[Rheinische Zeitung No. 345, December 11, 1842] 

Cologne, December 10. In the Supplement to No. 335 of the 
Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung there is a not uninteresting essay on 
the commissions of the estates in Prussia. Since we wish to criticise 
it, we must preface our remarks by stressing a simple principle 
which, however, is often overlooked in a passionate party con- 
troversy. The presentation of a state institution is not the state 
institution itself. Hence a polemic against this presentation is not a 
polemic against the state institution. The conservative press, which 
continually reminds us that the view held by the critical press 
should be rejected as being merely an individual opinion and 
a distortion of reality, continually forgets that it itself is not 
the object in question, but only an opinion on that object, and 
that therefore to combat it is not always to combat that object. 
Every object that is made a matter for praise or blame in the 
press becomes a literary object, hence an object for literary dis- 
cussion. 

What makes the press the most powerful lever for promoting 
culture and the intellectual education of the people is precisely the 
fact that it transforms the material struggle into an ideological 
struggle, the struggle of flesh and blood into a struggle of minds, 
the struggle of need, desire, empiricism into a struggle of theory, 
of reason, of form. 

The essay in question reduces the arguments against the 
institution of the commissions of the estates to two main heads, to 
arguments against their composition and arguments against their 
purpose. 

At the outset we must condemn as a basic logical defect that the 
composition has been the first object of discussion, the examina- 

tion of the purpose being reserved for a subsequent article. The 
composition cannot be anything but the external mechanism, the 
guiding and regulating soul of which lies in its purpose. But who 
would think of judging the expediency of a machine’s composition 
before examining and ascertaining its purpose? It could be that 
the composition of the commissions is open to criticism because it 
corresponds to their purpose, inasmuch as this purpose itself 
cannot be recognised as a true purpose. It could also be that the 
composition of the commissions is worthy of recognition because it 
does not correspond to their purpose, going beyond the latter. 
Hence this order of the presentation is an initial mistake, but one 
which vitiates the whole presentation. 

On almost all sides, the essay states, the complaint has been 
made with remarkable unanimity that 

“predominantly only landed property has been taken into account in connection 
with the right of representation in the estates”. 

In opposition to this, attention has been drawn, on the one 
hand, to the progress of industry and, on the other hand, “with 
still greater emphasis” to intelligence and “its right to participate 
in the representation of the estates”. 

By the basic law on the provincial assemblies of the estates, 
landed property is made the condition for estate membership, a 
provision which was logically continued in regard to the commis- 
sions of the estates formed of members of the provincial assem- 
blies. Thus, although landed property is the general condition for 
participating in the right of estate representation, it is by no means 
the sole criterion. Confusion of those two essentially different 
principles, however, underlay 

“to a great extent the lively objections which have been raised against the 
composition of the commissions of the estates”. 

Landownership represents all estates. This fact the author 
admits. He adds, however, that it is not simply landownership as 
such, not abstract landownership, but landownership under certain 
secondary circumstances, landownership of a particular kind. 
Landownership is the general condition for estate representation, 
but it is not the sole condition. 

We fully agree with the author when he asserts that the 
additional conditions essentially alter the general principle of 
representation through landownership. At the same time, how- 
ever, we must declare that opponents who consider that the 
general principle is already too restricted cannot by any means be 

refuted by proof that this principle, which is restricted in itself, 
has been regarded as still not restricted enough, but as necessarily 
requiring that further restrictions alien to its nature should be 
added to it. Apart from the very general requirements of an 
unblemished reputation and a minimum age of thirty years —the 
former being, on the one hand, self-evident and, on the other 
hand, open to indefinite interpretation—there are the following 
specia! conditions: 

“1. Ten years’ uninterrupied landownership; 2. membership of a Christian 
church; 3. possession of land formerly held directly under the emperor for the first 
estate; 4. possession of property entailing imperial knighthood for the second 
estate; 5, a magistracy or civil profession for the urban estate; 6. self-management 
ot landed property as the main occupation for the fourth estate.” !"! 

These are not conditions which arise from the essence of 
landownership, but which, from considerations foreign to the 
latter, add limits that are foreign to it, restrict its essence instead 
of making it more general. 

According to the general principle of representation through 
landownership, there would be no distinction between Jewish and 
Christian landownership, between landownership by a lawyer and 
by a merchant, between landownership that is ten years old and 
one that is one year old. According to this general principle, all 
these distinctions do not exist. Hence if we ask what the author 
has shown, we can only reply: the restriction of the general 
condition of landownership by special conditions which are not 
part of its nature, by considerations based on the difference between 
the estates. 

And the author admits: 

“Closely connected is the complaint heard from many sides that, in regard to 
these commissions of the estates too, the difference between estates which belongs 
only to the past has been brought in again and applied as a principle of estate 
organisation, in alleged contradiction with the present state of our social conditions, 
and with the demands of the spirit of the time.” 

The author does not examine whether the general condition of 
landownership is in contradiction with representation of the 
estates or even makes it impossible! Otherwise it could hardly have 
escaped him that, if the estate principle were consistently ap- 
plied, a condition which forms an essential feature only of the peas- 
ant estate could not possibly be made a general condition for the 
representation of the other estates, whose existence in no way de- 
pends on landownership. For the representation of the estates 
can only be determined by the essential difference between them, 

and hence not by anything which lies outside this essence. If, 
therefore, the principle of representation of landownership is 
annulled because of special estate considerations, then this princi- 
ple of representation of the estates is annulled because of the 
general condition of landownership, and neither principle comes 
into its own. Furthermore, even if a difference between the estates 
is accepted, the author does not examine whether this difference 
which is presumed to exist in the institution in question character- 
ises the estates of the past or those of the present. Instead he 
discusses the difference between the estates in general. It will be as 
little possible to eradicate it, he says, 

“as to destroy the difference existing in nature between the elements and to go 
back to a chaotic unity”. 

One could reply to the author: just as no one would think of 
destroying the difference between the natural elements and going 
back to a chaotic unity, no one would want to eredicate the 
difference between the estates. At the same time, however, one 
would have to demand of the author that he shouid make a more 
thorough study of nature and rise from the first sensuous 
perception of the various elements to a rational perception of the 
organic life of nature. Instead of the spectre of a chaotic unity, he 
would become aware of the spirit of a living unity. Even the 
elements do not persist in inert separation. They are continually 
being transformed into one another and this transforming alone 
forms the first stage of the physical life of the earth, the 
meteorological process. In the living organism, all trace of the 
different elements as such has disappeared. The difference no 
longer consists in the separate existence of the various elements, 
but in the living movement of distinct functions, which are all 
inspired by one and the same life, so that the very difference 
between them does not exist ready-made prior to this life but, 
on the contrary, continually arises out of this lite itself and 
as continually vanishes within it and becomes paralysed. Just 
as nature does not confine itself to the elements already present, 
but even at the lowest stage of its life proves that this diversity 
is a mere sensuous phenomenon that has no spiritual truth, so 
also the state, this natural realm of the spirit, must not and can- 
not seek and find its true essence in a fact apparent to the 
senses. The author, therefore, has provided only a superficial 
basis for the “divine order of the world” by confining himself 
to the difference between the estates as its final and definitive 
result. 

But, in the author’s opinion, 

“care must be taken that the people is not set in motion as a crude, inorganic 
mass’’. 

Therefore, there can be 

“no question as to whether in general estates ought to exist, but only the question 
of establishing to what extent and in what proportion the existing estates are called 
upon to take part in political activity”. 

The question that arises here, of course, is not to what extent 
the estates exist, but to what extent they ought to continue their 
existence right up to the highest sphere of state life. If it would be 
unfitting to set the people in motion as a crude, inorganic mass, it 
would be just as much impossible to achieve an organised 
movement of the people if it were resolved mechanically into rigid 
and abstract constituents, and an independent movement, which 
could only be a convulsive one, were demanded of these inorganic, 
forcibly established parts. The author starts out from the view that 
in the actual state the people exists as a crude, inorganic mass, 
apart from some arbitrarily seized on differences of estate. Hence 
he knows no organism of the state’s life itself, but only a juxta- 
position of heterogeneous parts which are encompassed super- 
ficially and mechanically by the state. But let us be frank. We 
do not demand that in the representation of the people actually 
existing differences should be left out of account. On the contrary, 
we demand that one should proceed from the actual differences 
created and conditioned by the internal structure of the state, and 
not fall back from the actual life of the state into imaginary 
spheres which that life has already robbed of their significance. 
And now take a look at the reality of the Prussian state as it is 
known and obvious to everyone. The true spheres, in accordance 
with which the state is ruled, judged, administered, taxed, trained 
and schooled, the spheres in which its entire movement takes 
place, are the districts, rural communities, governments, provincial 
administrations, and military departments, but not the four cate- 
gories of the estates, which are intermingled in a diverse array 
among these higher units and owe the distinctions between them 
not to life itself, but only to dossiers and registers. And those 
distinctions, which owing to their very essence are dissolved at 
every moment in the unity of the whole, are free creations of the 
spirit of the Prussian state, but are by no means raw materials 
imposed on the present time by blind natural necessity and the 
dissolution process of a past period! They are members but not 

parts, they are movements but not states,* they are differences of 
unity but not units of difference. Just as our author will not wish 
to assert that, for instance, the great movement by which the 
Prussian state changes daily into a standing army and a militia is 
the motion of a crude, inorganic mass, so must he not assert this 
of a representation of the people which is based on similar 
principles. We repeat once more: we demand only that the 
Prussian state should not break off its real state life at a sphere 
which should be the conscious flowering of this state life; we 
demand only the consistent and comprehensive implementation of 
the fundamental institutions of Prussia, we demand that the real 
organic life of the state should not be suddenly abandoned in 
order to sink back into unreal, mechanical, subordinated, non-state 
spheres of life. We demand that the state should not dissolve 
itself in carrying out the act that should be the supreme act of its 
internal unification. We shall give further criticism of the essay in 
question in a subsequent article. 

[Rheinische Zeitung No. 354, December 20, 1842] 

Cologne, December 19. The author wants to establish according 
to his point of view 

“to what extent the existing estates are called upon to take part in political 
activity’’. 

As already pointed out, our author does not examine to what 
extent the estates presupposed by the electoral law are the existing 
estates, to what extent estates exist at all; on the contrary, he takes 
as the basis of his examination something which it should have 
been the main task of his investigation to prove. Hence, he goes 

on to argue: 

“The purpose of the commissions is so clearly laid down, both in the ordinances 
of June 21 of this year on their formation and in the royal Cabinet Order of 
August 19 on their convocation to form a central commission, that there can be 
absolutely no doubt on the subject. According to the wording of the above-men- 
tioned Cabinet Order, the estate advisory council in the individual provinces should 
be supplemented by an element of unity. In accordance with this, therefore, first of 
all the general purpose of the commissions of the estates is the same as that of the 
provincial estates, insofar as it is likewise a matter of advisory co-operation in public 
affairs, and especially in the work of legislation. And, on the other hand, the 
characteristic feature of the activity assigned to them is its centralisation. Hence, 
concerning the doubts which have been raised as to the composition of the 
commissions of the estates, what would have to be done is to prove to what extent 

their union in a central commission contains grounds why the elements from which 
they are formed cannot correspond to the purpose of their central activity. Instead 
of such a proof being attempted, it has merely been asserted that the composition 
of the commissions of the estates (which is based on the same principle as the 
composition of the provincial estates) may well suffice for advising on subordinate 
provincial interests, but not for an activity embracing the whole state. In 
contradiction to this were advanced the above-mentioned complaints, which, if they 
were well founded, would be applicable also to the provincial estates.” 

From the very beginning we have drawn attention to the 
illogicality of wanting to examine the expediency of the composition 
of the commissions of the estates before criticising their purpose. 
It was bound to happen that in an unguarded moment our author 
would presuppose the expediency of their “purpose” in order to 
be able to deduce the expediency of their “composition”. He tells 
us that the purpose of the commissions is clear! | 

Granting this clarity, this formal correctness of the “purpose”, 
does that even so much as touch on the content and the truth of 
thiscontent? The commissions, according toour author, differ from 
the “provincial estates” only by their “centralisation”. Hence it has 
to be proved, he says, “to what extent their union in a central com- 
mission contains grounds why the elements from which they are 
formed cannot correspond to the purpose of their central activity”. 

We must reject this demand as illogical. The question that arises 
is not to what extent the union of the provincial estates in a 
central commission contains grounds why the component elements 
cannot correspond to their central activity. On the contrary, the 
question is to what extent the component elements of the 
provincial estates contain grounds which paralyse a true union in 
a real central commission, and hence also real central activity. The 
union cannot make the component elements impossible, but the 
component elements can make the union impossible. If, however, 
a real union, a true centralisation is presupposed, then the 
question of the possibility of a central activity loses all meaning, 
for the central activity is merely the expression, the result, the 
vitality of a true centralisation. A central commission in itself 
involves a central activity. How then does the author prove that 
‘the component elements of the provincial estates are suitable for 
central commissions? How, therefore, does he prove the real and 
not illusory existence of a central commission? 

He says: 

“If they” (the complaints advanced against the composition of the commissions) 
“were well founded, they would be applicable also to the provincial estates.” 

Of course, for what is asserted is precisely that these elements 
are not suitable for a central whole. But can the author believe 

that he has refuted his opponents merely by himself becoming 
aware of and formulating their objections? 

Instead of confining himself to the statement that complaints 
against the composition of the commissions of the estates are 
complaints against the composition of the provincial estates, he 
ought to show to what extent objections against the provincial 
estates cease to be objections against the commissions of the 
estates. The author should not ask himself why the commissions of 
the estates are not in accord with a central activity, he should ask 
himself by what means they should be made capable of a central 
activity. It has been shown at some length and with concrete 
examples in these pages how little the provincial estates are called 
upon to participate in legislation (whether this participation is in 
the shape of advice or joint action, which can make a difference in 
the power but by no means in the capability of the provincial 
estates). Moreover, the commissions do not even arise from the 
provincial assemblies as moral persons; on the contrary, they arise 
from the provincial assemblies resolved into their mechanical 
component parts. It is not the Provincial Assembly which elects the 
commissions, but the diverse isolated parts of the Assembly, which 
each separately elect their deputies to the commission. This 
election is therefore based on a mechanical dissolution of the body 
of the Assembly into its individual component parts, on an itio in 
partes.* Hence it is possible that not the majority, but the minority 
of the Assembly is represented in the commissions, for a deputy 
from the knightly estate, for instance can have a majority in 
his estate although he has no majority in the Assembly, since such 
a majority may in fact arise by the minority representing the 
knightly estate combining with representatives of the urban or the 
peasant estate. Consequently, the objections raised against the com- 
position of the Assembly are not just simply, but doubly appli- 
cable to the commissions, since in the latter the individual estate 
is withdrawn from the influence of the Assembly as a whole and 
kept within its own special limits. But let us leave even this out of 
account. 

We take as our starting point a fact which the author will 
concede without argument. We assume that the composition of the 
provincial estates fully corresponds to their purpose, that is to say, 
the purpose of representing their particular provincial interests from 
the standpoint of their particular estate interests. This character of 
the provincial assemblies will be the character of all their activities. 

It will therefore also be the character of their elections to the 
commissions and the character of the commission deputies themselves, 
for an assembly which corresponds to its purpose will certainly 
remain true to its purpose in regard to its most important activity, 
in regard to the representatives whom it itself elects. What new 
element then suddenly turns the representatives of provincial 
interests into representatives of state interests and gives their 
particular activity the nature of a general activity? Obviously, it 
cannot be any other element than the fact of a common place of 
assembly. But can mere abstract space give a man of character a 
new character and chemically decompose his spiritual essence? It 
would be paying homage to the most materialistic mechanism to 
ascribe such an organising soul to mere space, particularly in view 
of the fact that at the meeting of the commission the existing 
separateness is also spatially recognised and represented. 

After what has been said above, we can only regard the further 
grounds by which our author seeks to justify the composition of 
the commissions as attempts to justify the composition of the 
provincial estates. 

[Rheinische Zeitung No. 365, December 31, 1842] 

Cologne, December 30. As we have shown in a previous article, 
what the eulogist of the commissions of the estates defends in the 
Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung is not their composition, but the 
composition of the provincial assemblies. 

It seems to him . 

“surprising to find intelligence put forward as a particular element requiring 
representation as an estate alongside industry and landed property”. 

We are glad to agree for once with the author and to be able to 
restrict ourselves to explaining his statement instead of refuting it. 
What does this surprise at those claims of intelligence amount to? 
Does he consider that intelligence is not at all an element of estate 
representation, or are we to believe perhaps that the article in 
question merely asserts that it is not a particular element? Estate 
representation, however, recognises only particular elements, which 
exist side by side. Hence something that is not a particular element, 
is not at all an element for estate representation. The article in 
question quite rightly calls the way in which intelligence enters into 
the representation of estates “the general property of intelligent 
beings”, hence not a particular property of estate representatives, for 
a property which I have in common with everyone else and to the 
same extent as everyone else, cannot constitute my character, my 

superiority, my special nature. In an assembly of naturalists it is 
not sufficient to share in the “general property” of an intelligent 
being, but in an estate assembly it is sufficient to possess intelli- 
gence as a general property, to belong to the natural-historical 
genus* of “intelligent beings”. 

Intelligence should have a place in the provincial estate as a 
general human property, but intelligence should not belong to 
man as a particular property of a provincial estate; that is to say, 
intelligence does not make man a member of a provincial estate, it 
merely makes the member of a provincial estate a man. Our 
author will concede that, consequently, no special position is 
allotted to intelligence in the Assembly. Every newspaper adver- 
tisement is a fact of intelligence.” But who on that account would 
seek representatives of literature in advertisements? A field cannot 
speak, only the owner of the field can. Hence the field must 
appear in an intelligent form in order to make its voice heard. 
Wishes, interests, do not speak; only man speaks. But do field, 
interest, wish, lose their limitation because they assert themselves 
as something human, something intelligent? It is not a question of 
mere form, it is a question of the content of intelligence. If, as we 
readily concede to the author, intelligence not only does not need 
any representation as an estate, but even needs a non-estate 
representation, conversely, estate representation needs intelligence, 
but only a very limited intelligence, just as every man needs 
sufficient reason to realise his aims and interests, which still does 
not in any way make his aims and interests the aims and interests 
of “reason”. 

The utilitarian intelligence which fights for its hearth and home 
differs, of course, from the free intelligence which fights for what 
is right despite its hearth and home. There is a kind of intelli- 
gence which serves a particular purpose, a particular matter, and 
there is another kind of intelligence which masters every matter 
and serves only itself. 

The author, therefore, desires only to say: intelligence is not a 
property of any estate; he does not ask whether estate is an 
intelligent property! He comforts himself with the idea that 
intelligence is a general property of the estate, but he refuses us 
the comfort of a proof that estate is a particular property of 
intelligence! 

It is quite consistent, not only with our author’s principles, but 
with those of estate representation, for him to convert the question of 
the right of representation of “intelligence” in the provincial 
assemblies into the question of the right of representation of the 
learned estates, of the estates which have made a monopoly of 
intelligence, of intelligence which has become an estate. Our 
author is right to the extent that, given estate representation, it 
can also only be a question of intelligence that has become an 
estate. But he is wrong in not acknowledging the right of the 
learned estates, for where the estate principle prevails all estates 
must be represented. Just as he errs in excluding clerics, teachers 
and private men of learning, and does not even mention lawyers, 
physicians, etc., as possible candidates, he completely misconceives 
the nature of estate representation when he puts “state servants” 
belonging to the government on the same footing as the above- 
mentioned estates of learned men. In a state based on estates, 
government officials are the representatives of state interests as 
such, and therefore are hostile towards the representatives of the 
private interests of the estates. Although government officials are 
not a contradiction under people’s representation, they are very 
much so under estate representation. 

The article in question seeks further to prove that in the French 
and English constitutions the representation of landed property is 
as great as, if not greater than, in the Prussian constitution based 
on estates. Even if this were really the case, would it cease to be a 
defect in Prussia because it occurs also in England and France? We 
do not need to explain that this comparison is quite inadmissible if 
only because the French and English deputies are elected not as 
representatives of landownership but as representatives of the people, and, 
as far as particular interests are concerned, a Fould, for instance, 
remains a representative of industry although he pays a compara- 
tively insignificant land tax in some corner of France. We will not 
repeat what we pointed cut in our first article, namely, that the 
principle of estate representation annuls the principle of land- 
ownership representation, and vice versa, and that hence there is 
neither real landownership representation nor real estate rep- 
resentation, but only an inconsistent amalgamation of the two 
principles. We do not intend to examine further the basic error of 
a comparison which seizes on the different figures for England, 
France and Prussia, without taking into account their necessary 
connection with the different conditions in these countries. We 
stress only one aspect, namely, that in France and England 
account is taken of the benefit the state derives from landed 

property and of the burdens the owner has to bear, whereas in 
Prussia, on the contrary, what is taken into account, for instance, 
in connection with the majority of manorial estates and mediatised 
lands'’? is how free they are from state burdens and how 
independent their private use is. Not what someone possesses, but 
what he possesses of advantage to the state, not ownership, but, so 
to speak, the state activity of ownership, gives the right to 
representation in France and England, whose systems, by the way, 
we by no means agree with. 

The author seeks further to prove that big landed property is 
not disproportionately represented compared with small landed 
property. On this point, as on that discussed above, we refer the 
reader to the work Ueber standische Verfassung in Preussen (Cotta’s 
publishing house, Stuttgart and Tubingen) and to Ludwig Buhl’s 
book on the Prussian provincial estates. How incorrect the existing 
distribution is, quite apart from the difference between big and 
small landed property, can be shown from the following examples. 
The land value of the city of Berlin is 100 million talers, whereas 
that of the manorial estates in the Mark of Brandenburg is only 90 
million talers. Yet the former sends only three deputies to the 
Assembly, whereas the owners of the latter elect 20 deputies from 
among themselves. Even among the towns, distribution according 
to the accepted scale of landownership is not consistently adhered 
to. Potsdam sends one deputy to the Assembly, although the value 
of its landed property is hardly one-tenth of that of Berlin. 
Potsdam has one deputy per 30,000 inhabitants, whereas Berlin 
has one per 100,000 inhabitants. The contrast is still more glaring 
if the smaller towns, which for historical reasons have been 
granted an individual vote [ Virilstimme],''* are compared with the 
capital. 

For the rest, in order to establish the true relations between 
representation of intelligence and representation of landed prop- 
erty as an estate, let us return once more to the author’s classical 
thesis, his above-mentioned justified surprise at finding “intelli- 
gence put forward as a particular element requiring representation as 
an estate alongside industry and landed property”. 

The author rightly does not seek the origin of the provincial 
assemblies in state necessity, and he regards them not as a state need, 
but as a need of particular interests against the state. It is not the 
basic rational mind of the state, but the pressing need of private 
interests that is the architect of the political system based on estates, 
and at all events intellect is no needy, egoistic interest, but the 
general interest. Hence representation of intelligence in an assem- 

bly of the estates is a contradiction, a nonsensical demand. 
Moreover, we call the author’s attention to the consequences 
which so inevitably follow if need is made the principle of people’s 
representation that our author himself for a moment recoils from 
them in horror and rejects not merely particular demands coming 
from the representation of particular interests, but the demand 
for this representation itself. 

Either the need is real, and then the state is unreal because it 
fosters particular elements which do not find their legitimate 
satisfaction in the state, and therefore become organised as special 
bodies alongside the state and have to enter into a contractual 
relation with the state. Or the need really receives satisfaction in 
the state, and hence its representation against the state is illusory 
or dangerous. For a moment the author comes down on the side 
of illusion. He remarks as regards industry that even if it were not 
adequately represented in the provincial assemblies, it would still 
have ways enough for giving effect to its interests in the state and 
in relation to the government. Hence he maintains that estate 
representation, representation based on the principle of need, is an 
illusion, because the need itself is illusory. For what holds good of 
industry as an estate holds good for all estates, but for the estate of 
landed property even to a higher degree than for industry, since the 
former is already represented through the district president 
[Landrat], the district estates, etc., that is to say, through fully 
constituted state bodies. 

From what has been said, it is obvious that not only can we not 
agree with the complaints about the restricted scope of the standing 
orders of the commissions, but, on the contrary, we must seriously 
protest against any extension of them as being against state 
interests. The liberalism which wants representation of intelligence 
in the Provincial Assembly is equally wrong. Not only is intelli- 
gence not a particularelement of representation, it is not an element 
at all; it is a principle which cannot take part in any compound of 
elements, but can only produce a division into parts based on itself. 
There can be no question of intelligence as an integrating part, 
but only as the organising soul. We are concerned here not with a 
complement but with an antithesis. The question is: “representation 
of intelligence” or “representation of estates”. The question is 
whether a particular interest should represent political intelligence 
or whether the latter should represent particular interests. Political 
intelligence will, for example, regulate landed property according 
to state principles, but it will not regulate state principles accord- 
ing to landed property. Political intelligence will assert landed 

property not in accordance with its private egoism, but in 
accordance with the state nature of landed property. It will not 
determine the essence of the whole in accordance with this 
particular essence, but will determine the latter in accordance with 
the essence of the whole. On the contrary, landed property with 
the right of representation does not adapt itself to intelligence but 
adapts intelligence to itself, like a watch-maker who does not want 
to set his watch by the sun, but wants to make the sun follow his 
watch. The question can be summed up in a few words: Should 
landed property criticise and be master over political intelligence 
or should it be the other way round? 

For intelligence nothing is external, because it is the inner 
determining soul of everything, whereas, conversely, for a definite 
element like landed property everything is external that is not 
landed property itself. Hence not only the composition of the 
Provincial Assembly, but its activities also are mechanical, for it 
must treat all general interests and even particular interests 
different from itself as things extraneous and alien. All that is 
particular, such as landed property, is in itself limited. It must 
therefore be dealt with as something limited, that is to say, it must 
be dealt with by a general power superior to it, but it cannot deal 
with the general power according to its own needs. 

The provincial assemblies, owing to their specific composition, 
are nothing but an association of particular interests which are 
privileged to assert their particular limits against the state. They are 
therefore a legitimised self-constituted body of non-state elements 
in the state. Hence by their very essence they are hostile towards the 
state, for the particular in its isolated activity is always the enemy 
of the whole, since precisely this whole makes it feel its insignift- 
cance by making it feel its limitations. 

If this granting of political independence to particular interests 
were a necessity for the state, it would be merely the external sign 
of an internal sickness of the state, just as an unhealthy body must 
break out in boils according to natural laws. One would have to 
decide between two views: either that the particular interests, 
assuming the upper hand and becoming alien to the political spirit 
of the state, seek to impose limits on the state, or that the state 
becomes concentrated solely in government and as compensation 
concedes to the restricted spirit of the people merely a field for 
airing its particular interests. Finally, the two views could be 
combined. If, therefore, the demand for representation of intellect 
is to have any meaning, we must expound it as the demand for 
conscious representation of the intelligence of the people, a rep- 

resentation which does not seek to assert individual needs against 
the state, but one whose supreme need is to assert the state it- 
self, and indeed as its own achievement, as its own state. In gene- 
ral, to be represented is something passive; only what is mate- 
rial, spiritless, unable to rely on itself, imperilled, requires to 
be represented; but no element of the state should be material, 
spiritless, unable to rely on itself, imperilled. Representation must 
not be conceived as the representation of something that is not 
the people itself. It must be conceived only as the people’s self- 
representation, aS a state action which, not being its sole, exceptional 
state action, is distinguished from other expressions of its state life 
merely by the universality of its content. Representation must not 
be regarded as a concession to defenceless weakness, to impotence, 
but rather as the self-reliant vitality of the supreme force. In a 
true state there is no landed property, no industry, no material 
thing, which as a crude element of this kind could make a bargain 
with the state; in it there are only spiritual forces, and only in their 
state form of resurrection, in their political rebirth, are these 
natural forces entitled to a voice in the state. The state pervades 
the whole of nature with spiritual nerves, and at every point it 
must be apparent that what is dominant is not matter, but form, 
not nature without the state, but the nature of the state, not the 
unfree object, but the free human being.