275. The function of the prince contains of itself the three elements of the totality (§272), (1) the universality of the constitution and the laws; (2) counsel, or reference of the particular to the universal; and (3) the final decision, or the self-determination, into which all else returns and from which it receives the beginning of its actuality. This absolute selfdetermination, constituting the distinguishing principle of the princely function, as such, must be the first to be considered.
Addition.— We begin with the princely function or the factor of individuality, because in it the three phases of the state are inter-related as a totality. The I is at once the most individual and the most universal. The individual occurs also in nature, but there reality is equal to nonideality, and its parts exist externally to one another. Hence it is not selfcomplete existence; in it the different individualities subsist side by side. In spirit, on the other hand, all differences exist only as ideal or as a unity. The state as spiritual is the interpretation of all its elements, but individuality is at the same time the soul, the vital and sovereign principle, which embraces all differences.
276. (1) The basal principle of the political state is the substantive unity, which is the ideality of its elements, (a) In this ideality the particular functions and offices of the state are just as much dissolved as retained. Indeed, they are retained only as having no independent authority, but such and so extensive an authority as is yielded them in the idea of the whole. They proceed, therefore, from the power of the state, and are the flexible limbs of the state as of their own simplified self.
Addition.— This ideality of elements is like the life of an organized body. Life exists in every part. There is but one life in all points, and there is no opposition to it. Any part separated from it is dead. Such is also the ideality of all individual occupations, functions, and corporations, great as may be their impulse to subsist and do for themselves. It is as in the organism, where the stomach assumes independence, and yet is at the same time superseded and sacrificed by becoming a member of one whole.
277. (b) The particular offices and agencies of the state, being its essential elements, are intimately connected with it. To the individuals, who manage and control them, they are attached in virtue not of their direct personality but of their objective and universal qualities. With particular personality, as such, they are joined only externally and accidentally. The business and functions of the state cannot therefore be private property.
Addition.— The agencies of the state are attached to individuals, who nevertheless are not authorized to discharge their offices through natural fitness, but by reason of their objective qualification. Capacity, skill, character, belong to the particularity of the individual, who must, however, be adapted to his special business by education and training. An office can, therefore, be neither sold nor bequeathed. Formerly in France seats in parliament were saleable, and this is still the case with any position of officer in the English army below a certain grade. These facts depended, or depend, upon the mediaeval constitution of certain states, and are now gradually vanishing.
278. These two characteristics, namely (b) that the particular offices and functions of the state have independent and firm footing neither in themselves, nor in the particular will of individuals, but (a) ultimately in the unity of the state as in their simple self, constitute the sovereignty of the state.
Note.— This is sovereignty on its inner side. It has an outer side also, as we shall see.—In the older feudal monarchy the state had an outer aspect, but on its inner side not only was the monarch at no time sovereign, but neither was the state. Partly were the several offices and functions of the state and civic life dispersed in independent corporations and communities (§273, note), while the whole was rather an aggregate than an organism. Partly, too, were these functions the private property of individuals who, when it was proposed that they should act, consulted their own opinion and wish.
The idealism, which constitutes sovereignty, is that point of view in accordance with which the so-called parts of an animal organism are not parts but members or organic elements. Their isolation or independent subsistence would be disease. The same principle occurs in the abstract conception of the will (see note to next §) as the negativity, which by referring itself to itself reaches a universality, which definitely moulds itself into individuality (§7). Into this concrete universality all particularity and definiteness are taken up, and receive a new significance. It is the absolute self-determining ground. To apprehend it we must be at home with the conception in its true substance and subjectivity.
Because sovereignty is the ideality of all particular powers, it easily gives rise to the common misconception, which takes it to be mere force, empty wilfulness, and a synonym for despotism. But despotism is a condition of lawlessness, in which the particular will, whether of monarch or people (ochlocracy) counts as law, or rather instead of law. Sovereignty, on the contrary, constitutes the element of the ideality of particular spheres and offices, in a condition which is lawful and constitutional. No particular sphere is independent and self-sufficient in its aims and methods of working. It does not immerse itself in its own separate vocation. On the contrary, its aims are led by and dependent upon the aim of the whole, an aim which has been named in general terms and indefinitely the well-being of the state.
This ideality is manifested in a twofold way. (1) In times of peace the particular spheres and businesses go their way of satisfying their particular offices and ends. According to mere unconscious necessity self-seeking here veers round to a contribution in behalf of mutual preservation and the preservation of the whole (§183). But, also, through a direct influence from above is it that these employments are continually brought back and limited by the aim of the whole (see “Function of Government,” §289), and led to make direct efforts for its preservation. (2) In circumstances of distress, internal or external, the organism consisting of its particulars, comes together into the simple conception of sovereignty, to which is intrusted the safety of the state, even at the sacrifice of what is at other times justifiable. It is here that idealism attains its peculiar realization (§321).
279. (2) Sovereignty, at first only the universal thought of this ideality, exists merely as a subjectivity assured of itself, and as the abstract and so far groundless self-direction and ultimate decision of the will; by virtue of this quality the state is individual and one. But in the next place subjectivity exists in its truth only as a subject, and personality as a person. In the constitution, which has matured into rational reality, each of the three elements of the conception has its own independent, real, and separate embodiment. Hence, the element which implies absolute decision is not individuality in general but one individual, the monarch.
Note.— The internal development of a science, whose whole content is deduced out of the simple conception—the only method which is deserving of the name philosophic,— reveals the peculiarity that one and the same conception, here the will, which at the beginning is abstract because it is the beginning, yet contains itself, condenses of itself its own characteristics, and in this way acquires a concrete content. Thus it is fundamental in the personality, which is at first in simple right abstract. It then develops itself through the different forms of subjectivity, and at last in absolute right, the state or the complete, concrete objectivity of the will, attains to the personality of the state and its conscious assurance of itself. This final term gives to all particularities a new form by taking them up into its pure self. It ceases to hesitate between reasons pro and con., and deciding by an “I will,” initiates all action and reality.
Personality, further, or subjectivity generally, as infinite and selfreferring, has truth only as a person or independent subject. This independent existence must be one, and the truth which it has is of the most direct or immediate kind. The personality of the state is actualized only as a person, the monarch.—Personality expresses the conception as such, while person contains also the actuality of the conception. Hence the conception becomes the idea or truth, only when it receives this additional character.—A so-called moral person, a society, congregation, or family, be it as concrete as it may, possesses personality only as an element and abstractly. It has not reached the truth of its existence. But the state is this very totality, in which the moments of the conception gain reality in accordance with their peculiar truth.—All these phases of the idea have been already explained, both in their abstract and in their concrete forms, in the course of this treatise. Here, however, they need to be repeated, because we, while easily admitting them piecemeal in their particular forms, do not so readily recognise and apprehend them in their true place as elements of the idea.
The conception of monarch offers great difficulty to abstract reasonings and to the reflective methods of the understanding. The understanding never gets beyond isolated determinations, and ascribes merit to mere reasons, or finite points of view and what can be derived from them. Thus the dignity of the monarch is represented as something derivative not only in its form but also in its essential character. But the conception of the monarch is not derivative, but purely self-originated. Akin to this mistaken notion is the idea that the right of the monarch is based upon and receives its unconditional nature from divine authority. The misconceptions that are allied to this idea are well-known; besides, philosophy sets itself the task of conceiving the divine.
The phrase “sovereignty of the people,” can be used in the sense that a people is in general self-dependent in its foreign relations, and constitutes its own state. Such are the people of Great Britain, for example. But the people of England, Scotland, Ireland, Venice, Genoa, or Ceylon, have ceased to be a sovereign people, since they no longer have independent princes, and the chief government is not exclusively their own. Further, it may be said that internal sovereignty resides in the people if, as was already pointed out (§§277–278), we speak in general terms, and mean that sovereignty accrues to the whole state. But the sovereignty of the people is usually in modern times opposed to the sovereignty of the monarch. This view of the sovereignty of the people may be traced to a confused idea of what is meant by “the people.” The people apart from their monarch, and the common membership necessarily and directly associated with him, is a formless mass. It is no longer a state. In it occur none of the characteristic features of an equipped whole, such as sovereignty, government, law-courts, magistrates, professions, etc., etc. When these elements of an organized national life make their appearance in a people, it ceases to be that undefined abstraction, which is indicated by the mere general notion “people.”
If by the phrase “sovereignty of the people” is to be understood a republic, or more precisely a democracy, for by a republic we understand various empirical mixtures which do not belong to a philosophic treatise, all that is necessary has already been said (§273, note). There can no longer be any defence of such a notion in contrast with the developed idea.—When a people is not a patriarchal tribe, having passed from the primitive condition, which made the forms of aristocracy and democracy possible, and is represented not as in a wilful and unorganized condition, but as a self-developed truly organic totality, in such a people sovereignty is the personality of the whole, and exists, too, in a reality, which is proportionate to the conception, the person of the monarch.
The element of the ultimate self-determining decision of will does not appear as an immanent vital element of the actual state in its peculiar reality, so long as the classification of constitutions into democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy can be made. When this classification prevails we are, as we have said, at the stage of the undeveloped substantive unity, which has not yet reached infinite difference and self-immersion. But even in these incomplete forms of the state the summit must be occupied by an individual. Either he appears in actual fact, as in those monarchies, which are of this type. Or, under aristocratic, or more especially under democratic governments, he appears in the person of statesmen or generals, according to accident and the particular need of the time. Here all overt action and realization have their origin and completion in the unity of the leader ’s decision. But this subjectivity of decision, confined within a primitive and unalloyed unity of functions, must be accidental in its origin and manifestation, and also on the whole subordinate. Accordingly, a pure and unmixed decision was looked for outside of and beyond this conditional summit, and was found in a fate which pronounced judgment from without. As an element of the idea it had to enter actual existence, but yet it had its root outside of human freedom, and the compass of the state.—To this source is to be traced the need of oracles, the daimon of Socrates, the consultation of the entrails of animals, the flight of birds, and their way of eating, etc., methods resorted to on great occasions, when it was necessary to have final judgment upon weighty affairs of state. As mankind had not yet realized the profundity of self-consciousness, or come forth from the pure virginity of the substantive unity into self-conscious existence, they had not yet strength to discover such a judgment within the pale of human existence.—In the daimon of Socrates (§138) we can discern the beginning of a change; we can see that the will, formerly set upon an object wholly outside of itself, has begun to transfer itself into itself, and recognize itself within itself. This is the beginning of self-conscious and therefore true freedom. This real freedom of the idea, since it gives its own present self-conscious reality to every one of the elements of rationality, imparts to the function of consciousness the final self-determining certitude, which in the conception of the will is the cope-stone. But this final self-determination can fall within the sphere of human liberty only in so far as it is assigned to an independent and separate pinnacle, exalted above all that is particular and conditional. Only when so placed, has it a reality in accordance with the conception.
Addition.— In the organization of the state, that is to say, in constitutional monarchy, we must have before us nothing except the inner necessity of the idea. Every other point of view must disappear. The state must be regarded as a great architectonic building, or the hieroglyph of reason, presenting itself in actuality. Everything referring merely to utility, externality, etc., must be excluded from a philosophic treatment. It is easy for one to grasp the notion that the state is the self-determining and completely sovereign will, whose judgment is final. It is more difficult to apprehend this “I will” as a person. By this is not meant that the monarch can be wilful in his acts. Rather is he bound to the concrete content of the advice of his councillors, and, when the constitution is established, he has often nothing to do but sign his name. But this name is weighty. It is the summit, over which nothing can climb. It may be said that an articulated organization has already existed in the beautiful democracy of Athens. Yet we see that the Greeks extracted the ultimate judgment from quite external phenomena, such as oracles, entrails of sacrificial animals, and the flight of birds, and that to nature they held as to a power, which in these ways made known and gave expression to what was good for mankind. Selfconsciousness had at that time not yet risen to the abstraction of subjectivity, or to the fact that concerning the matter to be judged upon must be spoken a human “I will.” This “I will” constitutes the greatest distinction between the ancient and the modern world, and so must have its peculiar niche in the great building of state. It is to be deplored that this characteristic should be viewed as something merely external, to be set aside or used at pleasure.
280. (3) This ultimate self of the state’s will is in this its abstraction an individuality, which is simple and direct. Hence its very conception implies that it is natural. Thus the monarch as a specific individual is abstracted from all other content, and is appointed to the dignity of monarch in a directly natural way, by natural birth.
Note.— This transition from the conception of pure self-determination to direct existence, and so to simple naturalness, is truly speculative in its nature. A systematic account of it belongs to logic. It is on the whole the same transition which is well-known in the nature of the will. It is the process of translation of a content out of subjectivity, as represented end, into tangible reality (§8). But the peculiar form of the idea and of the transition, here passed in review, is the direct conversion of the Pure self-determination of the will, the simple conception itself, into a specific object, a “this,” or natural visible reality, without the intervention of any particular content, such as an end of action.
In the so-called ontological proof of the existence of God there is the same conversion of the absolute conception into being. This conversion has constituted the depth of the idea in modern times, although it has been recently pronounced to be inconceivable. On such a theory, since the unity of conception and embodiment is the truth (§23), all knowledge of the truth must be renounced. Although the understanding does not find this unity in its consciousness, and harps upon the separation of the two elements of the truth, it still permits a belief in a unity. But since the current idea of the monarch is regarded as issuing out of the ordinary consciousness, the understanding, with its astute reasonings, holds all the more tenaciously to the principle of separation and its results. It thereupon denies that the element of ultimate decision in the state is absolutely, that is, in the conception of reason, conjoined with direct nature. It maintains, on the contrary, the merely accidental character of the conjunction of these two, and hence regards as rational their absolute divergence. Finally, from the irrationality of the co-relation of these two phases proceed other consequences, which destroy the idea of the state.
Addition.— It is often maintained that the position of monarch gives to the affairs of state a haphazard character. It is said that the monarch may be ill-educated, and unworthy to stand at the helm of state, and that it is absurd for such a condition of things to exist under the name of reason. It must be replied that the assumption on which these objections proceed is of no value, since there is here no reference to particularity of character. In a completed organization we have to do with nothing but the extreme of formal decision, and that for this office is needed only a man who says “Yes,” and so puts the dot upon the “i.” The pinnacle of state must be such that the private character of its occupant shall be of no significance. What beyond this final judgment belongs to the monarch devolves upon particularity, with which we have no concern. There may indeed arise circumstances, in which this particularity alone has prominence, but in that case the state is not yet fully, or else badly constructed. In a well-ordered monarchy only the objective side of law comes to hand, and to this the monarch subjoins merely the subjective “I will.”
281. Both elements, the final motiveless self of the will, and the like motiveless existence on the side of nature, indissolubly unite in the idea of that which is beyond the reach of caprice, and constitute the majesty of the monarch. In this unity lies the actualized unity of the state. Only by means of its unmotived directness on both its external and its internal side is the unity taken beyond the possibility of degradation to the wilfulness, ends, and views of particularity. It is thus removed also from the en-feeblement and overthrow of the functions of state and from the struggle of faction against faction around the throne.
Note.—Right of birth and right of inheritance constitute the basis of legitimacy, not as regards positive right merely, but likewise in the idea.—Through the self-determined or natural succession to the vacant throne all factious disputes are avoided. This has rightly been reckoned as one of the advantages of inheritance. However, it is only a consequence, and to assign it as a motive is to drag majesty down into the sphere of mere reasonings. The character of majesty is unmotived directness, and final self-involved existence. To speak of grounds is to propound as its basis not the idea of the state, which is internal to it, but something external in its nature and alien, such as the thought of the well-being of the state or of the people. By such a method inheritance can indeed be deduced through medii termini; but there might be other medii termini with quite other consequences. And it is only too well known what consequences may be drawn from the well-being of the people (salut du peuple).—Hence, philosophy ventures to contem, plate majesty only in the medium of thought. Every other method of inquiry, except the speculative method of the infinite self-grounded idea, absolutely annuls the nature of majesty.
Freely to elect the monarch is readily taken as the most natural way. It is closely allied to the following shallow thought:—“Because it is the concern and interest of the people which the monarch has to provide for, it must be left to the people to choose whom it will depute to provide for them, and only out of such a commission arises the right of governing.” This view, as well as the idea that the monarch is chief-officer of state, and also the idea of a contract between him and the people, proceed from the will of the multitude, in the form of inclination, opinion, and caprice. These views, as we long ago remarked, first make themselves good, or rather seek to do so, in the civic community. They can make no headway against the principle of the family, still less that of the state, or, in general, the idea of the ethical system.—That the election of a monarch is the worst of proceedings may be even by ratiocination detected in the consequences, which to it appear only as something possible or probable, but are in fact inevitable. Through the relation involved in free choice the particular will gives the ultimate decision, and the constitution becomes a free-capitulation, that is, the abandonment of the functions of state to the discretion of the particular will. The specific functions of state are thus transformed into private property, and there ensue the enfeeblement and injury of the sovereignty of the state, its internal dissolution and external overthrow.
Addition.— If we are to apprehend the idea of the monarch, it is not sufficient for us to say that God has established kings, since God has made everything, even the worst of things. Nor can we proceed very far under the guidance of the principle of utility, since it is always open to point out disadvantages. Just as little are we helped by regarding monarchy as positive right. That I should have property is necessary, but this specific possession is accidental. Accidental also appears to be the right that one man should stand at the helm of state, if this right, too, be regarded as abstract and positive. But this right is present absolutely, both as a felt want and as a need of the thing itself. A monarch is not remarkable for bodily strength or intellect, and yet millions permit themselves to be ruled by him. To say that men permit themselves to be governed contrary to their interests, ends, and intentions is preposterous, since men are not so stupid. It is their need and the inner power of the idea which urge them to this in opposition to their seeming consciousness, and retain them in this relation.
Although the monarch comes forward as summit and essential factor of the constitution, it must be admitted that in the constitution a conquered people is not identical with the prince. An uprising occurring in a province conquered in war is different from a rebellion in a wellorganized state. The conquered are not rising against their prince, and commit no crime against the state, because they are not joined with their master in the intimate relation of the idea. They do not come within the inner necessity of the constitution. In that case only a contract is to the fore, and not a state-bond. “Je ne suis pas votre prince, je suis votre maître,” replied Napoleon to the delegation from Erfurt.
282. Out of the sovereignty of the monarch flows the right of pardoning criminals. Only to sovereignty belongs that realization of the power of the spirit, which consists in regarding what has happened as not having happened, and cancels crime by forgiving and forgetting.
Note.— The right of pardon is one of the highest recognitions of the majesty of spirit. This right belongs to the retrospective application of the character of a higher sphere to a lower and antecedent one.—Similar applications are found in the special sciences, which treat of objects in their empirical environment (§270, footnote). — It belongs to applications of this kind that injury done to the state generally or to the sovereignty, majesty, and personality of the prince, should fall under the conception of crime, as it has already been discussed (§§95–102), and should indeed be declared to be a specific crime of the gravest character.
Addition.— Pardon is the remission of punishment, but does not supersede right. Rather right remains, and the pardoned is a criminal as much after the pardon as he was before. Pardon does not imply that no wrong has been committed. Remission of the penalty may occur in religion, for by and in spirit what has occurred can be made not to have occurred. But in so far as remission of penalty is completed in the world, it has place only in majesty, and can be effected only by its unmotived edict.
283. The second element contained in the princely function is that of particularity, involving a definite content and the subsumption of it under the universal. In so far as it receives a particular existence, it is the supreme council, and is composed of individuals. They present to the monarch for his decision the content of the affairs, as they arise, and of the legal cases which necessarily spring out of actual wants. Along with these they furnish also their objective sides, namely, the grounds for decision, the laws which bear on the case, the circumstances, etc. As the individuals who discharge this office have to do with the monarch’s immediate person, their appointment and dismissal lie in his unlimited, free, arbitrary will.
284. The objective side of decision, including knowledge of the special content and circumstances, and the legal and other evidence, is alone responsible. It, that is to say, is alone able to furnish proof of objectivity. It must, therefore, come before a council other than the personal will of the monarch, as such. These councils, advising boards or individual advisers, are alone answerable. The peculiar majesty of the monarch, as the final deciding subjectivity, is exalted above all responsibility for the acts of government.
285. The third element of the princely function concerns the absolutely universal, which consists subjectively in the conscience of the monarch, objectively in the whole constitution and the laws. The princely function presupposes these other elements, just as much as they presuppose it.
286. The objective guarantee of the princely office, or the securing of the lawful succession to the throne by inheritance, lies in the fact that, just as this office has a reality distinct from the other elements determined by reason, so the others have also their independent and peculiar rights and duties. Every member of a rational organism, while preserving itself in independence, preserves also the peculiarities of the others.
Note.— One of the later results of history is such a modification of the monarchical constitution that the succession to the throne is determined by the law of primogeniture. This is, as it were, a return to the patriarchal principle, out of which this mode of succession has historically arisen, although it now bears the higher form of an absolute pinnacle of an organically developed state. This result has a most significant bearing upon public liberty, and is one of the most important elements in a rational constitution, although, as has already been observed, it is not so generally understood as it is respected. The earlier and merely feudal monarchies, and despotism also, reveal in their history the alternation of revolutions, high-handed dealings of princes, rebellion, overthrow of princely individuals and houses, and a general desolation and destruction, internal and external. The reason is that their division of state offices, entrusted as they were to vassals, pashas, etc., was only mechanical. It was not a distinction inherent in the essential character and form, but one of merely greater or less power. Accordingly, each part, preserving and producing only itself, did not preserve and produce the rest. All the elements were thus completely, isolated and independent.
In the organic relation, in which members, and not parts, are related to one another, each one preserves the rest while fulfilling its own sphere. The preservation of the other members is the substantial end and product of each one in preserving itself. The guarantees asked for, be they for the stability of succession, for the stability of the princely office generally, or for justice and public liberty, are secured in institutions. Love of the people, character, oaths, force, etc., may be regarded as subjective guarantees; but when we speak of a constitution, we are engaged with only objective guarantees, institutions, or organically intertwined and self-conditioned elements. Thus, public freedom and hereditary succession are mutual guarantees, and are absolutely connected. Public liberty is the rational constitution, and hereditary succession of the princely function lies, as has been shown, in the conception of the constitution.