[p. 505]
|505| union and close to themselves the possibility of combining with understanding, according to need and necessity, for transitory, momentary purposes, the demand nevertheless exists that Germany shall be a state. The contradiction is set up of determining the relations of the estates in such a way that no state is either possible or actual, and yet Germany is absolutely to count as a state, it absolutely wants to regard itself as one body. This spirit has for centuries thrown Germany into a series of inconsistencies between its will to make a state impossible and the will [to be] a state, and [has] made [it] unhappy between the estates’ jealousy of every kind of subjection to the whole and the impossibility of subsisting without this subjection.
The solution of the problem, how it could be that Germany is no state and yet is a state, results very easily [from the fact] that it is a state in thought and no state in actuality, that formality and reality separate, the empty formality belonging to the state, but the reality to the non-being of the state.
The system of the state of thought is the organisation of a constitution of right which has no force in that which belongs to the essence of a state. The obligations of each estate towards Emperor and Empire, towards the supreme government, which consists in the head in connection with the estates, are determined with the utmost precision by an infinity of solemn acts and acts of fundamental law. These duties and rights make up a system of laws in accordance with which the public-law relation of each estate and the obligation of its performance are established with the utmost precision, and only according to these legal determinations is the contribution of each individual estate to the universal to take place. The nature of this legality consists, however, in the fact that the public-law relation and its obligations are not determined by universal, proper
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.