[p. 508]
|508| line is likewise raised into the form of right: it acts rightfully in that it does not agree with public law, [and] lawfully in that it does not agree with the laws of the state.
So that the problem, how Germany is to be a state and at the same time no state, may be solved, it must, in so far as it would be a state, exist merely as a state of thought, but the non-being of the state must have the reality. In order then that the state of thought may be for itself, the judicial power, which wanted to sublate the contradiction and apply to actuality what is only thought, thus to realise it and to make actuality conform to it, must be so constituted that its application too remains only a thought, and so the universal orders through which the country would be a state are crippled in their transition into reality, and this transition itself is indeed itself posited and ordained – for the orders have no sense at all if they do not have the purpose of being carried out -, but the act of transition too is again made into a thing of thought.
The crippling of this transition can occur at each of its stages. A general ordinance is made, it is to be carried out, and in case of refusal judicial proceedings are to be taken. If the refusal to perform is not made the subject of judicial proceedings, the execution remains lying in itself; if it is made so, the judgement can be prevented; if it comes about, it is not complied with. This thing of thought of a resolution is nevertheless to be carried out and a penalty imposed, so the command is given for the execution that is to be enforced. This command again is not executed, so a resolution must follow against those not executing, to compel them to execute. This again is not complied with, so it must be decreed that the penalty is to be carried out on those who do not carry it out on him who does not carry it out, and so on. This is the dry history of how one stage
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