[p. 471]
|471| has nothing to do with those titles, but from the determination of concepts it can become clear what significance those titles may have. To be sure, such expressions [as] “Empire, head of the Empire” are often taken for concepts, and they must be the makeshift in time of need.
The teacher of constitutional law who can no longer call Germany a state, because otherwise he would have to admit several consequences that follow from the concept of a state and which he must not admit, helps himself, because Germany is yet again not to count as a non-state, by giving the title “Empire” as a concept, – or, since Germany is neither a democracy nor an aristocracy but in essence ought to be a monarchy and yet the emperor is again not to be regarded as monarch, one helps oneself with the title “head of the Empire” which he bears, even in a system in which not titles but determinate concepts are supposed to rule.
Through the quite general concept “head of the Empire” the emperor is thrown into one category with the former Doge of Venice and the Turkish Sultan. Both of these are likewise heads of the state, but the former the most restricted head of an aristocracy, the latter the most unrestricted of a despotism. And because the concept of a head fits the most various extent of supreme public power, it is wholly indeterminate and for that very reason has no value at all; it gives itself out as having expressed something and has at bottom expressed nothing.
In the scientific and historical [field] such meaningless expressions are to be avoided, even if the German character otherwise needs them in actual life as expedients. For given the obstinacy of the German nature in insisting absolutely on its will, or given divided and irreconcilable interests of states, if there is there in civil life, here in politics, for other reasons of some importance, nevertheless at the same time
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