[p. 504]
|504| for in such coalitions, even if they are not of long duration and, even while they last, in certain cases, as in wars, do not act with the success and emphasis they would if the very same power stood entirely under one government, the most serviceable measures and means are adopted with understanding for what is the purpose of the coalesced, and everything is arranged accordingly towards the purpose. The coalitions of the German estates, however, are bound by such formalities, restrictions and endless considerations, which they have created for themselves to this end, that all effect of the coalition is thereby paralysed, and it is already made impossible in advance to attain what it has set itself.
What the German Empire does as such is never an act of the whole, but of an association of greater or lesser extent. The means for attaining what the participants in it ordain, however, are not taken for this purpose, but the first and sole concern is that the relations of the allied which determine their separateness, and that they are not associated, be [adhered] to.
Such associations resemble a heap of round stones which join together into a pyramid, [which], however, because they are absolutely round and are supposed to remain so without fitting together, rolls apart as soon as the pyramid begins to move towards the purpose for which it was formed, or at least can offer no resistance. By such an arrangement these states lack not only the infinite advantage that a union of states has, but also the advantage of independence, that of being able to combine with others for individual common purposes: for in this case [they] have laid fetters upon themselves, by which every union is brought to nothing or is nothing already in its beginning.
Although, then, in this way the German estates have abolished their
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