indispensably requisite: and they are in and for themselves, universal existences, objects and aims;
which are discovered only by the activity of thought, separating itself from the merely sensuous,
and developing itself, in opposition thereto; and which must on the other hand, be introduced into
and incorporated with the originally sensuous will, and that contrarily to its natural inclination. The
perpetually recurring misapprehension of Freedom consists in regarding that term only in its
formal, subjective sense, abstracted from its essential objects and aims; thus a constraint put upon
impulse, desire, passion - pertaining to the particular individual as such - a limitation of caprice and
self-will is regarded as a fettering of Freedom. We should on the contrary look upon such
limitation as the indispensable proviso of emancipation. Society and the State are the very
conditions in which Freedom is realised.
§ 44
We must notice a second view, contravening the principle of the development of moral relations
into a legal form. The patriarchal condition is regarded - either in reference to the entire race of
man, or to some branches of it - as exclusively that condition of things, in which the legal element is
combined with a due recognition of the moral and emotional parts of our nature; and in which
justice as united with these, truly and really influences the intercourse of the social units. The basis
of the patriarchal condition is the family relation; which develops the primary form of conscious
morality, succeeded by that of the State as its second phase. The patriarchal condition is one of
transition, in which the family has already advanced to the position of a race or people; where the
union, therefore, has already ceased to be simply a bond of love and confidence, and has become
one of plighted service. We must first examine the ethical principle of the Family. The Family may
be reckoned as virtually a single person; since its members have either mutually surrendered their
individual personality, (and consequently their legal position towards each other, with the rest of
their particular interests and desires) as in the case of the Parents; or have not yet attained such an
independent personality, - (the Children, - who are primarily in that merely natural condition
already mentioned.) They live, therefore, in a unity of feeling, love, confidence, and faith in each
other. And in a relation of mutual love, the one individual has the consciousness of himself in the
consciousness of the other; he lives out of self; and in this mutual self-renunciation each regains the
life that had been virtually transferred to the other; gains, in fact, that other's existence and his own,
as involved with that other. The farther interests connected with the necessities and external
concerns of life, as well as the development that has to take place within their circle, i.e. of the
children constitute a common object for the members of the Family. The Spirit of the Family - the
Penates - form one substantial being, as much as the Spirit of a People in the State; and morality in
both cases consists in a feeling, a consciousness, and a will, not limited to individual personality
and interest, but embracing the common interests of the members generally. But this unity is in the
case of the Family essentially one of feeling; not advancing beyond the limits of the merely
natural. The piety of the Family relation should be respected in the highest degree by the State;
by its means the State obtains as its members individuals who are already moral (for as mere
persons they are not) and who in uniting to form a state bring with them that sound basis of a
political edifice - the capacity of feeling one with a Whole. But the expansion of the Family to a
patriarchal unity carries us beyond the ties of blood-relationship - the simply natural elements of
that basis; and outside of these limits the members of the community must enter upon the position
of independent personality. A review of the patriarchal condition, in extenso, would lead us to
give special attention to the Theocratical Constitution. The head of the patriarchal clan is also its
priest. If the Family in its general relations, is not yet separated from civic society and the state, the
separation of religion from it has also not yet taken place; and so much the less since the piety of
the hearth is itself a profoundly subjective state of feeling.
§ 45
We have considered two aspects of Freedom, - the objective and the subjective; if, therefore,
Freedom is asserted to consist in the individuals of a State all agreeing in its arrangements it is
evident that only the subjective aspect is regarded. The natural inference from this principle is, that
no law can be valid without the approval of all. This difficulty is attempted to be obviated by the
decision that the minority must yield to the. majority; the majority therefore bear the sway. But
long ago J. J. Rousseau remarked, that in that case there would be no longer freedom, for the will
of the minority would cease to be respected. At the Polish Diet each single member had to give
his consent before any political step could be taken; and this kind of freedom it was that ruined the
State. Besides, it is a dangerous and false prejudice, that the People alone have reason and
insight, and know what justice is; for each popular faction may represent itself as the People, and
the question as to what constitutes the State is one of advanced science, and not of popular
decision.
§ 46
If the principle of regard for the individual will is recognised as the only basis of political liberty,
viz., that nothing should be done by or for the State to which all the members of the body politic
have not given their sanction, we have, properly speaking, no Constitution. The only arrangement
that would be necessary, would be, first, a centre having no will of its own but which should take
into consideration what appeared to be the necessities of the State; and, secondly, a contrivance
for calling the members of the State together, for taking the votes, and for performing the
arithmetical operations of reckoning and comparing the number of votes for the different
propositions, and thereby deciding upon them. The State is an abstraction, having even its generic
existence in its citizens; but it is an actuality, and its simply generic existence must embody itself in
individual will and activity. The want of government and political administration in general is felt;
this necessitates the selection and separation from the rest of those who have to take the helm in
political affairs, to decide, concerning them, and to give orders to other citizens, with a view to the
execution of their plans. If, e.g., even the people in a Democracy resolve on a war, a general must
head the army. It is only by a Constitution that the abstraction - the State - attains life and reality;
but this involves the distinction between those who command and those who obey. - Yet
obedience seems inconsistent with liberty, and those who command appear to do the very
opposite of that which the fundamental idea of the State, viz. that of Freedom, requires. It is,
however, urged that, - though the distinction between commanding and obeying is absolutely
necessary, because affairs could not go on without it - and indeed this seems only a compulsory
limitation, external to and even contravening freedom in the abstract - the constitution should be at
least so framed, that the citizens may obey as little as possible, and the smallest modicum of free
volition be left to the commands of the superiors; - that the substance of that for which
subordination is necessary, even in its most important bearings, should be decided and resolved on
by the People - by the will of many or of all the citizens; though it is supposed to be thereby
provided that the State should be possessed of vigour and strength as a reality - an individual
unity. - The primary consideration is, then, the distinction between the governing and the governed,
and political constitutions in the abstract have been rightly divided into Monarchy, Aristocracy,
and Democracy; which gives occasion, however, to the remark that Monarchy itself must be
further divided into Despotism and Monarchy proper; that in all the divisions to which the leading
Idea gives rise, only the generic character is to be made prominent, - it being not intended thereby
that the particular category under review should be exhausted as a Form, Order, or Kind in its
concrete development. But especially it must be observed, that the above-mentioned divisions
admit of a multitude of particular modifications, - not only such as lie within the limits of those
classes themselves, - but also such as are mixtures of several of these essentially distinct classes,
and which are consequently misshapen, unstable, and inconsistent forms. In such a collision, the
concerning question is, what is the best constitution; that is, by what arrangement, organisation or
mechanism of the power of the State its object can be most surely attained. This object may
indeed be variously understood; for instance, as the calm enjoyment of life on the part of the
citizens, or as Universal Happiness. Such aims have suggested the so-called Ideals of Constitution,
and, - as a particular branch of the subject, - Ideals of the Education of Princes (Fenelon), or of
the governing body - the aristocracy at large (Plato); for the chief point they treat of is the
condition of those subjects who stand at the head of affairs; and in these ideals the concrete details
of political organisation are not at all considered. The inquiry into the best constitution is frequently
treated as if not only the theory were an affair of subjective independent conviction, but as if the
introduction of a constitution recognised as the best, - or as superior to others, - could be the
result of a resolve adopted in this theoretical manner; as if the form of a constitution were a matter
of free choice, determined by nothing else but reflection. Of this artless fashion was that
deliberation, - not indeed of the Persian people, but of the Persian grandees, who had conspired
to overthrow the pseudo-Smerdis and the Magi, after their undertaking had succeeded, and when
there was no scion of the royal family living, - as to what constitution they should introduce into
Persia; and Herodotus gives an equally naive account of this deliberation.
§ 47
In the present day, the Constitution of a country and people is not represented as so entirely
dependent on free and deliberate choice. The fundamental but abstractly (and therefore
imperfectly) entertained conception of Freedom, has resulted in the Republic being very generally
regarded - in theory - as the only just and true political constitution. Many even, who occupy
elevated official positions under monarchical constitutions - so far from being opposed to this idea
- are actually its supporters; only they see that such a constitution, though the best, cannot be
realised under all circumstances; and that - while men are what they are - we must be satisfied
with less freedom; the monarchical constitution - under the given circumstances, and the present
moral condition of the people - being even regarded as the most advantageous. In this view also,
the necessity of a particular constitution is made to depend on the condition of the people in such a
way as if the latter were non-essential and accidental. This representation is founded on the
distinction which the reflective understanding makes between an idea and the corresponding
reality; holding to an abstract and consequently untrue idea; not grasping it in its completeness, or -
which is virtually, though not in point of form, the same - not taking a concrete view of a people
and a state. We shall have to show further on that the constitution adopted by a people makes one
substance - one spirit - with its religion, its art and philosophy, or, at least, with its conceptions and
thoughts - its culture generally; not to expatiate upon the additional influences, ab extra, of
climate, of neighbours, of its place in the world. A State is an individual totality, of which you
cannot select any particular side, although a supremely important one, such as its political
constitution; and deliberate and decide respecting it in that isolated form. Not only is that
constitution most intimately connected with and dependent on those other spiritual forces; but the
form of the entire moral and intellectual individuality - comprising all the forces it embodies - is
only a step in the development of the grand Whole, - with its place pre-appointed in the process: a
fact which gives the highest sanction to the constitution in question, and establishes its absolute
necessity. -The origin of a State involves imperious lordship on the one hand, instinctive
submission on the other. But even obedience - lordly power, and the fear inspired by a ruler - in
itself implies some degree of voluntary connection. Even in barbarous states this is the case; it is
not the isolated will of individuals that prevails; individual pretensions are relinquished, and the
general will is the essential bond of political union. This unity of the general and the particular is the
Idea itself, manifesting itself as a State, and which subsequently undergoes further development
within itself. The abstract yet necessitated process in the development of truly independent states is
as follows: - They begin with regal power, whether of patriarchal or military origin. In the next
phase, particularity and individuality assert themselves in the form of Aristocracy and Democracy.
Lastly, we have the subjection of these separate interests to a single power; but which can be
absolutely none other than one outside of which those spheres have an independent position, viz.,
the Monarchical. Two phases of royalty, therefore, must be distinguished, - a primary and a
secondary one. This process is necessitated, so that the form of government assigned to a
particular stage of development must present itself: it is therefore no matter of choice, but is that
form which is adapted to the spirit of the people.
