1844, pp. 236 f.) reports on an – presumably lost – introduction to the essay on the constitution that differs from the texts reproduced here:
“In his essay Hegel asked whether the downfall of the German Empire must be ascribed to a lack of bravery, of personal courage. This view, he answered himself, is refuted by history, which on the contrary gloriously confirms the martial prowess of individuals everywhere, even in the army of the Empire. Consequently the misfortune must be laid to the charge of the dismemberment of Germany and of the bad leadership of the soldiers.
He asked further whether that downfall had perhaps sprung from a national bankruptcy. This, he held, was just as little the case, for with all the bad management of the individual states Germany does not yet know all those important problems which in other states arise from a national debt, whose treatment occupies the most distinguished minds and in which even small errors could bring the most terrible consequences in their train.
Finally he asked whether perhaps lack of ethical life, of culture, of religiosity could be the cause of the weakness. This, he replied, could least of all be said. Not in the individuals, then, in the mechanism of the whole must the corruption lie.”

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