260. The state is the embodiment of concrete freedom. In this concrete freedom, personal individuality and its particular interests, as found in the family and civic community, have their complete development. In this concrete freedom, too, the rights of personal individuality receive adequate recognition. These interests and rights pass partly of their own accord into the interest of the universal. Partly, also, do the individuals recognize by their own knowledge and will the universal as their own substantive spirit, and work for it as their own end. Hence, neither is the universal completed without the assistance of the particular interest, knowledge, and will, nor, on the other hand, do individuals, as private persons, live merely for their own special concern. They regard the general end, and are in all their activities conscious of this end. The modern state has enormous strength and depth, in that it allows the principle of subjectivity to complete itself to an independent extreme of personal particularity, and yet at the same time brings it back into the substantive unity, and thus preserves particularity in the principle of the state.
Addition.— The peculiarity of the idea of the modern state is that it is the embodiment of freedom, not according to subjective liking, but to the conception of the will, the will, that is, in its universal and divine character. Incomplete states are they, in which this idea is still only a germ, whose particular phases are not permitted to mature into selfdependence. In the republics of classical antiquity universality, it is true, is to be found. But in those ages particularity had not as yet been released from its fetters, and led back to universality or the universal purpose of the whole. The essence of the modern state binds together the universal and the full freedom of particularity, including the welfare of individuals. It insists that the interests of the family and civic community shall link themselves to the state, and yet is aware that the universal purpose can make no advance without the private knowledge and will of a particularity, which must adhere to its right. The universal must be actively furthered, but, on the other side, subjectivity must be wholly and vitally developed. Only when both elements are present in force is the state to be regarded as articulate and truly organized.
261. In contrast with the spheres of private right and private good, of the family and of the civic community, the state is on one of its sides an external necessity. It is thus a higher authority, in regard to which the laws and interests of the family and community are subject and dependent. On the other side, however, the state is the indwelling end of these things, and is strong in its union of the universal end with the particular interests of individuals. Thus, just so far as people have duties to fulfil towards it, they have also rights (§155).
Note.— We have already noticed (§3, note) that Montesquieu in his famous work, “The Spirit of the Laws,” has kept before his mind, and sought to prove in detail, the thought that the laws, especially those of private right, are dependent upon the character of the state. He has maintained the philosophic view that the part is to be regarded only in relation to the whole.
Duty is, in the first instance, a relation to something, which is for me a substantial and selfsubsisting universal. Right, on the other hand, is in general some embodiment of this substantive reality, and hence brings to the front its particular side and my particular freedom. These two things, treated formally, appear as deputed to different phases or persons. But the state as ethical, implying thorough interpenetration of the substantive and the par-ticular, brings into light the fact that my obligation to the substantive reality is at the same time the realization of my particular freedom. In the state, duty and right are bound together in one and the same reference. But because in the state the elements of right and duty attain their peculiar shape and reality, the difference between them once more becomes manifest. While they are identical in themselves or formally, they differ in content. In private right and morals the necessity inherent in the relation fails to be realized. The abstract equality of content is alone brought forward. In this abstract region what is right for one is right for another, and what is one man’s duty is also another man’s duty. This absolute identity of right and duty occurs, when transferred to the content, simply as equality. This content, which is now to rank as the complete universal and sole principle of duty and right, is the personal freedom of men. Hence, slaves have no duties, because they have no rights, and vice versa, religious duties, of course, falling outside of this discussion.
But when we turn from abstract identity to the concrete idea, the idea which develops itself within itself, right and duty are distinguished, and at once become different in content. In the family, for example, the rights of the son are not the same in content as his duties towards his father, nor are the rights of the citizen the same in content as his duties to his prince or government.—The conception of the union of duty and right is one of the most important features of states, and to it is due their internal strength. —The abstract treatment of duty insists upon casting aside and banishing the particular interest as something unessential and even unworthy. But the concrete method, or the idea, exhibits particularity as essential, and the satisfaction of the particular as a sheer necessity. In carrying out his duty the individual must in some way or other discover his own interest, his own satisfaction and recompense. A right must accrue to him out of his relation to the state, and by this right the universal concern becomes his own private concern. The particular interest shall in truth be neither set aside nor suppressed, but be placed in open concord with the universal. In this concord both particular and universal are inclosed. The individual, who from the point of view of his duties is a subject, finds, in fulfilling his civic duties, protection of person and property, satisfaction of his real self, and the consciousness and self-respect implied in his being a member of this whole. Since the citizen discharges his duty as a performance and business for the state, the state is permanently preserved. Viewed from the plane of abstraction, on the other hand, the interest of the universal would be satisfied, if the contracts and business, which it demands of him, are by him fulfilled simply as duties.
Addition.—Everything depends on the union of universality and particularity in the state. In the ancient states the subjective end was out-and-out one with the volition of the state. In modern times, on the contrary, we demand an individual view, and individual will and conscience. Of these things the ancients had none in the same sense. For them the final thing was the will of the state. While in Asiatic despotisms the individual had no inner nature, and no self-justification, in the modern world man’s inner self is honoured. The conjunction of duty and right has the twofold aspect that what the state demands as duty should forthwith be the right of individuality, since the state’s demand is nothing other than the organization of the conception of freedom The prevailing characters of the individual will are by the state brought into objective reality, and in this way first attain to their truth and realization. The state is the sole and essential condition of the attainment of the particular end and good.
262. The actual idea, the spirit, divides itself, as we have said, into the two ideal spheres of its conception, the family and the civic community. It descends into its two ideal and finite spheres, that it may out of them become actually infinite and real. Hence, spirit distributes to individuals as a mass the material of its finite realization in these spheres, in such a way that the portion of the individual has the appearance of being occasioned by his circumstances, caprice, and private choice (§185, and note).
Addition.— In the Platonic state subjective freedom has not as yet any place, since in it the rulers assigned to individuals their occupations. In many oriental states occupation depends upon birth. But subjective freedom, which must be respected, demands free choice for individuals.
263. In these two spheres, in which the elements of spirit, individuality, and particularity, have iu one their direct and in the other their reflected reality, spirit is their objective universality in the form of appearance. It is the power of the rational in the region of necessity (§184), and becomes the institutions, which have already been passed in review.
Addition.—The state, as spirit, divides itself according to the particular determining attributes of its conception, in order to exist in its own way. “We may adduce an illustration out of the region of nature. The nerve-system is especially the sensitive system; it is the abstract element which aims, so to speak, to exist by itself, and in this existence to have its own identity. Now feeling, when analyzed, furnishes two separate sides, dividing itself so that the differences appear as complete systems. On one side is the abstract sense of feeling, which withdraws by itself; it is the smothered movement going on internally in reproduction, internal self-nourishment, assimilation, and digestion. On the other hand this withdrawal into oneself has over against itself the element of difference, or the movement outwards; and this outward movement of feeling is irritability. These two form a system of their own, and there are lower orders of animals, in which this system alone is developed, being without that unity of feeling which marks the complete soul. If we compare these facts of nature with the facts of spirit, we may place together family and sensibility on the one side, civic community and irritability on the other. The third is the state, corresponding to the actual nervous system as an internally organized whole. But it is a living unity only in so far as both elements, the family and the civic community, are developed within it. The laws which govern these two are the institutions of the rational; it makes its appearance in them. The foundation and final truth of these institutions is the spirit, which is their universal purpose and conscious object. The family is, indeed, also ethical, but its purpose is not a conscious one. In the civic community, on the other hand, separation is the definitive feature.
264. The individuals of a multitude are spiritual beings, and have a twofold character. In them is the extreme of the independently conscious and willing individuality, and also the extreme of the universality, which knows and wills what is substantive. They obtain the rights of both these aspects, only in so far as they themselves are actual, both as private persons and as persons substantive. One right they have directly in the family, the other in the civic community. In these two institutions, which implicitly universalize all particular interests, individuals have their real self-conscious existence. And in the corporation they provide for these particular interests a wider scope, and an activity directed to a universal end.
265. These institutions comprise in detail the constitution, that is, the developed and actualized rationality. They are the steadfast basis of the state, determining the temper of individuals towards the state, and their confidence in it. They are, moreover, the foundationstones of public freedom, because in them particular freedom, becomes realized in a rational form. They thus involve an intrinsic union of freedom and necessity.
Addition.— It has been already remarked that both the sanctity of marriage, and also the institutions, in which the ethical character of the civic community makes its appearance, constitute the stability of the whole. The universal is the concern of every particular person. Everything depends on the law of reason being thoroughly incorporated with the law of particular freedom. My particular end thus becomes identical with the universal. In any other case the state is a mere castle in the air. In the general self-consciousness of individuals the state is actual, and in the identity of particularity and universality it has its stability. It has often been said that the end of the state is the happiness of the citizens. That is indeed true. If it is not well with them, if their subjective aim is not satisfied, if they find that the state as such is not the medium through which comes their satisfaction, the state stands upon an insecure footing.
266. But spirit is realized and becomes its own object, not only as this necessity and as a kingdom of appearances, but as their ideality or inner being. Substantive universality is thus an object and end for itself, and necessity assumes the form of freedom.
267. By the necessity, which lies within this ideality, is meant the development of the idea within itself. As subjective substantiality the idea is a political temper of mind, and in distinction from this it, as objective, is the organism of the state, i.e., the strictly political state, and its constitution.
Addition.— The unity of the freedom, which knows and wills itself, exists in the first instance as necessity. Here the substantive is found as the subjective existence of individuals. But there is a second necessity, and that is the organism. In this case spirit is a process within itself, makes within itself distinctions, divides itself into organic members, through which it passes in living circulation.
268. Political disposition, or, in general terms, patriotism, may be defined as the assurance which stands on truth, and the will which has become a custom. Mere subjective assurance does not proceed out of truth, and is only opinion. Genuine patriotism is simply a result of the institutions which subsist in the state as in the actuality of reason. Hence, patriotic feeling is operative in the act, which is in accord with these institutions. Political sentiment is, in general, a confidence, which may pass over into a more or less intelligent insight; it is a consciousness that ray substantive and particular interest is contained and preserved in the interest and end of another, here the state, in its relation to me, the individual. Wherefore the state is for me forthwith not another, and I in this consciousness am free.
Note.—By patriotic feeling is frequently understood merely a readiness to submit to exceptional sacrifices or do exceptional acts. But in reality it is the sentiment which arises in ordinary circumstances and ways of life, and is wont to regard the commonweal as its substantive basis and end. This consciousness is kept intact in the routine of life, and upon it the readiness to submit to exceptional effort is based. But as men would rather be magnanimous than merely right, they easily persuade themselves that they possess this extraordinary patriotism, in order to spare themselves the burden of the true sentiment, and to excuse the lack of it. If this feeling be regarded as something, which provides its own beginning, and can proceed out of subjective imaginations and thoughts, it is con. founded with mere opinion, and in that case is devoid of its true basis in objective reality.
Addition.— Uneducated men delight in surface-reasonings and faultfindings. Fault-finding is an easy matter but hard is it to know the good and its inner necessity. Education always begins with fault-finding, but when full and complete sees in everything the positive. In the case of religion one may say off-hand that this or that is superstition, but it is infinitely harder to conceive of the truth involved in it. Political sentiment, as a mere appearance, is also to be distinguished from what men truly will. They will in fact the real matter, but they holdfast to bits, and delight in the vanity of making improvements. Men trust in the stability of the state, and suppose that in it only the particular interest can come into being. But. custom makes invisible that upon which our whole existence turns. If any one goes safe through the streets at night, it does not occur to him that it could be otherwise. The habit of feeling secure has become a second nature, and we do not reflect that it is first brought about by the agency of special institutions. Often it is imagined that force holds the state together, but the binding cord is nothing else than the deep-seated feeling of order, which is possessed by all.
269. Political disposition is given definite content by the different phases of the organism of the state. This organism is the development of the idea into its differences, which are objectively actualized. These differences are the different functions, affairs, and activities of state. By means of them the universal uninterruptedly produces itself, by a process which is a necessary one, since these various offices proceed from the nature of the conception, The universal is, however, none the less self-contained, since it is already presupposed in its own productive process. This organism is the political constitution.
Addition.— The state is an organism or the development of the idea into its differences. These different sides are the different functions, affairs and activities of state by means of which the universal unceasingly produces itself by a necessary process. At the same time it is selfcontained, since it is presupposed in its own productive activity. This organism is the political constitution. It proceeds eternally out of the state, just as the state in turn is self-contained by means of the constitution. If these two things fall apart, and make the different aspects independent, the unity produced by the constitution is no longer established. The true relation is illustrated by the fable of the belly and the limbs. Although the parts of an organism do not constitute an identity, yet it is of such a nature that, if one of its parts makes itself independent, all must be harmed. We cannot by means of predicates, propositions, etc., reach any right, estimate of the state, which should be apprehended as an organism. It is much the same with the state as with the nature of God, who cannot be through predicates conceived, whose life rather is within itself and must be perceived.
270. (1) The abstract actuality or substantiality of the state consists in this, that the end pursued by the state is the general interest, which, being the substance of all particular interests, includes the preservation of them also. (2) But the actuality of the state is also the necessity of the state, since it breaks up into the various distinctions of state-activity, which are implied in the conception. By means of the state’s substantiality these distinctions become real and tangible as the different public offices. (3) This substantiality, when thoroughly permeated by education, is the spirit which knows and wills itself. Hence, what the state wills it knows, and knows it in its universality as that which is thought out. The state works and acts in obedience to conscious ends, known principles and laws, which are not merely implied, but expressly before its consciousness. So, too, it works with a definite knowledge of all the actual circumstances and relations, to which the acts refer.
Note.— We must here touch upon the relation of the state to religion. In modern times it is often repeated that religion is the foundation of the state, and accompanying this assertion is the dogmatic claim that outside of religion nothing remains to political science. Now, no assertion can be more confusing. Indeed, it exalts confusion to the place of an essential element in the constitution of the state, and of a necessary form of knowledge.—In the first place it may seem suspicious that religion is principally commended and resorted to in times of public distress, disturbance, and oppression; it is thought to furnish consolation against wrong, and the hope of compensation in the case of loss. A proof of religious feeling is considered to be indifference to worldly affairs and to the course and tenor of actual life. But the state is the spirit, as it abides in the world. To refer people to religion is far from calculated to exalt the interest and business of the state into a really earnest purpose. On the contrary, state concerns are held to be a matter of pure caprice, and are therefore rejected. The ground for this step is that in the state only the purposes of passion and unlawful power prevail, or that religion, when taken by itself, is sufficient to control and decide what is right. It would surely be regarded as a bitter jest if those who were oppressed by any despotism were referred to the consolations of religion; nor is it to be forgotten that religion may assume the form of a galling superstition, involving the most abject servitude, and the degradation of man below the level of the brute. Amongst the Egyptians and Hindoos animals are revered as higher creatures than man. Such a fact leads us to observe that we cannot speak of religion in general, and that when it assumes certain forms security must be found against it in some power which will guarantee the rights of reason and self-consciousness.
But the ultimate judgment upon the connection of religion with the state is obtained only when we go back to their conception. Religion has as its content absolute truth, and, therefore, also the highest kind of feeling. Religion, as intuition, feeling, or imaginative thought, the object of whose activity is God, the unlimited basis and cause of all things, advances the claim that everything should be apprehended in reference to it, and in it should receive its confirmation, justification, and certitude. By this relation state and laws, as well as duties, attain for consciousness to their highest verification and most binding power, since they, as a determinate reality, pass up into and rest upon a higher sphere. (See “Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences.”) For this reason in all the changes and chances of life religion preserves the consciousness of the unchanging and of the highest freedom and contentment.[12
Religion, so interpreted, is the foundation of the ethical system, and contains the nature of the state as the divine will; yet it is only the foundation. This is the point at which state and religion separate. The state is the divine will as a present spirit, which unfolds itself in the actual shape of an organized world.[12]
They who adhere to the form of religion, as opposed to the state, conduct themselves like persons who in knowledge think that they are right when they cling to a mere abstract essence and never proceed to reality, or like those who will only the abstract good, and arbitrarily postpone deciding what in fact is good (§140, note). Religion is the relation to the absolute in the form of feeling, imagination, faith; and within its all-embracing circumference everything is merely accidental and transient. If this form is obstinately maintained to be the only real and valid determination for the state, the state, as an organization developed into stable differences, laws, and regulations, is handed over as booty to feebleness, uncertainty, and disorder. By enveloping everything definite this vague form becomes a subjective principle. In contrast with it, ‘the laws, instead of having validity and self-subsistence as the objective and universal, are counted as something merely negative. There result the following practical maxims: “The righteous man is not subject to law; only be pious and you may do what you please; you may yield to your own arbitrary will and passion, and direct those, who suffer harm by your acts, to the comfort and hope of religion, or you may brand them as irreligious.” But this negative relation sometimes refuses to remain merely an inner sentiment, and makes itself felt in external reality. There then arises the form of religious fanaticism, which, like political fanaticism, regards all state-management and lawful order as restrictive barriers, and discards them as unsuited to the inner life and infinitude of feeling. It banishes private property, marriage, and the relations and tasks of the civic community, as unworthy of love and of the freedom of feeling. But since in daily walk and action decision must be made, then here, as is always the case with the subjective will, whose subjectivity is aware of itself as absolute (§140), the decision proceeds from subjective picture-thinking, that is, from opinion and arbitrary inclination.
In opposition to that kind of truth which wraps itself up in the subjectivity of feeling and imagination, the real truth consists in the tremendous transition of the inner into the outer, of the visions of reason into reality. By this process the whole of world-history has been wrought out, and civilized man has at length won the actuality and the consciousness of a reasonable political life. There are those who, as they say, seek the Lord, and in their untutored opinion assure themselves of possessing all things directly. They make no effort to raise their subjective experience into a knowledge of the truth and a consciousness of objective right and duty. From such persons can proceed nothing except abomination and folly, and the demolition of all ethical relations. These consequences are inevitable, if religious sentiment holds exclusively to its form, and turns against reality and the truth, which is present in the form of the universal, that is, of the laws.
Still, this sentiment may not invade reality. On the contrary, it may retain its merely negative character, thus remaining something internal, suiting itself to the laws and affairs of state, and acquiescing either with sighs or with scorn and wishing. It is not strength, but weakness, which has in our times made religiosity a polemic kind of piety, be it conjoined with a true need, or with nothing but discontented vanity. Instead of moulding one’s opinion through study, and subjecting one’s will to discipline, and thus exalting it to free obedience, it is much the cheaper plan to take a less arduous course. We renounce all knowledge of objective truth, treasure up a feeling of oppression and pride, and claim to possess beforehand all the holiness requisite for discerning the laws and institutions of state, for prejudging them, and specifying what their nature ought to be. The ground for this behaviour is that everything issues from the pious heart unquestionably and infallibly. Thus, as intentions and assertions go to religion for their support, neither by exposing their shallowness nor their erroneousness is it possible to prevail against them.
In so far as religion is of a true sort, not displaying a negative and hostile spirit towards the state, but rather recognizing and supporting it, it has its own special place and station. Public worship consists in acts and doctrine; it needs possessions and property, and likewise individuals devoted to the service of the congregation. Out of this arises between church and state a relation, which it is not difficult to define. It is in the nature of the case that the state fulfils a duty by giving assistance and protection to the religious ends of a congregation. More than that, since to the deepest religious feeling there is present the state as a whole, it may fairly be demanded by the state that every individual should connect himself with some congregation. Of course, with its special character, depending on inner imaginative thinking, the state cannot interfere. When well organized and strong, the state can afford to be liberal in this matter, and may overlook small details affecting itself. It may even give room within itself to congregations, whose creed prevents them from recognizing any direct duties to it. But this concession must depend upon the numerical strength of the sects in question. The members of these religious bodies the state is content to leave to the laws of the civic community, and to accept a passive fulfilment of their direct duties to it by means of substitutes.[13]
So far as the ecclesiastical body owns property, performs overt acts of worship, and maintains individuals for this service, it leaves the inner realm and enters that of the world. Hence it places itself directly under the jurisdiction of the state. The oath, ethical observances generally, as well as marriage, all carry with them the inner reconstruction and elevation of that disposition of mind which finds in religion its deepest confirmation. Since ethical relations are essentially relations of actual rationality, the rights of these relations are the first to be maintained in reality, and to them is added ecclesiastical confirmation, simply as their inner and more abstract side.—As to other forms of ecclesiastical communion, such as doctrine, the internal is more important than the external. The same is true of overt acts of worship and kindred matters, whose legal side appears as independent, and belongs to the state. The ministers and property of churches, it is true, are exempt from the power and jurisdiction of the state. Churches have also assumed jurisdiction over worldly persons in all matters involving the co-operation of religion, such as divorce and the administration of the oath.— In all affairs bearing the aspects of both church and state, the political side, owing to its nature, is ill-defined. This is observable even in relation to acts which are wholly civic (§234). In so far as individuals, assembling for religious worship, have formed themselves into a congregation or corporation, they come under the supervision of the superior officers of state.
Doctrine has its province in conscience, and is founded upon the right of the subjective freedom of self-consciousness. This is the inner region, which as such does not come within the sphere of the state. However, the state also has a doctrine, in which its regulations, and whatever in right, in the constitution, etc., is valid generally, exist essentially in the form of thought, as law. And as the state is not a mechanism, but the reasonable life of self-conscious freedom and the system of the ethical world, so sentiment or feeling for it, and the conscious expression) of this feeling in the form of principles, are an essential element in the actual state. Then, again, the doctrine of the church is not merely the edict of conscience, but in the form of doctrine is rather an outward expression, and that, too, regarding a content, which has the most intimate connection with ethical principles and the laws, and directly concern them. Here also church and state meet either harmoniously or in opposition. The difference between the two realms may be driven by the church to extreme antagonism. It, containing as it does the absolute content of religion, may contemplate the spiritual element and therefore the ethical element also, as its own, and may regard the state as a mere mechanical scaffolding for unspiritual, external ends. It may esteem itself as the kingdom of God or at least as the way to it and its forecourt, and the state as the kingdom of this world, the sphere of the transient and finite. It may count itself as end for itself, and the state as merely a means. United with such a presumptuous attitude is the demand of the church that the state should let it have its own way, and should show to its doctrines unreserved respect, simply because they are doctrines, no matter what the substance of them may be. The reason advanced by the church is that the formation of doctrine is exclusively its function. Just as the church makes this claim on the wide ground that the spiritual has been entrusted solely to its keeping, science and knowledge generally may occupy a similar position. Like the church, they may fashion themselves into an independent, exclusive organization, and may with even greater justice look upon themselves as filling the place of the church. Hence would be asked for science also independence of the state; the state would be only a means for it, while it would be its own end.
In this connection it is unimportant whether the individuals and representatives, who minister to the congregation, have gone the length of secluding themselves, leaving only the congregations at large in subjection to the state, or whether they abide in the state, and withdraw only their church character. This general position, it may first of all be observed, coincides with the view that the state in its fundamentals takes into its protection and care the life, property, and free-will of every person, simply in so far as he does not injure the life, property, and free-will of any other The state is thus considered as answering simply to our needs. The higher spiritual element, absolute truth, is counted as subjective religiosity or theoretical science, and placed outside of the state. The state is merely the laity, and must be absolutely respectful. That which is peculiarly ethical falls beyond its reach. Now it is a matter of history that there have been barbaric times and circumstances, in which all high spiritual matters had their seat in the church, and the state was only a worldly rule of force, lawlessness, and passion. Abstract opposition was then the main principle of actuality (§358). But it is too blind and shallow a proceeding to consider this view as true and in accordance with the idea. The development of the idea has rather demonstrated that the spirit as free and rational is in itself ethical, that the true idea is actualized rationality, and that this rationality exists as the state. From this idea it is quite easy to infer that its ethical truth assumes for the thinking consciousness a content, which is worked up into the form of universality, and is realized as law. The state in general knows its own ends, recognizes them with a clear consciousness, and busies itself with them in accordance with fundamental principles.
As before remarked, religion has truth for its universal object, but this content is merely given, and its fundamental principles are not recognized through thinking and conceptions. Thus the individual is under an obligation, which is grounded upon authority, and the testimony of his own spirit and heart, in which is contained the element of freedom, takes the form of faith and feeling. But it is philosophic insight, which clearly recognizes that church and state are not opposed to each other on the question of truth and rationality, but differ only in form. There were, it is true, and still are, churches, which have nothing more than a form of public worship; but there are others, which, though in them the form of worship is the main thing, have also doctrine and instruction. Whenever the church takes up the point of doctrine, and deals in its teaching with objective thought and the principles of the ethical and rational, it passes over into the province of the state. It pronounces authoritatively upon the ethical and right, upon the law and institutions, and its utterance is believed. In contrast with faith and the authority of the church, in contrast also with the subjective convictions which it requires, the state is that which knows. In its principles the content does not remain in the form of feeling and faith, but belongs to the formed thought.
In so far as the self-caused and self-existing content makes its appearance in religion as a particular content, namely, in the form of doctrines peculiar to the church as a religious community, it does not fall within the scope of the state. In Protestantism, it may be said, there are no clergy who are considered to be the sole depositary of church doctrine, because in this form of religion there is no laity. Since ethical and political principles pass over into the realm of religion, and not only are established, but must be established, in reference to religion, the state is thus on the one hand furnished with religious confirmation. On the other hand there remains to the state the right and the form of self-conscious objective rationality, the right, that is, to maintain objective reason against the assertions, which have their source in the subjective form of truth, no matter what depth of certitude and authority surrounds them. Because the principle of the state’s form is universal, and hence essentially the thought, freedom of thought and scientific investigation issue from the state. It was a church that burnt Giordano Bruno, and forced Galileo, who advocated the Copernican system, to recant upon his knees.[14] Hence science, also, has its place on the side of the state, as it has the same element of form as the state; its end is knowledge, and indeed thought out objective truth and rationality. Thought knowledge may, it is true, fall from science to mere opinion, and from principles to mere reasonings. Applying itself to ethical objects and the organization of the state, it may oppose their fundamental principles. This it may do with something of the same pretentious claims, as the church makes with regard to its peculiar belongings. It may rely upon mere opining, as if it were reason, and upon the right, advanced by subjective self-consciousness, to be in its opinion and conviction free.
Already (§140, note) the principle of the subjectivity of knowledge has been examined, and only a single remark need now be added. On the one hand the state may treat with infinite indifference opinion, in so far as it is mere opinion, and has hence a mere subjective content. This opinion, let it plume itself to any extent it pleases, contains no true strength or force. The state is in the position of the painter, who in his work confines himself to the three ground colours, and may treat with indifference the school-wisdom which maintains that there are seven. But there is another side to the question. This opining of bad principles constitutes itself a universal fact and corrodes actuality. It is manifested as the formalism of unconditioned subjectivity, which would adopt as a basis the scientific starting-point, would exalt the stateacademies to the presumptuous level of a church, and would then turn them against the state. In opposition to this proceeding the state must take under its protection objective truth and the principle of the ethical life; and on the other side, in opposition to the church, which claims unlimited and unconditional authority, the state has to uphold as a general thing the formal right of self-consciousness to its own insight, conviction, and thought of what shall be reckoned as objective truth.
There may also be mentioned here the unity of state and church, a union which is much canvassed in modern times, and praised as the highest ideal. If the essential unity of these two is the unity of true principles with sentiment, it is also essential that along with this unity should come into specific existence the difference, which is in the form of their consciousness. In an oriental despotism there already exists the so frequently wished for unity of church and state. Yet in it the state is not present, at least not that self-conscious form of it, which is alone worthy of spirit and includes right, free ethical life and organic development. If the state is to have reality as the ethical self-conscious realization of spirit, it must be distinguished front the form of authority and faith. But this distinction arises only in so far a.s the ecclesiastical side is in itself divided into separate churches. Then only is the state seen to be superior to them, and wins and brings into existence the universality of thought as the principle of its form. To understand this we must know what universality is, not only in itself, but also in its existence. It is far from being a weakness or misfortune for the state that the church has been divided. Only through this division lias the state been able to develop its true character, and become a self-conscious, rational, and ethical reality. This division was an event of the happiest augury, telling in behalf of the freedom and rationality of the church, and also in behalf of the freedom and rationality of thought.
Addition.— The state is real. Its reality consists in its realizing the interest of the whole in particular ends. Actuality is always the unity of universality and particularity. Universality exists piecemeal in particularity. Each side appears as if self-sufficient, although it is upheld and sustained only in the whole. In so far as this unity is absent, the thing is unrealized, even though existence may be predicated of it. A bad state is one which merely exists. A sick body also exists, but it has no true reality. A hand, which is cut off, still looks like a hand and exists, though it is not real. True reality is necessity. What is real is in itself necessary. Necessity consists in this, that the whole is broken up into the differences contained in the conception. Then, as so broken up, it furnishes a fast and enduring character, not that of the fossil, but of that which in giving itself up always begets itself anew.
To the complete state essentially belong consciousness and thought. Hence the state knows what it wills, and knows it as something thought. Since consciousness has its seat only in the state, science has its place also there, and not in the church. In despite of that, much has in modern times been said to the effect that the state has sprung into existence out of religion. The state is the developed spirit, and exhibits its elements in the daylight of consciousness. Owing to the fact that what lies in the idea walks forth into visible being, the state appears to be something finite, whose province is of this world, while religion represents itself as the realm of the infinite. Thus, the state seems to be subordinate, needing, since the finite cannot subsist by itself, the basis of the church. As finite, it is thought to have no verification, and only in and through religion to become holy and appertain to the infinite. But this version of the matter is highly onesided. The state is certainly in its essence of the world and finite, having particular ends and functions. But its being worldly is only one side of it. Only to a perception, which is void of spirit, is the state merely finite. The state has a vital soul, and this vitalizing power is subjectivity, which both creates distinctions and yet preserves their unity. In the kingdom of religion there are also distinctions and finitudes. God is triune. Thus there are three determinations, whose unity alone is the spirit. If we would apprehend in a concrete way the divine nature, we do so only through distinctions. In the divine kingdom as in the worldly occur limits, and it is a one-sided view to say that the worldly spirit or the state is merely finite, for reality is nothing irrational. A bad state is indeed purely finite and worldly, but the rational state is in itself infinite.
Secondly, it is said that the state must accept its justification from religion. The idea, as present in religion, is spirit in the inner condition of feeling, but this same idea it is which gives itself worldliness in the state, and procures for itself in consciousness and will an outward place and reality. If we say that the state must be grounded on religion, we mean only that the state must rest upon and proceed from rationality. But this sentence can be understood wrongly to mean that when the spirit of man is bound by a religion which is not free, he is most adroitly brought to political obedience. The Christian religion, however, is the religion of freedom. Yet even Christianity may be infected by superstition, and converted into an instrument of bondage. Thus, the doctrine that the state should be founded on religion is perverted, when it is interpreted to mean that individuals must have religion in order that their spirit, enchained by it, may be the more readily oppressed in the state. But if we mean that reverence should be felt for the state as the whole, of which individuals are the branches, this feeling flows most easily from philosophic insight into the nature of the state, although if that insight should be lacking, religious sentiment may lead to the same result. So the state may need religion and faith. It yet remains essentially distinguished from religion in that its commands are a legal duty, it being a matter of indifference in what spirit the duty is performed, while the empire of religion, on the contrary, is the internal. Just as the state, if it were to make such a claim as religion makes, would endanger the right of the inner mind, so the church degenerates into a tyrannical religion, if it acts as a state and imposes punishments.
A third distinction, related to the foregoing, is that the content of religion is and remains veiled; feeling, sensibility, and fancy are the ground on which it is built, and on this ground everything has the form of subjectivity. The state, on the other hand, actualizes itself, and gives its phases a solid reality. If religiosity were to insist upon making itself good within the state, as it is wont to do in its own territory, it would overturn the political organization. Each several distinction has a broad and fair field in the state, while in religion everything is always referred to the totality. If this totality were to seize upon all the political relations, it would be fanaticism. It would be bent upon having the whole in every particular part, and could not accomplish its desire except by the destruction of the particular. Fanaticism will not allow particular differences to have their way. The expression, “The pious are subject to no law,” is nothing more than the decree of fanaticism. Piety, when it replaces the state, cannot tolerate that which is definitely constituted and destroys it. A kindred type of mind is shown by him who permits conscience or internality to judge, and does not decide on general grounds. This internality does not in its development proceed to principles, and gives itself no justification. If piety is counted as the reality of the state, all laws are cast to the winds, and subjective feeling legislates. This feeling may be nothing but caprice, and yet this cannot be ascertained except by its acts. But in so far as it becomes acts or commands, it assumes the shape of laws, and is directly opposed to subjective feeling. God, who is the object of this feeling, may also be regarded as a being who determines. But God is the universal idea, and is in feeling the undetermined, which is not mature enough to determine what actually exists in a developed form in the state. The fact that everything in the state is firm and secure is a bulwark against caprice and positive opinion. So religion, as such, ought not to rule.
271. The political constitution is (1) the organization of the state and the process of its organic life in reference to its own self. In this process the state distinguishes within itself its elements, and unfolds them into self-subsistence.
(2) It is a single, exclusive individuality, and as such is related to another. It turns its distinctive features towards foreign states, and in so doing establishes its self-subsisting distinctions within itself in their ideality.
Addition.— Just as irritability in the living organism is in one of its phases something internal, belonging to the organism, as such, so here also the reference to foreign states has a bearing upon what is within. The internal state as such is the civil power; the direction outwards is the military power, which, however, has a definite side within the state itself. To balance both phases is one of the chief matters of statesmanship. Sometimes the civil power has been wholly extinguished, and rests only upon the military power, as happened during the time of the Roman emperors and Pretorian Guards. Sometimes, as in modern days, the military power proceeds only out of the civil power, as when all citizens are bound to bear arms.