261. “Over against the spheres of civil law and personal welfare, the family and 
civil society, the state is on the one hand an external necessity and their superior 
authority, and both their laws and interests are subordinate to and dependent upon 
the nature of this authority. On the other hand, however, the state is their 
immanent end, and its strength lies in the unity of its ultimate general purpose with 
the particular interest of individuals— in the fact that they have duties towards the 
state since they have rights as well (para. 155).” 

The previous paragraph [i. e., para. 260] tells us that concrete 
freedom consists in the identity (as an ought, a dual identity) of the 
system of particular interest (the family and civil society) with the 
system of general interest (the state). The relation between these 
spheres has now to be more precisely defined. 

On the one hand, the state, over against the sphere of the 
family and civil society, is an “external necessity”, an authority, in 
relation to which “laws” and “interests” are “subordinate and 
dependent”. That the state is an “external necessity” over against 
the family and civil society was already implied to some extent in 
the category of “transition” and to some extent in the conscious 
relation of family and civil society to the state. The “subordination” 
to the state, too, corresponds completely to this relation of 
“external necessity”. What Hegel means by “dependence”, how- 
ever, is shown by the following sentence in the Remark to this 
paragraph: 

“It was Montesquieu above all who kept in view [...] both the thought of the 
dependence of civil law in particular on the specific character of the state, and also 
the philosophical notion of always treating the part in its relation to the whole”, 
etc. 

Hegel is thus speaking here of the fact that civil law, etc., is 
intrinsically dependent on, or determined in its essence by, the state. 

At the same time, however, he subsumes this dependence under the 
relation of “external necessity” and contrasts it with the other relation 
in which the family and civil society have the state as their “immanent 
end”. 

“External necessity” can only be taken to mean that where a 
collision occurs, the “laws” and “interests” of family and society 
must give way to the “laws” and “interests” of the state; that they are 
subordinate to it; that their existence is dependent on its existence; 
or again that its will and its laws appear to their “will” and their 
“laws” as a necessity! 

However, Hegel is not here speaking of empirical collisions: he is 
speaking of the relation of the “spheres of civil law and personal 
welfare, the family and civil society” to the state. What is at issue is 
the essential relationship of these spheres themselves. Not only their 
“interests”, but also their “laws”, their “fundamental characteris- 
tics” are “dependent” on the state, “subordinate” to it. It stands to 
their “laws and interests” as “superior authority’. Their “interest” 
and “law” stand as its “subordinate”. They live in “dependence” on 
it. Precisely because “subordination” and “dependence” are external 
relations which constrain and run counter to independent being, the 
relation of the “family” and of “civil society” to the state is that of 
“external necessity”, of a necessity which goes against the inner 
nature of the thing. This fact itself, that the “civil law” depends on 
and is modified by “the specific character of the state”, is therefore 
subsumed under the relation of “external necessity”, precisely because 
“civil society and family” in their true (i. e., in their independent and 
complete) development are antecedent as particular “spheres” to 
the state. “Subordination” and “dependence” are the expressions for 
an “external”, imposed, illusory identity, as the logical expression for 
which Hegel rightly uses “external necessity’. In “subordination” and 
“dependence” Hegel has further developed one side of the dual 
identity, namely, the aspect of the estrangement within the unity; 

“on the other hand, however, the state is their immanent end, and its strength lies in 
the unity of its ultimate general purpose with the particular interest of individuals — in 
the fact that they have duties towards the state since they have rights as well.” 

Hegel here sets up an unresolved antinomy. On the one hand 
external necessity, on the other hand immanent end. The unity of the 
ultimate general purpose of the state with the particular interest of 
individuals is supposed to consist in the fact that their duties to the 
state and their rights in the state are identical. (Thus, for example, the 
duty to respect property is supposed to coincide with the right to 

property.) 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 7 

In the Remark [to para. 261] this identity is explained thus: 

“Duty is primarily behaviour towards something which is for me substantial and 
which is intrinsically universal; right, on the other hand, is actually existence of this 
substance, and is thus the aspect of its particularity and of my particular freedom. 
Consequently, at formal levels both duty and right appear allocated to different 
sides or different persons. In the state, as something ethical, as the interpenetration 
of the substantial and the particular, my obligation to what is substantial is at the 
same time the form of existence of my particular freedom: in the state, that is, duty 
and right are united in one and the same relation.” 

262. “The actual idea, mind, divides itself into the two ideal spheres of its 
concept, family and civil society, that is, its finite phase, so as to emerge from their 
ideality as explicitly infinite actual mind. Accordingly, it assigns to these spheres 
the material of this, its finite actuality, individuals as a multitude, in such a way that 
with regard to the individual this assignment appears mediated by circumstances, 
caprice and the individual’s own choice of vocation.” 

Translated into prose, the above yields this: 

The way in which the state effects its self-mediation with the 
family and civil society is decided by “circumstances, caprice and 
the individual’s own choice of vocation”. Political reason has 
therefore nothing to do with the distribution of the material of the 
state to the family and civil society. The state arises from them in 
an unconscious and arbitrary fashion. The family and civil society 
appear as the dark natural ground from which the light of the 
state arises. The material of the state is taken as comprising the 
concerns of the state, namely, the family and civil society, insofar as 
they form parts of the state and participate in the state as such. 

This exposition is remarkable in two respects. 

1) Family and civil society are conceived as spheres of the concept 
of the state, namely, as the spheres of its finite phase, as its 
finiteness. It is the state which divides itself into them, which 
presupposes them, and it does this “so as to emerge from their 
ideality as explicitly infinite actual mind”. “It divides, so as to.” It 
“accordingly assigns to these spheres the material of its actuality in 
such a way that this assignment, etc., appears mediated”. The 
so-called “actual idea” (mind as infinite and actual) is presented as 
if it acted on a specific principle and with specific intent. It divides 
into finite spheres; it does this “so as to return into itself, to be 
conscious of itself”; and this it does indeed so that what comes to 
pass is ‘precisely what actually exists. 

At this point the logical, pantheistic mysticism becomes very 
clear. 

The actual relation is this: “with regard to the individual the 
assignment of the material of the state is mediated by cir- 
cumstances, caprice and the individual’s own choice of vocation”. 
Speculative philosophy expresses this fact, this actual relation as 

appearance, as phenomenon. These circumstances, this caprice, this 
choice of vocation, this actual mediation— these are merely the 
appearance of a mediation which the actual idea effects with itself, 
and which goes on behind the scenes. Reality is expressed not as 
itself but as another reality. Ordinary empirical fact has not its 
own but an alien spirit for its law; whereas the form of existence 
of the actual idea is not an actuality evolved from itself, but 
ordinary empirical fact. 

The idea is made the subject and the actual relation of family 
and civil society to the state is conceived as its internal imaginary 
activity. Family and civil society are the premises of the state; they 
are the genuinely active elements, but in speculative philosophy 
things are inverted. When the idea is made the subject, however, 
the real subjects, namely, civil society, family, ‘circumstances, 
caprice, etc.”, become unreal objective elements of the idea with a 
changed significance. 

The assignment of the material of the state “with regard to the 
individual ... mediated by circumstances, caprice and the individu- 
al’s own choice of vocation” is not expressly stated to be what is 
true, necessary and absolutely warranted. These [circumstances, 
caprice, etc.] are as such not presented as rational. And yet, on the 
other hand, they are so presented simply by being presented as a 
seeming mediation, by being left as they are but at the same time 
acquiring the significance of being an attribute of the idea, a 
result, a product of the idea. The difference lies not in the content 
but in the method of approach or in the manner of speaking. There 
is a double history, an esoteric and an exoteric. The content lies in 
the exoteric part. The interest of the esoteric part is always that 
of finding again in the state the history of the logical concept. It 
is on the exoteric side, however, that development proper takes 
place. 

Rationally interpreted, Hegel’s propositions would only mean this: 

The family and civil society are parts of the state. The material 
of the state is distributed amongst them “by circumstances, caprice 
and the individual’s own choice of vocation”. The citizens of the 
state are members of families and members of civil society. 

“The actual idea, mind, divides itself into the two ideal spheres 
of its concept, family and civil society, that is, its finite 
phase”—hence, the division of the state into family and civil 
society is ideal, i. e., necessary as part of the essence of the state. 
Family and civil society are actual components of the state, actual 
spiritual existences of the will; they are modes of existence of the 
state. Family and civil society constitute themselves as the state. 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 9 

They are the driving force. According to Hegel, they are on the 
contrary produced by the actual idea. It is not the course of their 
own life which unites them in the state; on the contrary, it is the 
idea which in the course of its life has separated them off from 
itself. Indeed, they are the finiteness of this idea. They owe their 
presence to another mind than their own. They are entities 
determined by a third party, not self-determined entities. Accord- 
ingly, they are also defined as “finiteness”, as the “actual idea’s” 
own finiteness. The purpose of their being is not this being itself; 
rather, the idea separates these presuppositions off from itself “so 
as to emerge from their ideality as explicitly infinite actual mind”. 
That is to say, there can be no political state without the natural 
basis of the family and the artificial basis of civil society; they are 
for it a conditio sine qua non. But the condition is postulated as the 
conditioned, the determinant as the determined, the producing 
factor as the product of its product. The actual idea only degrades 
itself into the “finiteness” of the family and civil society so as by 
transcending them to enjoy and bring forth its infinity. “Accord- 
ingly” (in order to achieve its purpose), it “assigns to these spheres 
the material of this, its finite actuality” (this? which? these spheres 
are indeed its “finite actuality”, its “material”), “individuals as a 
multitude” (“the individuals, the multitude” are here the material 
of the\state; “the state consists of them”: this composition of the 
state is here expressed as an act of the idea, as an “allocation” 
which it undertakes with its own material. The fact is that the state 
issues from the multitude in their existence as members of families 
and as members of civil society. Speculative philosophy expresses 
this fact as the idea’s deed, not as the idea of the multitude, but as 
the deed of a_subjective idea different from the fact itself), “in 
such a way that with regard to the individual this assignment” 
(previously the discussion was only about the assignment of 
individuals to the spheres of the family and civil society) “appears 
mediated by circumstances, caprice, etc.” Empirical actuality is 
thus accepted as it is. It is also expressed as rational, but it is not 
rational on account of its own reason, but because the empirical 
fact in its empirical existence has a different significance from it 
itself. The fact which is taken as a point of departure is not 
conceived as such, but as a mystical result. The actual becomes a 
phenomenon, but the idea has no other content than this 
phenomenon. Nor has the idea any other purpose than the logical 
one of being “explicitly infinite actual mind”. The entire mystery 
of the philosophy of law and of Hegel’s philosophy as a whole is 
set out in this paragraph. 

263. “In these spheres in which its elements, individuality and particularity, 
have their immediate and reflected reality, mind is present as their objective 
generality shining into them, as the power of the rational in necessity [(para. 184)], 
i. e., as the institutions considered above.” 

264. “Since they themselves possess spiritual natures and therefore unite in 

themselves the two poles, namely, explicitly knowing and willing individuality, and 
the generality which knows and wills what is substantial, the individuals who make 
up the multitude acquire their rights on these two counts only insofar as they are 
actual both as private and as substantial persons. In these spheres [the family and 
civil society] they attain partly the first of these rights directly, and partly the 
second, in that they have their essential self-consciousness in the institutions as the 
inherently general aspect of their particular interests, and partly in that these 
institutions furnish them in the corporation with an occupation and an activity 
directed to a general purpose.” 

265. “These institutions are the components of the constitution (i.e., of de- 
veloped and actualised rationality) in the sphere of particularity. They are, therefore, 
the firm foundation of the state as well as of the individual’s confidence in it and 
disposition towards it, and the pillars of public freedom, since in them particular 
freedom is realised and rational, so that in themselves there is implicitly present the 
union of freedom and necessity.” 

266. “But mind is objective and actual to itself not merely as this” (which?) 
“necessity [...], but also as the ideality and the heart of this necessity. In this way this 
substantial generality is itself its own object and purpose, and therefore this 
necessity is equally present to itself in the shape of freedom.” 

The transition of the family and civil society into the political 
state is, therefore, this: the mind of these spheres, which is 
implicitly the mind of the state, now also behaves to itself as such 
and is actual for itself as their inner core. The transition is thus 
derived, not from the particular nature of the family, etc., and 
from the particular nature of the state, but from the general 
relationship of necessity to freedom. It is exactly the same transition 
as is effected in logic from the sphere of essence to the sphere of 
the concept. The same transition is made in the philosophy of 
nature from inorganic nature to life. It is always the same 
categories which provide the soul, now for this, now for that 
sphere. It is only a matter of spotting for the separate concrete 
attributes the corresponding abstract attributes. 

267. “ Necessity in ideality is the development of the idea within itself. As subjective 
substantiality it is political conviction, as objective substantiality, in distinction 
therefrom, it is the organism of the state, the strictly political state and its 
constitution.” 

The subject here is “necessity in ideality’—the “idea within 
itself”. The predicate: political conviction and the political constitution. 
In plain language political conviction is the subjective and the 
political constitution the objective substance of the state. The logical 
development from family and civil society to the state is thus sheer 
pretence. For it is not explained how family sentiment, civic 
sentiment, the institution of the family and social institutions as 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 11 

such are related to political conviction and to the political 
constitution, and how they are connected. 

The transition in which mind exists “not merely as this necessity 
and as a realm of appearance” but is actual for itself and has a 
particular existence as “the ideality [...] of this necessity”, as the 
soul of this realm, this transition is no transition at all, for the soul 
of the family exists for itself as love, etc. The pure ideality of an 
actual sphere, however, could exist only as science. 

It is important that Hegel everywhere makes the idea the 
subject and turns the proper, the actual subject, such as “political 
conviction”, into a predicate. It is always on the side of the 
predicate, however, that development takes place. 

Paragraph 268 contains a fine disquisition on political conviction, 
patriotism, which has nothing in common with logical exposition, 
except that Hegel describes this conviction as “only the result of 
the institutions existing in the state, in which rationality is actually 
present”; whereas on the contrary, these institutions are just as 
much an objectification of political conviction. Cf. the Remark to 
this paragraph. 

269. “This conviction gets its distinctive content from the various aspects of the 
organism of the state. This organism is the development of the idea into its distinct 
aspects and their objective actuality. These different aspects are thus the various 
authorities and their functions and activities, through which the general continually 
engenders itself, and that in a necessary fashion, since they are determined by the 
nature of the concept; and through these authorities the general also preserves itself, 
being likewise presupposed in its own production. This organism is the political 
constitution.” 

The political constitution is the organism of the state, or the 
organism of the state is the political constitution. That the various 
aspects of an organism stand to one another in a necessary 
connection arising out of the nature of the organism is sheer 
tautology. That if the political constitution is defined as an 
organism, the various aspects of the constitution, the various 
authorities, behave as organic features and stand to one another in 
a rational] relationship, is likewise a tautology. It is a great advance 
to treat the political state as an organism and therefore to look 
upon the variety of authorities no longer as something [in]or- 
ganic,’ but as a living and rational differentiation. But how does 
Hegel present this discovery? 

1) “This organism is the development of the idea into its distinct 
aspects and their objective actuality.” It does not say: this 

* Marx has written organische (organic) here, but this seems to be a slip 
of the pen. It should probably read anorganische (inorganic) or mechanische (me- 

chanical).—- Ed. 

2" 

organism of the state is the development of the state into distinct 
aspects and their objective actuality. The genuine thought is this: 
the development of the state or the political constitution into 
distinct aspects and their actuality is an organic development. The 
actual distinct aspects or various facets of the political constitution are 
the premise, the subject. The predicate is their characterisation as 
organic. Instead of this, the idea is made the subject, and the 
distinct aspects and their actuality are conceived as the idea’s 
development and product; whereas, on the contrary, the idea has 
to be developed from the actual distinct aspects. The organic is 
just the idea of the distinct aspects, their ideal definition. Here, 
however, the idea is spoken of as a subject, which develops itself 
into its distinct aspects. Besides this inversion of subject and 
predicate, the impression is given that some other idea than 
organism is meant here. The point of departure is the abstract 
idea, whose development in the state is the political constitution. 
What is therefore being treated here is not the political idea, but 
the abstract idea in the political element. By saying “this organ- 
ism” (of the state, the political constitution) “is the development of 
the idea into its distinct aspects, etc.”, I have said nothing at all 
about the specific idea of the political constitution; the same 
statement can be made with the same truth about the animal as 
about the political organism. By what, then, is the animal organism 
distinguished from the political? This cannot be deduced from this 
general definition. But an explanation which does not provide the 
differentia specifica is no explanation. The sole interest is in 
rediscovering “the idea” pure and simple, the “logical idea”, in 
every element, whether of the state or of nature, and the actual 
subjects, in this case the “political constitution”, come to be 
nothing but their mere names, so that all that we have is the 
appearance of real understanding. They are and remain uncom- 
prehended, because they are not grasped in their specific 
character. 

“These different aspects are thus the various authorities and their 
functions and activities.” By means of the little word “thus”, the 
appearance is given of logical sequence, of deduction and explana- 
tion. We must rather ask “why?” That “the various aspects of the 
organism of the state” are “the various authorities” and “their 
functions and activities” is an empirical fact; that they are members 
of an “organism” is the philosophical “predicate”. 

Here we note a stylistic peculiarity in Hegel which often recurs, 
and which is a product of mysticism. The whole paragraph runs: 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 13 

“This conviction gets its distinctive 
content from the various aspects of 
the organism of the state. This organ- 
ism is the development of the idea 
into its distinct aspects and their ob- 
jective actuality. These different 
aspects are thus the various authorities 
and their functions and _ activities, 
through which the general continually 
engenders itself, and that in a necessary 
fashion, since they are determined by 
the nature of the concept; and through 
these authorities the general also pre- 
serves itself, being likewise presup- 
posed in its own production. This 
organism is the political constitution.” 

(1) “This conviction gets its distinc- 
tive content from the various aspects 
of the organism of the state.” “These 
different aspects are ... the various 
authorities and their functions and ac- 
tivities.” 

(2) “This conviction gets its distinc- 
tive content from the various aspects 
of the organism of the state. This 
organism is the development of the idea 
into its distinct aspects and their objec- 
tive actuality ... through which the gen- 
eral continually engenders itself, and 
that in a necessary fashion, since they 
are determined by the nature of the con- 
cept; and through these authorities the 

general also preserves itself, being like- 
wise presupposed in its own produc- 
tion. This organism is the political 
constitution.” 

6 

As can be seen, Hegel uses two subjects, the “various aspects of 
the organism” and the “organism”, as the point of departure for 
further definitions. In the third sentence [of Hegel’s original para. 
269] the “different aspects” are described as the “various au- 
thorities”. By the inserted word “thus” it is made to seem as if 
these “various authorities” had been derived from the preceding 
sentence about the organism as the development of the idea. 

Then comes more about the “various authorities”. The state- 
ment that the general continually “engenders” itself and thereby 
preserves itself says nothing new, for this is already implied in the 
description [of these authorities] as “aspects of the organism”, as 
“organic” aspects. Or rather this characterisation of the “various au- 
thorities” is nothing but a paraphrase of the statement that the orga- 
nism is “the development of the idea into its distinct aspects, etc.” 

The propositions that this organism is “the development of the 
idea into its distinct aspects and their objective actuality” or into 
distinct aspects through which “the general” (the general is here 
the same as the idea) “continually engenders itself, and that in a 
necessary fashion, since they are determined by the nature of the 
concept; and [...] also preserves itself, being likewise presupposed in 
its own production”—these propositions are identical. The latter is 
merely a more detailed elaboration of “the development of the 
idea into its distinct aspects”. Hegel has thereby not advanced one 
step beyond the general concept of “the idea” or at most of the 
“organism” as such (for really it is this specific idea which is in 
question). What, then, entitles him to the final sentence: “This 

organism is the political constitution”? Why not “This organism is 
the solar system”? Because he has subsequently described “the 
various aspects of the state” as the “various authorities”. The 
proposition that “the various aspects of the state are the various 
authorities” is an empirical truth and cannot be presented as a 
philosophical discovery, nor has it in any way emerged as a result 
of an earlier stage in the argument. By describing the organism, 
however, as the “development of the idea”, by speaking of distinct 
aspects of the idea, and then inserting the concrete phrase “the 
various authorities”, the impression is created that a specific content 
has been evolved. To the sentence “This conviction gets its distinc- 
tive content from the various aspects of the organism of the state” 
Hegel ought not to have conjoined “this organism” but rather “the 
organism is the development of the idea, etc.” At any rate, what 
he says holds good of every organism, and there is no predicate 
present which would justify the subject “this”. The actual result he 
wants to attain is the description of the organism as the political 
constitution. But no bridge has been built whereby one could pass 
from the general idea of organism to the specific idea of the organism 
of the state or the political constitution, and no such bridge can ever 
be built. The opening sentence speaks of “the various aspects 
of the organism of the state”, which are later defined as “the 
various authorities”. What is said, therefore, is merely this: “the 
various authorities of the organism of the state” or “the state organism 
of the various authorities” is the “political constitution” of the state. 
It is not from “organism”, “the idea”, its “distinct aspects”, etc., 
that the bridge to the “political constitution” is built, but rather 
from the presupposed concept “various authorities”, “organism of 
the state”. 

In truth, Hegel has done nothing but dissolve the “political con- 
stitution” into the general abstract idea of “organism”; but in 
appearance and in his own opinion he has evolved something 
determinate from the “general idea”. He has turned the subject of 
the idea into a product, a predicate, of the idea. He does not 
develop his thinking from the object, but expounds the object in 
accordance with a thinking that is cut and dried — already formed 
and fixed in the abstract sphere of logic. It is not a question of 
evolving the specific idea of the political constitution, but of 
establishing a relationship of the political constitution to the ab- 
stract idea, of placing it as a phase in the life-history of the idea, a 
manifest piece of mystification. 

Another statement is that the character of the “various au- 
thorities” is “determined by the nature of the concept’, and there- 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 15 

fore that the general “engenders” them “in a necessary fashion”. 
The various authorities are therefore not determined by their 
“own nature”, but by a nature alien to them. Similarly, the necessity 
is not derived from their own essence, still less critically es- 
tablished. Rather, their fate is predetermined by the “nature of 
the concept”, sealed in “the sacred registers of the Santa Casa”,? 
of logic. The soul of objects, in this case of the state, is cut and 
dried, predestined, prior to its body, which is really mere ap- 
pearance. The “concept” is the Son in the “idea”, in God the 
Father, the agens, the determining, differentiating principle. 
“Idea” and “concept” are here hypostatised abstractions. 

270. “The fact that the purpose of the state is the general interest as such and 
the conservation therein of particular interests, the general interest being their 
substance, is, firstly, the abstract actuality or substantiality of the state. But it [this 
abstract actuality or substantiality of the state] is, secondly, its necessity, since it 
divides up into the conceptual differentiations of its activities which by virtue of that 
substantiality are equally actual, concrete attributes [of the state]—the authorities. 
Thirdly, however, this very substantiality, having passed through the phase of education, 
is mind knowing and willing itself. The state therefore knows what it wills, and 
knows it in its generality, as something thought. Hence it works and acts according to 
consciously adopted ends, known principles, and laws which are not merely implicit 
but are actually present to consciousness; and further, it acts with precise knowl- 
edge of existing conditions and circumstances, inasmuch as its actions have a 
bearing on these.” 

(The Remark to this paragraph on the relation of state and 
church [is to be considered] later.) 

The application of these logical categories deserves quite special 
scrutiny. 

“The fact that the purpose of the state is the general interest as such and the 
conservation therein of particular interests, the general interest being their 
substance, is, firstly, the abstract actuality or substantiality of the state.” 

The fact that the general interest as such and as the existence of 
particular interests is the purpose of the state—this fact constitutes 
the actuality of the state, its existence, abstractly defined. The state. 
is not actual without this purpose. This is the essential object of its 
willing—but at the same time it is only a quite general definition 
of this object. This purpose as being is for the state the element of 
existence. 

“But it” (the abstract actuality, substantiality [of the state]) “is, secondly, its 
necessity, since it divides up into the conceptual differentiations of its activities which 
by virtue of that substantiality are equally actual, concrete attributes—the au- 

thorities.” 

* Friedrich Schiller, Don Carlos, Act V, Scene 10. Santa Casa— literally “the 
holy house” —the Inquisition’s prison in Madrid.— Ed. 

It (the abstract actuality, the substantiality) is its (the state’s) 
necessity, since its actuality divides up into distinct activities, whose 
differentiation is rationally determined and which are moreover 
concrete attributes. The abstract actuality of the state, its substan- 
tiality, is necessity, inasmuch as it is only in the existence of the 
different state authorities that the true purpose of the state and 
the true existence of the whole are realised. 

That is clear. The first description of the state’s actuality was 
abstract: the state cannot be regarded as simple actuality; it has to 
be seen as activity—and as differentiated activity. 

“The abstract actuality or substantiality of the state [...] is its necessity, since it [the 
abstract actuality or substantiality] divides up into the conceptual differentiations of 
its activities which by virtue of that substantiality are equally actual, concrete 
attributes—the authorities.” 

The substantiality-relation is a relation of necessity: that is to 
say, substance appears divided into independent, but essentially 
determinate actualities or activities. These abstractions will be ap- 
plicable to anything and everything actual. If I first regard the 
state under the heading of “abstract actuality”, I shall subsequent- 
ly have to regard it under the heading of “concrete actuality”, of 
“necessity”, of realised difference. 

“Thirdly, however, this very substantiality, having passed through the phase of 
education, is mind knowing and willing itself. The state therefore knows what it wills, 
and knows it in its generality, as something thought. Hence it works and acts 
according to consciously adopted ends, known principles, and laws which are not 
merely implicit but are actually present to consciousness; and further, it acts with 
precise knowledge of existing conditions and circumstances, inasmuch as its actions 
have a bearing on these.” 

Now let us translate this whole paragraph into plain language. 

1) Mind knowing and willing itself is the substance of the state 
(mind, educated and self-aware, is the subject and the foundation of 
the state, its independent existence). 

2) The general interest and, therein, the conservation of particular 
interests constitutes the general purpose and content of this 
mind—the enduring substance of the state, the political aspect of 
self-knowing and self-willing mind. 

3) Self-knowing, self-willing, self-aware, educated mind achieves 
the actualisation of this abstract content only in the form of 
differentiated activities—as the existence of the various authorities, 
as articulated power. 

About Hegel’s presentation of this the following should be 
noted: 

a) It is abstract actuality, necessity (or difference of substance), 
substantiality—hence abstractly logical categories—that are made into 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 17 

subjects. True, the “abstract actuality” and “necessity” are de- 
scribed as “its”, the state’s, actuality and necessity. But, firstly, “it”, 
“the abstract actuality” or “substantiality”, is the state’s necessity. 
Secondly, it is it “the abstract actuality” or “substantiality”] which 
“divides up into the conceptual differentiations of its activities”. 
The “conceptual differentiations” are “by virtue of that substan- 
tiality equally actual, concrete” attributes, authorities. Thirdly, “sub- 
stantiality” is no longer treated as an abstract attribute of the state, as 
“ats” substantiality; substantiality as such is made the subject, for we 
are told, finally, that “this very substantiality, having passed through 
the phase of education, is mind knowing and willing itself”. 

b) Finally, it is not stated that “mind educated, etc., is the 
substantiality”, but, on the contrary, that “the substantiality is 
mind educated, etc.” Mind thus becomes the predicate of its 
predicate. 

c) After being described as, firstly, the general purpose of the 
state, and then, secondly, as the various authorities, substantiality 
is described, thirdly, as actual mind educated and knowing and 
willing itself. The true point of departure, self-knowing and 
self-willing mind, without which the “purpose of the state” and 
the “state authorities” would be untenable fantasies, unreal, even 
impossible phenomena, this true starting point makes its appear- 
ance only as the last predicate of substantiality, which has already 
been described as the general purpose and as the various state 
authorities. Had actual mind been made the starting point, the 
“general purpose” would have been its content, the various 
authorities its mode of self-realisation—its real or material exist- 
ence, whose specific character could have been explained from the 
very nature of its purpose. Because, however, the “idea” or 
“substance” as subject, as actual essence, is made the starting 
point, the real subject appears only as the last predicate of the 
abstract predicate. 

The “purpose of the state” and the “state authorities” are 
mystified since they are presented as “modes of existence” of 
“substance” and cut off from their real mode of existence, from 
“mind knowing and willing itself, educated mind”. 

d) The concrete content, the actual definition, appears as 
something formal; the wholly abstract formal definition appears as 
the concrete content. The essence of the definitions of the state is 
not that they are definitions of the state, but that in their most 
abstract form they can be regarded as logical-metaphysical defini- 
tions. Not the philosophy of law but logic is the real centre of 
interest. Philosophical work does not consist in embodying think- 

ing in political definitions, but in evaporating the existing political 
definitions into abstract thoughts. Not the logic of the matter, but 
the matter of logic is the philosophical element. The logic does not 
serve to prove the state, but the state to prove the logic. 

1) The general interest and, therein, the conservation of 
particular interests as the purpose of the state; 

2) The various authorities as the actualisation of this purpose; 

3) Mind educated, self-aware, willing and acting mind, as the 
subject of this purpose and of its actualisation. 

These concrete definitions are regarded as extrinsic, as hors- 
d’euvres: their philosophical meaning is that in them the state has 
this logical significance: 

1) As abstract actuality or substantiality; 

2) That the substantiality-relation passes over into the relation of 
necessity, of substantial actuality; 

3) That substantial actuality is in truth concept, subjectivity. 

Omitting the concrete definitions, which when it comes to 
another sphere, e.g., physics, can quite well be exchanged for 
other concrete definitions and which are therefore not essential, 
what we have before us is a chapter of logic. 

Substance has to “divide up into conceptual differentiations, 
which by virtue of that substantiality are equally actual, concrete 
attributes”. Essentially, this proposition belongs to logic and has 
been produced before the philosophy of law. That these conceptu- 
al differentiations are here “its” (the state’s) distinct “activities” 
and that the “concrete attributes” are “state authorities”, this 
parenthesis belongs to the philosophy of law, to the realm of 
empirical political fact. Thus the whole of the philosophy of law is 
only a parenthesis within logic. The parenthesis is, of course, only 
an hors-d’euvre of the proper exposition. Cf. p. 347 [para. 270, 
Addition], for example. 

“Necessity consists in the whole being divided into conceptual differentiations 
and that this divided whole yields concrete and enduring attributes, which are 
not fossilised but perpetually recreate themselves in dissolution.” Cf. also the 
Logic.* 

271. “The political constitution is in the first place the organisation of the state 
and the process of its organic life in relation to itself, in which the state differentiates 
its elements within itself and unfolds them into existence. 

“Secondly, as something individual the state is an exclusive unit, which is 
therefore related to others; thus it turns its differentiating activity outward and 
accordingly establishes its existing distinct aspects within itself in their ideality.” 

Addition: “The internal state as such is the civil power, while its orientation 
outwards is the military power, which however also forms a distinct aspect of the 
state itself.” 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 19 

1. THE INTERNAL CONSTITUTION AS SUCH 

272. “The constitution is rational insofar as the state internally differen- 
tiates and defines its activity in accordance with the nature of the concept; and that 
in such a way that each of these authorities is in itself the totality, by containing 
the other elements in an operative form in itself, and that these authorities, 
since they express the differentiation of the concept, remain wholly within 
its ideality and constitute a single individual whole.” 

The constitution is thus rational insofar as its elements can be 
dissolved into abstractly logical elements. The state has to differen- 
tiate and define its activity not in accordance with its specific 
nature, but in accordance with the nature of the concept, which is 
the mystified movement of abstract thought. The rationale of the 
constitution is thus abstract logic and not the concept of the state. 
In place of the concept of the constitution we get the constitution 
of the concept. Thought does not conform to the nature of the 
state; but the state to a ready-made system of thought. 

273. “The political state thus” (why?) “divides up into the following substantial 
divisions: 

“a) The power to determine and lay down the general, legislative power, 

“b) The power to subsume particular spheres and individual cases under the 
general, executive power, 

“c) The power of subjectivity as the will which makes the final decision, the 
power of the monarch, in which the different powers are bound together into an 
individual unity, and which is therefore the summit and the source of the whole, 
ie., of the constitutional monarchy.” 

We shall return to this division [of powers] after examining the 
details of its exposition separately. 

274. “Mind is actual only as that which it knows itself to be, and the state, 
being the mind of a people, is at the same time the law permeating ail its relationships 
and the customs and consciousness of its individual members. Hence the constitu- 
tion of any given people generally depends on the character and development of 
its self-consciousness. Its subjective freedom and with this the actuality of the 
constitution is rooted in its self-consciousness.... Every nation, therefore, has the 
constitution appropriate to it and suitable for it.” 

All that follows from Hegel’s argumentation is that a state in 
which there is a contradiction between “character and develop- 
ment of self-consciousness” and “constitution” is no true state. 
That the constitution which was the product of a bygone con- 
sciousness can become a heavy fetter on an advanced conscious- 
ness, etc., etc., these are surely trivial truths. What would really 
follow would be simply the demand for a constitution which 
contains within itself the designation and the principle to advance 
along with consciousness, to advance as actual men advance, this is 
only possible when “man” has become the principle of the 
constitution. Hegel here is a sophist. 

a) The Monarch’s Authority 

275. “The monarchical authority contains in itself the three elements of the 
whole [(para. 272)], the general element of the constitution and the laws, consultation 
as the relation of the particular to the general, and the element of final decision, as 
the self-determination to which aprile 4 else can be traced back and from which 
everything else derives its actuality. This absolute self-determination forms the 

distinctive principle of the monarchical authority as such, which has yet to be 
expounded.” 

The beginning of this paragraph says first of all no more than 
this: “The general element of the constitution and the laws” is the 
monarchical authority. Consultation, or the relation of the particular to 
the general, is the monarchical authority. The authority of the 
monarch does not stand outside the general system of the constitu- 
tion and the laws, once it is taken to refer to the authority of the 
(constitutional) monarch. 

What Hegel really wants to establish, however, is only that “the 
general element of the constitution and the laws” is the monarchical 
authority, the sovereignty of the state. It is wrong, then, to make 
the monarchical authority into the subject, and to make it seem, since 
the monarchical authority can also be taken as referring to the 
authority of the monarch, as if he, the monarch, were the master 
of this element, its subject. But let us turn now to what Hegel 
presents as “the distinctive principle of the monarchical authority as 
such” —namely, “the element of final decision, as the self- 
determination to which everything else can be traced back and from 
which everything else derives its actuality”— “absolute self- 
determination”. 

Here Hegel is simply saying that the actual, i.e., individual, will is 
the monarchical authority. Thus in paragraph 12 he says: 

“In giving itself the form of individuality [...] the will is that which resolves, and 
only as the will that resolves is it an actual will.” 

Insofar as this element of “final decision” or “absolute self- 
determination” is separated from the “general element” of the 
contents and from the particularity of consultation, we have actual 
will as arbitrariness. Or: 

“Arbitrariness is the monarchical authority”, or “the monarchical 
authority is arbitrariness”. 

276. “The fundamental attribute of the political state is substantial unity as the 
ideality of its elements. In this unity 

“a) The particular powers and functions of the state are as much dissolved as 
preserved, and they are preserved only insofar as they have no independent 
justification but are justified only to the extent determined by the idea of the 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 21 

whole, since they issue from the power of the whole, and are flexible limbs 
of it, as their single self.” 

Addition: “With this ideality of the elements it is much as with life in the 
physical organism.” 

Of course. Hegel is speaking purely of the idea of the “parti- 
cular powers and functions” ... they are to be justified only to the 
extent determined in the idea of the whole; they are to issue only 
“from the power of the whole”. That this ought to be so is implied 
in the idea of organism. What really called for explanation, how- 
ever, was just how this is to be brought about. For what must 
prevail in the state is conscious reason; and substantial necessity, 
a necessity which, being purely internal, is also purely external, 
the accidental [intertwining] of “powers and functions”, cannot 
be passed off as something rational. 

277. “B) The particular functions and activities of the state, being its essential 
elements, are peculiar to the state and are associated with the individuals by whom 
they are applied and exercised not on the strength of their immediate personalities 
but only by virtue of their general and objective qualities. Hence the functions and 

affairs of the state are linked with a particular personality as such only formally 
and accidentally. State functions and powers cannot therefore be private property.” 

It goes without saying that if particular functions and activities 
are described as functions and activities of the state, as state func- 
tions and state powers they are not private property but state property. 
That is a tautology. 

The functions and activities of the state are associated with 
individuals (the state is only effective through individuals), but 
with the individual not as a physical but as a political being, that is, 
with the political quality of the individual. It is therefore ridiculous 
of Hegel to say that they are “linked with a particular personality 
as such only formally and accidentally”. On the contrary, they are 
linked with the individual by a vinculum substantiale,” by an 
essential quality of the individual. They are the natural expression 
in action of his essential quality. This nonsense comes in because 
Hegel takes state functions and activities in abstract isolation, and 
the particular individual in antithesis to them. He forgets, though, 
that the particular individual is human and that the functions and 
activities of the state are human functions. He forgets that the 
essence of a “particular personality” is not its beard, its blood, its 
abstract physical character, but its social quality, and that state 
functions, etc., are nothing but modes of being and modes of 

? There is an unclear word at this point in Marx’s manuscript. The word may 
eee 

be Verschrankung or Verschlingung— “intertwining” or “intermingling”.— Ed. 
Deep bond.— Ed. 

action of the social qualities of men. Clearly, therefore, insofar as 
individuals are bearers of state functions and per they must be 
regarded in the light of their social and not of their private quality. 

278. “That the particular functions and powers of the state are not self-sufficient 
or firmly based either on themselves or in the particular will of individuals, but 
have their ultimate root, rather, in the unity of the state as their single self, 
these two attributes together constitute state sovereignty.” 

“Despotism generally means the condition of lawlessness where the particular 
will as such, whether of a monarch or of a nation [...], counts as law, or rather, 
takes the place of law; whilst sovereignty by contrast forms the aspect of the ideality 
of the particular spheres and functions found precisely in a legal, constitutional 
state of affairs, such that no one of these spheres is independent, something 
self-sufficient in its purposes and ways of working and immersing itself only in 
itself, but on the contrary these purposes and ways of working are determined by 
and dependent on the purpose of the whole (which has been denominated in general 
terms by the rather vague expression ‘good of the state’). 

“This ideality manifests itself in two ways. 

“In peaceful conditions, the particular spheres and functions pursue the path of 
minding their own business [...], and it is in part only by way of the unconscious 
necessity of the thing that their self-seeking is turned into a contribution to the 
support of one another and of the whole [...]. In part, however, it is by direct 
influence from above that they are not only continually brought back to the purpose 
of the whole and restricted accordingly [...], but are also constrained to perform 
direct services for the support of the whole. In time of need, however, whether 
internal or external, the organism in all its particularity fuses into the single 
concept of sovereignty, and to sovereignty is entrusted the salvation of the state at 
the sacrifice of this otherwise legitimate particularity. It is then that the ideality 
attains its own proper actuality.” 

This idealism is therefore not developed into a conscious 
rational system. In peaceful conditions it appears either merely as 
an external constraint imposed on the prevailing power, on private 
life by “direct influence from above”, or as a blind, unconscious 
result of self-seeking. This ideality finds its “own proper actuality” 
only when the state is in a “condition of war or emergency” so 
that its essential nature is expressed here in this “condition of war 
and emergency” of the actual, existing state; whereas its “‘peaceful” 
conditions are just the war and misery of selfishness. 

Sovereignty—the idealism of the state—exists, therefore, only as 
imner necessity, as idea. Hegel is satisfied even with this, for all that 
is at issue is the idea. Sovereignty thus exists, on the one hand, 
only as unconscious, blind substance. We shall presently encounter its 
other actuality. 

279. “Sovereignty, in the _ first 
place simply the general thought of 
this ideality, exists only as subjectivity 
sure of itself and as the will’s abstract 
and to that extent unfounded self- 

1) “Sovereignty, in the first place 
simply the general thought of this 
ideality, exists only as subjectivity sure 
of itself [...]. In its truth subjectivity 
exists only as subject, personality only as 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 23 

determination with which lies the final 
decision. This is the state’s individuali- 
ty as such, and only in this is the state 
itself one. In its truth, however, sub- 
jectivity exists only as subject, personal- 
ity only as person, and in the constitu- 
tion which has developed into real 
rationality each of the three elements 
of the concept has its explicitly actual 
and separate form. This absolutely 
decisive element of the whole is there- 
fore not individuality in general, but 
one individual, the monarch.” 

person. In the constitution which has 
developed into real rationality each of 
the three elements of the concept has 
[its} explicitly actual and separate 
form.” 

2) Sovereignty “exists only [...] as 
the will’s abstract and to that extent 
unfounded _ self-determination with 
which lies the final decision. This is 
the state’s individuality as such, and 
only in this is the state itself one [...] 
(and in the constitution which has de- 
veloped into real rationality each of the 

three elements of the concept has its 
explicitly actual and separate form). 
This absolutely decisive element of the 
whole is therefore not individuality in 
general, but one individual, the 
monarch” . 

The first proposition means only that the general thought of 
this ideality, the sorry character of whose existence we have seen 
above, would have to be the self-conscious work of subjects and 
exist as such for them and in them. 

If Hegel had set out from real subjects as the bases of the state 
he would not have found it necessary to transform the state in a 
mystical fashion into a subject. “In its truth, however,” says Hegel, 
“subjectivity exists only as subject, personality only as person.” This 
too is a piece of mystification. Subjectivity is a characteristic of the 
subject, personality a characteristic of the person. Instead of 
conceiving them as predicates of their subjects, Hegel gives the 
predicates an independent existence and subsequently transforms 
them in a mystical fashion into their subjects. 

The existence of predicates is the subject, so that the subject is 
the existence of subjectivity, etc.; Hegel transforms the predicates, 
the objects, into independent entities, but divorced from their 
actual independence, their subject. Subsequently the actual subject 
appears as a result, whereas one must start from the actual] subject 
and look at its objectification. The mystical substance, therefore, 
becomes the actual subject, and the real subject appears as 
something else, as an element of the mystical substance. Precisely 
because Hegel starts from the predicates of the general description 
instead of from the real] ens (dmoxsiweyov, subject), and since, 
nevertheless, there has to be a bearer of these qualities, the 
mystical idea becomes this bearer. The dualism consists in the fact 
that Hegel does not look upon the general as being the actual 

nature of the actual-finite, i.e., of what exists and is determinate, 
or upon the actual ens as the true subject of the infinite. 

So in this case sovereignty, the essential feature of the state, is 
treated to begin with as an independent entity, is objectified. Then, 
of course, this objective entity has to become a subject again. This 
subject then appears, however, as a self-incarnation of sovereignty; 
whereas sovereignty is nothing but the objectified mind of the 
subjects of the state. 

Leaving aside this fundamental defect of the exposition, let us 
consider this first proposition of the paragraph. As it stands there it 
means no more than this: Sovereignty, the ideality of the state, exists 
as person, as “subject” — obviously, as many persons, many subjects, 
since no single person absorbs in himself the sphere of personality, 
nor any single subject the sphere of subjectivity. What sort of state 
idealism would that be which, instead of being the actual self- 
consciousness of the citizens, the collective soul of the state, were to 
be one person, one subject? In this proposition Hegel has not set forth 
anything else. But let us now look at the second proposition which 
is interlinked with this one. Hegel is concerned to present the mon- 
arch as the true “God-man”, as the actual incarnation of the Idea. 

“Sovereignty ... exists only ... as the will’s abstract and to that extent unfounded 
self-determination with which lies the final decision. This is the state’s individuality 
as such, and only in this is the state itself one. ... In the constitution which has 
developed into real rationality each of the three elements of the concept has its 

explicitly actual and separate form. This absolutely decisive element of the whole is 
therefore not individuality in general, but one individual, the monarch.” 

We have already drawn attention to this proposition earlier. The 
moment of resolving, of arbitrary, because definite, decision, is the 
monarchical authority of the will as such. The idea of the monarchical 
authority, as Hegel expounds it, is nothing but the idea of the 
arbitrary, of the decision of the will. 

But whereas Hegel conceives of sovereignty as the idealism of 
the state, as the actual regulation of the parts by the idea of the 
whole, now he makes it “the will’s abstract and to that extent 
unfounded self-determination with which lies the final decision. 
This is the state’s individuality as such”. Previously the discussion 
was about subjectivity, now it is about individuality. The state as 
sovereign must be one, one individual, [it must] possess individuali- 
ty. The state is one “not only” in this individuality. The individual- 
ity is only the natural element in the oneness of the state, the 
natural attribute of the state. “This absolutely decisive element is 
therefore not individuality in general, but one individual, the 
monarch.”” Why? Because “each of the three elements of the 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 25 

concept in the constitution which has developed into real rationali- 
ty has its explicitly actual and separate form”. One element of the 
concept is “individuality”, but this is not yet one individual. And 
what sort of constitution would that be in which generality, 
particularity and individuality each had “its explicitly actual and 
separate form”? Since it is not at all a question of an abstract 
entity but of the state, of society, we can even accept Hegel’s 
classification. What would follow from it? As determining the 
general the citizen is legislator; as the maker of individual 
decisions, as actually exercising his will, he is king. What is the 
meaning of [saying that] the individuality of the state’s will is “one 
individual’, one particular individual distinct from all others? The 
element of generality, legislation, also has an “explicitly actual and 
separate form”. One could therefore conclude that “the legislature 
are these particular individuals”. 

The Common Man: Hegel: 
2) The monarch has sovereign 2) The sovereignty of the state is 
power, sovereignty. the monarch. 
3) Sovereignty does what it wills. 3) Sovereignty is “the will’s ab- 

stract and to that extent unfounded 
self-determination with which lies the 
final decision”. 

Hegel converts all the attributes of the constitutional monarch in 
the Europe of today into the absolute self-determinations of the 
will. He does not say “the monarch’s will is the final decision”, but 
“the will’s final decision is the monarch”. The first proposition is 
empirical. The second perverts the empirical fact into a metaphysi- 
cal axiom. 

Hegel mixes up the two subjects—sovereignty “as subjectivity 
sure of itself” and sovereignty “as the will’s unfounded self- 
determination, as the individual will”, so as to construe the “idea” 
as “one individual”. 

It is obvious that subjectivity sure of itself must also actually will, 
and will as a unity, as an individual. But who has ever doubted 
that the state acts through individuals? Should Hegel want to argue 
that the state must have one individual as the representative of its 
individual unity, he would not get the monarch out of this. The 
positive result of this paragraph which we set down is merely this: 

In the state the monarch is the element of individual will, of 
unfounded self-determination, of arbitrariness. 

Hegel’s Remark to this paragraph is so remarkable that we must 
examine it closely. 

“The immanent development of a science, the derivation of its entire content from 
the elementary concept ... exhibits this peculiarity, that one and the same concept, in 

this case the will, which is abstract to begin with (because this is the beginning), is 
maintained, but its attributes are condensed —and this, indeed, purely through the 
concept itself{—and in this way it gains a concrete content. Thus it is the basic 
element of personality, abstract at first in the sphere of immediate law, which has 
evolved through its various forms of subjectivity, and here, in the sphere of 
absolute law, in the state, in the completely concrete objectivity of the will, it is the 
personality of the state, the state’s certainty of itself. This last, which in its single self 
transcends all particularities, cuts short the weighing of pros and cons between 
which it is possible to oscillate perpetually, concluding with its ‘I will’ and initiating 
all activity and actuality.” 

In the first place, it is not a “peculiarity of science” that the 
fundamental concept of a subject always recurs. 

But then no advance has taken place. Abstract personality was the 
subject of abstract law. It has not changed; it is as abstract 
personality again the personality of the state. Hegel ought not to have 
been surprised that the actual person—and persons make the 
state—everywhere xecurs as the essence of the state. He would 
have had cause for surprise at the contrary —and even more so at 
the recurrence of the person as a political person in the same 
meagre abstraction as the person of civil law. 

Hegel here defines the monarch as “the personality of the state, 
the state’s certainty of itself’. The monarch is “personified 
sovereignty”, “sovereignty incarnate”, political consciousness in 
the flesh; in consequence, therefore, all other people are excluded 
from this sovereignty, from personality, and from political con- 
sciousness. At the same time, however, Hegel knows of no other 
content to give to this “‘souveraineté personne” than the “I will”, the 
element of arbitrary choice within the will. “Political reason” and 
“political consciousness” are a “single” empirical person to the 
exclusion of all others; but this personified reason has no content 
other than the abstraction of the “I will”. L’état c’est moi. 

“Further, however, personality, and subjectivity in general, as something infinitely 
self-relating, only has truth, and its most direct, immediate truth, as person, as a 
subject existing for itself; and what exists for itself is likewise simply one.” 

It goes without saying that since personality and subjectivity are 
only predicates of person and subject, they exist only as person 
and subject; and a person is one. But, Hegel should have 
continued, the one only has truth as the many ones. The predicate, 
the essence, never exhausts the spheres of its existence in one unit 
but in many units. 

Instead, Hegel concludes: 

“The personality of the state is actual only as a person, the monarch.” 

Hence, because subjectivity is actual only as subject and the 
subject is actual only as one, the personality of the state is actual 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 27 

only as one person. A fine conclusion! Hegel might as well have 
concluded that because the individual human being is a unit, the 
human species is only a single human being. 

“Personality expresses the concept as such; at the same time the person con- 
tains the concept’s actuality, and only when so determined is the concept idea, 
truth.” 

Without the person, personality is certainly a mere abstraction; 
but the person is only the actual idea of personality as the embodi- 
ment of the species, as the persons. 

“A so-called juridical person, a society, a community or a family, however 
inherently concrete it may be, contains personality only as an element, only 
abstractly; in a juridical person personality has not attained to the truth of its 
existence. The state, however, is precisely this totality in which the elements of the 
concept achieve the actuality corresponding to the truth peculiar to each of them.” 

There is considerable confusion in this passage. The juridical 
person, a society, etc., is called abstract: that is to say, precisely 
those species-forms are termed abstract in which the actual person 
manifests what is actually within him, objectifies himself and aban- 
dons the abstraction of the “person quand méme’. Instead of recog- 
nising this realisation of the person as the most concrete thing of all, 
the state is supposed to have the distinction that [in it] “the element 
of the concept”, the “individuality”, attains a mystical “presence”. 
Rationality consists not in the reason of actual persons achieving 
actuality but in the elements of the abstract concept doing so. 

“The concept of the monarch is therefore of all concepts the most difficult for 
ratiocination, ie., for the method of reflection employed by the understanding. 
For this way of thinking does not get beyond the standpoint of isolated categories, 
and therefore knows only reasons [for this and that], finite points of view and 
derivation from premises. It therefore presents the dignity of the monarch as 
something derivative not merely in form but in content; whereas the concept of the 
monarch, on the contrary, is not derivative but originates purely in itself. Most closely 
related” (indeed!) “to this view is the idea of regarding the royal prerogative as 
based on divine authority, since its unconditional character is contained therein.” 

In a certain sense every necessary being “originates purely in 
itself’ —in this respect the monarch’s louse is as good as the 
monarch. Hence Hegel here was not saying anything special about 
the monarch. But if something is supposed to appertain to the 
monarch which makes him different in kind from all the other 
objects of science and of the philosophy of law, then that is real 
tomfoolery; and only correct insofar as the “one person-idea” is 
indeed something not derivable from the understanding but only 
from the imagination. 

“National sovereignty may be spoken of in the sense that a nation is indeed an 
independent unit in its external relations and constitutes a state of its own”, etc. 

That is triviality. If the king is the “actual sovereignty of the 
state”, it ought to be possible for “the king” to count as an 
“independent state” also in external relations, even without the 
people. But if he is sovereign inasmuch as he represents the unity 
of the nation, then he himself is only the representative, the 
symbol, of national sovereignty. National sovereignty does not 
exist by virtue of him, but he on the contrary exists by virtue of it. 

“We may also speak of sovereignty in home affairs residing in the people, 
provided that we are only speaking generally about the whole and meaning only 
what was shown above (paras. 277, 278), namely, that sovereignty belongs to the 
State.” 

As if the actual state were not the people. The state is an 
abstraction. The people alone is what is concrete. And it is 
remarkable that Hegel, who without hesitation attributes a living 
quality such as sovereignty to the abstraction, attributes it only 
with hesitation and reservations to something concrete. 

“The usual sense, however, in which men have recently begun to speak of the 
sovereignty of the people is in opposition to the sovereignty existing in the monarch. In 
this antithesis the sovereignty of the people is one of those confused notions which 
are rooted in the wild idea of the people.” 

The “confused notions” and the “wild idea” are here exclusively 
Hegel’s. To be sure, if sovereignty exists in the monarch, then it is 
foolish to speak of an antithetical sovereignty in the people; for it is 
implied in the concept of sovereignty that sovereignty cannot have 
a double existence, still less one which is contradictory. However: 

1) This is just the question: Is not that sovereignty which is 
claimed by the monarch an illusion? Sovereignty of the monarch 
or sovereignty of the people—that is the question.’ 

2) One can also speak of a sovereignty of the people in 
opposition to the sovereignty existing in the monarch. But then it is not 
a question of one and the same sovereignty which has arisen on two 
sides, but two entirely contradictory concepts of sovereignty, the one a 
sovereignty such as can come to exist in a monarch, the other such 
as can come to exist only in a people. It is the same with the 
question: “Is God sovereign, or is man?” One of the two is an 
untruth, even if an existing untruth. 

“Taken without its monarch and the articulation of the whole which is necessarily 
and directly associated with the monarch, the people is that formless mass which is 
no longer a state. It no longer possesses any of the attributes which are to be found 
only in an internally organised whole — sovereignty, government, courts of law, the 
administration, estates of the realm, etc. With the appearance in a nation of such fac- 
tors, which relate to organisation, to the life of the state, a people ceases to be 
that indeterminate abstraction, which, as a purely general notion, is called the nation.” 

* Marx here uses the English word “question”.— Ed. 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 29 

All this is a tautology. If a people has a monarch and the 
structure that necessarily and directly goes with a monarch, i. e., if 
it is structured as a monarchy, then indeed, taken out of this 
structure, it is a formless mass and a purely general notion. 

“If by sovereignty of the people is understood a republican form of government 
and, more specifically, democracy [...] then [...] there can be no further discussion 
of such a notion in face of the developed idea.” 

That is indeed right, if one has only “such a notion” and not a 
“developed idea” of democracy. 

Democracy is the truth of monarchy; monarchy is not the truth 
of democracy. Monarchy is necessarily democracy inconsistent with 
itself; the monarchical element is not an inconsistency in democra- 
cy. Monarchy cannot be understood in its own terms; democracy 
can. In democracy none of the elements attains a significance 
other than what is proper to it. Each is in actual fact only an 
element of the whole demos [people]. In monarchy one part 
determines the character of the whole. The entire constitution has 
to adapt itself to this fixed point. Democracy is the genus 
Constitution. Monarchy is one species, and a poor one at that. 
Democracy is content and form. Monarchy is supposed to be only a 
form, but it falsifies the content. 

In monarchy the whole, the people, is subsumed under one of 
its particular modes of being, the political constitution. In democ- 
racy the constitution itself appears only as one determination, that is, 
the self-determination of the people. In monarchy we have the 
people of the constitution; in democracy the constitution of the 
people. Democracy is the solved riddle of all constitutions. Here, 
not merely implicitly and in essence but existing in reality, the 
constitution is constantly brought back to its actual basis, the actual 
human being, the actual people, and established as the people’s own 
work. The constitution appears as what it is, a free product of 
man. It could be said that in a certain respect this applies also to 
constitutional monarchy; but the specific distinguishing feature of 
democracy is that here the constitution as such forms only one 
element in the life of the people—that it is not the political 
constitution by itself which forms the state. 

Hegel starts from the state and makes man the subjectified 
state; democracy starts from man and makes the state objectified 
man. Just as it is not religion which creates man but man who 
creates religion, so it is not the constitution which creates the 
people but the people which creates the constitution. In a certain 
respect the relation of democracy to all other forms of state is like 

the relation of Christianity to all other religions. Christianity is the 
religion xat’ e€oyny,? the essence of religion—deified man as a 
particular religion. Similarly, democracy is the essence of all state 
constitutions— socialised man as a particular state constitution. 
Democracy stands to the other constitutions as the genus stands to 
its species; except that here the genus itself appears as an existent, 
and therefore as one particular species over against the others 
whose existence does not correspond to their essence. To democ- 
racy all other forms of state stand as its Old Testament. Man does 
not exist for the law but the law for man—it is a human 
manifestation, whereas in the other forms of state man is a legal 
manifestation. That is the fundamental distinction of democracy. 

All other state forms are definite, distinct, particular forms of state. 
In democracy the formal principle is at the same time the material 
principle. Only democracy, therefore, is the true unity of the 
general and the particular. In monarchy, for example, and in the 
republic as a merely particular form of state, political man has his 
particular mode of being alongside unpolitical man, man as a 
private individual. Property, contract, marriage, civil society, all 
appear here (as Hegel shows quite correctly with regard to these 
abstract state forms, but he thinks that he is expounding the idea of 
the state) as particular modes of existence alongside the political 
state, as the content to which the political state is related as organis- 
ing form: properly speaking, the relation of the political state to 
this content is merely that of reason, inherently without content, 
which defines and delimits, which now affirms and now denies. In 
democracy the political state, which stands alongside this content 
and distinguishes itself from it, is itself merely a particular content 
and particular form of existence of the people. In monarchy, for 
example, this particular, the political constitution, has the signifi- 
cance of the general that dominates and determines everything 
particular. In democracy the state as particular is merely particular; 
as general, it is the truly general, i., not something determinate 
in distinction from the other content. The French have recently 
interpreted this as meaning that in true democracy the political 
state is annihilated.’ This is correct insofar as the political state qua 
political state, as constitution, no longer passes for the whole. 

In all states other than democratic ones the state, the law, the 
constitution is what rules, without really ruling—i. e., without 
materially permeating the content of the remaining, non-political 

* Par excellence—i.e., “Christianity is the pre-eminent religion” .— Ed. 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 31 

spheres. In democracy the constitution, the law, the state itself, 
insofar as it is a political constitution, is only the self-determination 
of the people, and a particular content of the people. 

Incidentally, it goes without saying that all forms of state have 
democracy for their truth and that they are therefore untrue 
insofar as they are not democracy. 

In the states of antiquity the political state makes up the content 
of the state to the exclusion of the other spheres. The modern 
state is a compromise between the political and the unpolitical 
state. 

In democracy the abstract state has ceased to be the dominant 
factor. The struggle between monarchy and republic is itself still a 
struggle within the abstract state. The political republic is democra- 
cy within the abstract state form. The abstract state form of 
democracy is therefore the republic; but here it ceases to be the 
merely political constitution. 

Property, etc., in short, the entire content of the law and the 
state, is the same in North America as in Prussia, with few 
modifications. The republic there is thus a mere state form, as is the 
monarchy here. The content of the state lies outside these 
constitutions. Hegel is right, therefore, when he says: The political 
state is the constitution, i.e., the material state is not political. What 
obtains here is merely an external identity, a determination of 
changing forms. Of the various elements of national life, the one 
most difficult to evolve was the political state, the constitution. It 
developed as universal reason over against the other spheres, as 
ulterior to them. The historical task then consisted in its [the 
constitution’s] reassertion, but the particular spheres do not realise 
that their private nature coincides with the other-worldly nature of 
the constitution or of the political state, and that the other-worldly 
existence of the political state is nothing but the affirmation of 
their own estrangement. Up till now the political constitution has 
been the religious sphere, the religion of national life, the heaven of 
its generality over against the earthly existence of its actuality. The 
political sphere has been the only state sphere in the state, the 
only sphere in which the content as well as the form has been 
species-content, the truly general; but m such a way that at the 
same time, because this sphere has confronted the others, its 
content has also become formal and particular. Political life in the 
modern sense is the scholasticism of national life. Monarchy is the 
perfect expression of this estrangement. The republic is the 
negation of this estrangement within its own sphere. It is obvious 
that the political constitution as such is brought into being only 

where the private spheres have won an independent existence. 
Where trade and landed property are not free and have not yet 
become independent, the political constitution too does not yet 
exist. The Middle Ages were the democracy of unfreedom. 

The abstraction of the state as such belongs only to modern 
times, because the abstraction of private life belongs only to 
modern times. The abstraction of the political state is a modern 
product. 

In the Middle Ages there were serfs, feudal estates, merchant 
and trade guilds, corporations of scholars, etc.: that is to say, in 
the Middle Ages property, trade, society, man are political; the 
material content of the state is given by its form; every private 
sphere has a political character or is a political sphere; that is, 
politics is a characteristic of the private spheres too. In the Middle 
Ages the political constitution is the constitution of private proper- 
ty, but only because the constitution of private property is a 
political constitution. In the Middle Ages the life of the nation and 
the life of the state are identical. Man is the actual principle of the 
state—but unfree man. It is thus the democracy Ms unfreedom—es- 
trangement carried to completion. The abstract reflected antithesis 
belongs only to the modern world. The Middle Ages are the 
period of actual dualism; modern times, one of abstract dualism. 

“We have already noted the stage at which the division of constitutions into 
democracy, aristocracy and monarchy has been made—the standpoint, that is, of 
that unity which is still substantial, which still remains within itself and has not 
yet come to its process of infinite differentiation and inner deepening: at that 
stage, the element of the final self-determining resolution of the will does not emerge 
explicitly into its own proper actuality as an immanent organic factor in the state.” 

In the spontaneously evolved monarchy, democracy and aristoc- 
racy there is as yet no political constitution as distinct from the 
actual, material state or the other content of the life of the nation. 
The political state does not yet appear as the form of the material 
state. Either, as in Greece, the res publica* is the real private affair 
of the citizens, their real content, and the private individual is a 
slave; the political state, qua political state, being the true and only 
content of the life and will of the citizens; or, as in an Asiatic 
despotism, the political state is nothing but the personal caprice of 
a single individual; or the political state, like the material state, is a 
slave. What distinguishes the modern state from these states 
characterised by the substantial unity between people and state is 
not, as Hegel would have it, that the various elements of the 

* i.e., state, republic; etymologically, “public affairs” — Ed. 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 33 

constitution have been developed into particular actuality, but that 
the constitution itself has been developed into a particular actuality 
alongside the actual life of the people —that the political state has 
become the constitution of the rest of the state. 

280. “This, the ultimate self of the state’s will, is in its abstraction a single self 
and therefore immediate individuality. Its. very concept thus implies its attribute of 
being something natural: the essential nature of the monarch is therefore to be this 

individual, in abstraction from any other content, and this individual is destined for 
the dignity of the monarch directly and naturally, by birth in the course of nature.” 

We have already heard that subjectivity is a subject and the 
subject necessarily an empirical individual, one. Now we learn that 
in the concept of immediate individuality is implied the attribute of 
being natural, corporeal. Hegel has proved nothing but what is 
self-evident, namely, that subjectivity exists only as the corporeal 
individual; and, of course, to the corporeal individual belongs birth 
in the course of nature. 

Hegel thinks he has proved that the “essential nature” of the 
subjectivity of the state, of sovereignty, of the monarch, is “to be 
this individual, in abstraction from any other content, and [that] this 
individual is destined for the dignity of the monarch directly 
and naturally, by birth in the course of nature”. Sovereignty, 
royal dignity, would therefore be born. The body of the monarch 
would determine the dignity of the monarch. Thus at the very 
summit of the state, instead of reason, the merely physical would 
be decisive. Birth would determine the quality of the monarch, 
as it determines the quality of cattle. 

Hegel has proved that the monarch has to be born, which no 
one doubts; but he has not proved that birth makes a monarch. 

That man becomes a monarch by birth can no more be made a 
metaphysical truth than can the immaculate conception of the 
Virgin Mary. But just as this latter notion, this fact of conscious- 
ness, can be understood in the light of human illusion and cir- 
cumstances, so can this other empirical fact. 

In the Remark [to para. 280] which we are about to examine 
more closely, Hegel indulges himself in the pleasure of having 
demonstrated the irrational as absolutely rational. 

“This transition of the concept of pure self-determination into the immediacy of 
being and so into the realm of nature is of a purely speculative character, and 
cognition of it therefore belongs to logical philosophy.” 

This is indeed purely speculative, but not the leap from pure 
self-determination, an abstraction, to the other extreme, the pure 
realm of nature (the accident of birth) — car les extrémes se touchent. 
What is purely speculative is calling this a “transition of the 

concept” and presenting complete contradiction as identity, and 
supreme inconsistency as consistency. 

We may regard it as a positive admission by Hegel that with the 
hereditary monarch the place of self-determining reason is taken 
by the abstract natural order, not as what it is, not as the natural 
order, but as the supreme determinant of the state; that this is the 
positive point at which monarchy can no longer preserve the 

appearance of being the organisation of rational will. 

“Moreover, this transition is on the whole the same” (?) “as that familiar to 
us in the nature of volition in general, it is the process of translating a content 
from the sphere of subjectivity (in the form of a preconceived purpose) into that of 
existence [...]. But the peculiar form of the idea and of the transition here under 
consideration is the immediate transformation of the pure self-determination of the 
will (of the simple concept itself) into a this, a natural form of existence without 
mediation by a particular content (by a purpose in action).” 

Hegel is saying that the transformation of state sovereignty (of a 
self-determination of the will) into the body of the born monarch 
(into existence) is on the whole that transition of content in general 
effected by the will in order to realise, to translate into existence, a 
purpose entertained in thought. But Hegel says: on the whole. The 
peculiar difference which he specifies is so peculiar as to destroy all 
analogy and to put magic in the place of the “nature of volition in 
general”. 

In the first place, the transformation of the preconceived purpose 
into existence is here immediate, magical. Secondly, the subject here 
is the pure self-determination of the will, the simple concept itself, it is 
the essence of the will as a mystical subject that makes decisions. It 
is not an actual, individual, conscious willing, it is the abstraction 
of volition which turns into a natural form of existence, the pure 
idea which embodies itself as one individual. 

Thirdly, as the actualisation of willing into a natural form of 
existence takes place immediately, i.e., without any means, which 
otherwise the will requires for its objectification, so there is even 
lacking any particular, i.e., determinate, purpose: “Mediation by a 
particular content, by a purpose in action” does not take place, 
clearly, because no acting subject is present, and the abstraction, 
the pure idea of will, in order to act, has to act mystically. A 
purpose which is not a particular purpose is no purpose, just as 
action without purpose is purposeless, meaningless action. Thus 
the whole comparison with the teleological act of the will reveals 
itself in the end to be a piece of mystification itself, and an empty 
action of the idea. 

The means is the absolute will and the word of the philosopher, 
the particular purpose is again the philosophising subject’s aim of 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 35 

constructing the hereditary monarch out of the pure idea. The 
realisation of the purpose is simply an assertion by Hegel. 

“In the so-called ontological proof of the existence of God we have the same 
transformation of the absolute concept into being” (the same mystification). “This 
transformation has constituted the depth of the idea in modern times, although 
recently it has been presented” (rightly) “as inconceivable.” 

“But since the notion of the monarch is regarded as falling entirely within the 
scope of ordinary” (sc. intelligent) “consciousness, the intellect here persists all the 
more in its separation [of the concept and existence] and sticks to the results thus 
derived by its clever ratiocination: it therefore denies that the moment of final 
decision in the state as such (i.e., in the rational concept) is bound up with what is 
directly natural in character.” 

People deny that the final decision is born and Hegel asserts that 
the monarch is by birth the final decision; but who has ever 
doubted that the final decision in the state is attached to actual 
corporeal individuals, and that it is therefore “bound up with what 
is directly natural in character’? 

281. “Both elements in their undivided unity—the will’s ultimate unfounded 
self, and, consequently, existence, likewise unfounded, as the aspect committed to 
nature—this idea of that which is unmoved by caprice constitutes the majesty of the 
monarch. In this unity lies the actual unity of the state, and it is only through this, 
its inward and outward immediacy, that the unity of the state is raised above the 
possibility of being drawn down into the sphere of particularity and its caprice, aims 
and opinions, and it likewise remains above the war of factions round the throne 
and the weakening and shattering of state power.” 

The two elements are: the accident of the will— caprice — and the 
accident of nature—birth. So: His Majesty Accident. Accident is thus 
the actual unity of the state. 

How an “inward and outward immediacy” is supposed to be 
free from collision, etc., is an assertion of Hegel’s which is quite 
incomprehensible, for it is just this immediacy which is exposed to 
it. 

What Hegel asserts about elective monarchy applies with still 
greater force to the hereditary monarch: 

“In an elective monarchy, because of the nature of that relationship within it 
which has made particular will the ultimate deciding power, the constitution 
becomes an elective capitulation” — etc., etc-—“becomes a surrender of state authori- 
ty at the discretion of the particular will, from which proceeds the transformation 
of particular offices of state into private property”, etc. 

282. “The right to pardon criminals flows from the sovereignty of the monarch, 
for to this alone it falls to actualise mind’s power to undo what has been done and 
by forgiving and forgetting to wipe out a crime.” 

The right of pardon [Begnadigungsrecht] is the prerogative of 
mercy [Gnade]. Mercy is the highest expression of haphazard arbitrari- 
ness, and it is significant that Hegel makes it the attribute proper 

to the monarch. In the Addition to this paragraph Hegel declares 
that “unfounded decision” is its source. 

283. “The second element in the monarch’s authority is particularity or determi- 
nate content and its subsumption under the general. Insofar as this is given a 
particular existence, it takes the form of supreme consultative bodies and individual 
advisers. They bring before the monarch for his decision the content of current 
affairs of state or the legal provisions required to meet existing needs, together 
with their objective aspects, i.e., the grounds on which decisions are to be based, the 
relevant laws, circumstances, etc. Because individuals who discharge these duties are 
in direct contact with the person of the monarch, their choice and dismissal alike 
rest with his unrestricted arbitrariness.” 

284, “Since it is solely with regard to the objective element in decision-making 
(the knowledge of a topic and its context, and the relevant legal and other 
considerations) that responsibility can exist, in other words, since solely this aspect is 
capable of objective proof and therefore subject to consultation which is distinct 
from the personal will of the monarch as such, only these consultative bodies or 
individual advisers can incur responsibility. The peculiar majesty of the monarch, 
however, as the subjectivity making the final decision, is raised above all 
accountability for acts of government.” 

Hegel here describes quite empirically the ministerial function as 
it is usually defined in constitutional states. All that philosophy 
adds is to interpret this “empirical datum” as the existence, the 
predicate, of the “element of particularity in the monarch’s au- 
thority”. 

(The Ministers represent the rational, objective aspect of the 
sovereign will. To them, therefore, also falls the honour of 
responsibility, whilst the monarch is fobbed off with the peculiar 
fancy of “majesty”.) The speculative element is thus very meagre. 
The argument in its particulars, on the other hand, is based on 
quite empirical grounds, and actually on very abstract, very bad 
empirical grounds. 

Thus, for example, the choice of Ministers is placed within “the 
unrestricted arbitrariness” of the monarch “because they are in 
direct contact with the person of the monarch”—i.e., because they 
are Ministers. In the same way, the “unrestricted choice” of the 
monarch’s valet can be derived from the absolute idea. 

Better, at least, is the reason given for the accountability of 
Ministers: “it is solely with regard to the objective element in 
decision-making (the knowledge of a topic and its context, and the 
relevant legal and other considerations) that responsibility can exist, 
in other words, solely this aspect is capable of objective proof’. Of 
course, when one individual is the hallowed, sanctified embodiment of 
caprice, then “the subjectivity making the final decision”, pure 
subjectivity, pure caprice, is not objective, and thus cannot be 
established objectively or therefore be accountable. Hegel’s proof 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 37 

is conclusive if one accepts the constitutional presuppositions, but 
by analysing their basic notion, Hegel has not proved these 
presuppositions. The whole uncritical character of Hegel’s philos- 
ophy of law lies in this confusion. 

285. “The third element in the monarchical authority concerns that which is the 
general as such, which exists subjectively in the conscience of the monarch and 
objectively in the whole of the constitution and in the laws. The monarchical authority 
in this respect presupposes the other elements in the state, just as it is 
air roa by each of them.” 

286. “The objective guarantee of the monarchical authority, of the right of 
hereditary succession to the throne and so forth, consists in the fact that just as this 
sphere has its own actuality, differentiated from that of the other rationally 
determined elements of the state, so these others in themselves have the rights and 
duties proper to their own definition. In the rational organism of the state, each 
member, by maintaining itself as such, thereby maintains the others in their 
distinctiveness.” 

Hegel does not see that with this third element, “the general as 
such”, he explodes the first two or vice versa. “The monarchical 
authority in this respect presupposes the other elements in the 
state, just as it is presupposed by each of them.” If this positing is 
understood not in a mystical sense but in a real sense, then the 
authority of the monarch is established not by birth but by the 
other elements, and is therefore not hereditary but fluid, i.e., it is 
a state function which is varyingly distributed among individual 
members of the state in accordance with the organisation of the 
other elements. In a rational organism the head cannot be of iron 
and the body of flesh. If the members are to maintain themselves, 
they must be of equal birth, of one flesh and blood. But the 
hereditary monarch is not of equal birth, he is made of different 
stuff. The prose of the rationalist will of the other members of the 
state is here confronted by the magic of nature. Besides, members 
of an organism can only mutually support one another insofar as 
the whole organism is fluid and each of them is absorbed in this 
fluidity, and when, therefore, no one of them, such as in this case 
the head of the state, is “unmoved” or “unalterable”. By this 
proposition, therefore, Hegel abolishes “sovereignty by birth”. 

Secondly, irresponsibility. If the monarch violates “the whole of 
the constitution”, the “laws”, his irresponsibility is at an end, 
because his constitutional existence is at an end. But it is precisely 
these laws and this constitution which make him irresponsible. 
They therefore contradict themselves, and this one clause abolishes 
law and constitution. The constitution of constitutional monarchy 
is irresponsibility. 

However, if Hegel is content with the thought “that just as this 
sphere has its own actuality, differentiated from that of the other 

rationally determined elements of the state, so these others in 
themselves have the rights and duties proper to their own defini- 
tion”, then he ought to call the medieval constitution an organisa- 
tion; then all he has is merely a mass of particular spheres 
connected by an external necessity. And, indeed, a personal 
monarch fits only such a situation. In a state in which each 
particular attribute exists on its own, the sovereignty of the state, too, 
must be attached to a particular individual. 

Résumé of Hegel’s Exposition of the Monarch’s 
Authority, or of the Idea of State Sovereignty 

279. In the Remark, p. 367, it is said: 

“Sovereignty of the people may be spoken of, in the sense that a people as a whole 
is an independent unit in its external relations and constitutes a state of its own, like 
the people of Great Britain. But the people of England, Scotland or Ireland, or the 
people of Venice, Genoa, Ceylon, etc., are no longer sovereign now that they have 
ceased to have their own rulers or supreme governments.” 

Here, therefore, the sovereignty of the people is nationality: the 
sovereignty of the monarch is nationality, or the monarchical 
principle is nationality, which by itself and exclusively forms the 
sovereignty of a people. A people whose sovereignty consists solely in 
nationality has a monarch. Difference of nationality among peoples 
cannot be better established or expressed than by having different 
monarchs. The same cleft which separates one absolute individual 
from another separates these nationalities. 

The Greeks (and Romans) were national because and insofar as 
they were the sovereign peoples. The Germans are sovereign because 
and insofar as they are national. (Vid. pag. XXXIV.)? 

“a so-called juridical person,” further says the same Remark, “a society, a 
community or a family, however inherently concrete it may be, contains personality 
only as an element, only abstractly; in a juridical person personality has not 
attained to the truth of its existence. The state, however, is precisely this totality 
in which the elements of the concept achieve the actuality corresponding to the 
truth peculiar to each of them.” 

The juridical person, society, the family, etc., contains personali- 
ty only abstractly. In the monarch, on the other hand, the state is 
contained within the person. 

It is only within the juridical person, society, the family, etc., that 
the abstract person has truly brought his personality into real exist- 
ence. But Hegel conceives society, the family, etc., the juridical 
person in general, not as the realisation of the actual empirical 
person, but as an actual person, who, however, contains the ele- 

* This refers to the relevant sheet of the manuscript (see this volume, p. 
110).— Ed. 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 39 

ment of personality as yet only abstractly. Hence, too, in Hegel, 
actual persons do not come to the state; instead, the state must 
first come to the actual person. Hence, instead of the state being 
brought forth as the supreme actuality of the person, as the 
supreme social actuality of man, one single empirical man, the 
empirical person, is brought forth as the supreme actuality of the 
state. This perversion of the subjective into the objective and of 
the objective into the subjective is a consequence of Hegel’s 
wanting to write the biography of abstract substance, of the idea, 
man’s activity, etc., thus having to appear as the activity and result 
of something else, and of his wanting to make the human essence 
operate on its own, as an imaginary individuality, instead of in its 
actual human existence. The inevitable outcome of this is that an 
empirical existent is uncritically accepted as the actual truth of the 
idea; for it is not a question of bringing empirical existence to its 
truth, but of bringing truth to an empirical existent, and so what 
lies to hand is expounded as a real element of the idea. (On this 
necessary transforming of empirical fact into speculation and of 
speculation into empirical fact, more later.*) 

In this way, too, the impression is produced of something 
mystical and profound. It is common knowledge that men are born, 
and that what is brought into being by physical birth becomes a 
social person, etc., and eventually a citizen of a state; that it is via 
his birth that a man comes to be all that he is. But it is very 
profound, it is startling, to hear that the idea of the state is born 
without intermediary; that, in the birth of the monarch, this idea 
has given birth to its own empirical existence. No content is gained 
in this way, only the form of the old content is changed. It has 
received a philosophical form, a philosophical testimonial. 

Another consequence of this mystical speculation is that a par- 
ticular empirical existent, one individual empirical existent in dis- 
tinction from the others, is regarded as the embodiment of the idea. 
Again, it makes a deep mystical impression to see a particular 
empirical existent posited by the idea, and thus to meet at every 
stage an incarnation of God. 

If, for example, in the exposition of the family, civil society, the 
state, etc., these social modes of man’s existence are regarded as 
the actualisation, the objectification, of his essence, then the fami- 
ly, etc., appear as qualities inherent in a subject. The human being 
remains always the essence of all these entities, but these entities 
also appear as man’s actual generality, and therefore also as something 

* See this volume, pp. 60-65.— Ed. 

men have in common. But if on the contrary family, civil 
society, the state, etc., are attributes of the idea, of substance as 
subject, they must be given an empirical actuality, and that body 
of people among whom the idea of civil society unfolds are 
members of a civil society, that other body of people [among 
whom the idea of the state unfolds] being state citizens. Since all 
we have here, really, is allegory, for the sole purpose of conferring 
on some empirical existent or other the significance of being the 
actualised idea, it is clear that these vessels have fulfilled their 
function as soon as they have become specific embodiments of 
elements in the life of the idea. The general, therefore, appears 
everywhere as something specific, particular; and individuality, 
correspondingly, nowhere attains to its true generality. 

It therefore necessarily seems that the most profound, most 
speculative level has been reached when the most abstract attri- 
butes, the natural bases of the state such as birth (in the case of 
the monarch) or private: property (in primogeniture), which have 
not yet developed at all into genuine social actualisation, appear as 
the highest ideas directly personified. 

And it is self-evident. The correct method is stood on its head. 
The simplest thing becomes the most complicated, and the most 
complicated the simplest. What ought to be the starting point 
becomes a mystical outcome, and what ought to be the rational 
outcome becomes a mystical starting point. 

However, if the monarch is the abstract person who contains the 
state within his own person, this only means that the essence of the 
state is the abstract private person. Only in its flower does the state 
reveal its secret. The monarch is the one private person in whom 
the relation of private persons generally to the state is actualised. 

The hereditary character of the monarch follows from his 
concept. He is to be the person specifically distinguished from the 
whole species, from all other persons. What is it, then, that 
ultimately and firmly distinguishes one person from all others? 
The body. The highest function of the body is sexual activity. The 
highest constitutional act of the king is therefore his sexual 
activity, for through this he makes a king and perpetuates his body. 
The body of his son is the reproduction of his own body, the 
creation of a royal body. 

b) The Executive 

287. There is a difference between the decisions of the monarch and the 
execution and application of these decisions and, in general, the prosecution and 
maintenance of past decisions, of existing laws, arrangements and institutions for 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law 41 

common purposes, and the like. This task of subsumption [...] falls within the scope 
of the executive, as do the judicial and police authorities, which have more direct 
relation to the particular concerns of civil society, and which assert the general 
interest within these aims.” 

The usual explanation of the executive. The only thing that can 
be said to be original in Hegel is that he links the executive, the 
police and the judiciary, whereas usually the administration and 
the judiciary are treated as antithetical. 

288. “Particular common interests, which fall within civil society and lie outside 
the intrinsically and explicitly general character of the state proper (para. 256), 
are administered by the corporations (para. 251) of the municipalities and of other 
trades and estates with their authorities, officials, administrators and the like. These 
concerns are on the one hand the private property and interest of these particular 
spheres, and from this point of view the authority of these officials rests on the 
confidence of their social equals and the members of their communities, and on the 
other hand, these circles must be subordinated to the higher interests of the state. 
This being so, the filling of these official posts in the corporations will in general be 
effected by a mixture of popular election by those interested with ratification and 
appointment by a higher authority.” 

A straightforward description of the empirical position in some 
countries. 

289. “The maintenance of the general state interest and of legality in this sphere 
of particular rights, and the relating back of these to the general interest and 
legality, require to be seen to by representatives of the executive — executive civil 
servants and higher advisory bodies inasmuch as they are constituted on collegiate 
lines—which converge at the top in chiefs who are in direct touch with the 
monarch.” 

Hegel has not fully set forth executive authority. But even taking 
this into account, he has not proved that the executive power is 
more than one function, one attribute, of state citizens as such. He 
has deduced the executive as a particular, separated power only by 
looking at the “particular interests of civil society” as such, which 
“lie outside the intrinsically and explicitly general character of the 
state”. 

“Just as civil society is the battlefield of the individual private interests of all 
against all, so here the struggle of private interests against particular common 
concerns and of both these together against the superior viewpoints and edicts of 
the state has its seat. At the same time the corporation spirit, generated by the 
vested rights of the particular spheres, is itself inwardly transformed into the spirit 
of the state, on finding in the state the means for the support of particular aims. It 
is the secret of the patriotism of the citizens in this respect, that they know the state 
to be their substance, because it is the state which backs their particular spheres, 
both their rights and authority, and their welfare. The corporation spirit, since it 
directly comprises the rooting of the particular in the general, therefore constitutes the 
depth and strength which the state possesses in the citizens’ frame of mind.” 

The above is remarkable 

1) On account of the definition of civil society as bellum omnium 
contra omnes; 

2) Because private egoism is revealed as the “secret of the patriotism 
of the citizens” and as the “depth and strength which the state 
possesses in the citizens’ frame of mind”; 

3) Because the “citizen”, the man of the particular interest as 
opposed to the general, the member of civil society, is looked 
upon as a “fixed individual”, whereas the state also confronts the 
“citizens” in “fixed individuals”. 

Hegel, one would have thought, should have defined “civil 
society” as well as the “family” as an attribute of every individual 
member of the state, and therefore the subsequent “political 
qualities” too as attributes of the individual member of the state as 
such. But [with Hegel] it is not the self-identical individual who 
unfolds new attributes out of his social essence. It is the essence of 
the will which allegedly brings forth its attributes out of itself. The 
extant, various and disparate, empirical forms of existence of the 
state are looked upon as direct incarnations of one or other of 
these attributes. 

The general as such being given an independent existence, it is 
directly confounded with the empirical form of existence, and the 
limited straightway accepted uncritically as the expression of the 
idea. 

Hegel falls into self-contradiction here only inasmuch as he does 
not regard the “family man”, like the citizen, as a fixed breed 
denied those other qualities. 

290. “Division of labour [...] also occurs in the business of the government. The 
organisation of administrative bodies has this formal but difficult task insofar as 
below, where civil life is concrete, it must be governed concretely, while the business 
of the executive is nevertheless divided into its abstract branches, administered by 
special departments as distinct centres whose activities merge below, as well as at 
the top, in the supreme government authority, in a concrete survey.” 

The Addition to this paragraph is to be considered later. 

291. Government business is by nature objective and determined, explicitly and 
in substance, by decisions already taken (para. 287), and has to be carried through 
and realised by individuals. Between it and these individuals there is no immediate 
natural link. The individuals are therefore not destined for office by virtue of their 
birth or natural personality. The objective factor in their appointment is knowledge 
and proof of ability. Such proof guarantees that the state gets what it requires, and 
since it is the sole condition of appointment, it also guarantees to every citizen the 
opportunity to devote himself to the general estate.” 

292. “Since the objective element in appointing to office in the administration is 
not genius (as in art, for example), selection is of necessity from an indefinite 
plurality of individuals whose relative merits cannot be positively ascertained, and is 
therefore subjective. The selection of a particular individual for a post, his appoint- 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 43 

ment, and his authorisation to conduct public business, this linking of the individu- 
al to the office, whose relation one to the other must always be fortuitous, is the 
prerogative of the monarch as the deciding and sovereign power in the state.” 

293. “The particular affairs of state which monarchy devolves to departments 
of state constitute one part of the objective aspect of the sovereignty dwelling in the 
monarch. Their specific differentiation is also given by the nature of the subject- 
matter. And whilst the activity of the departments is the fulfilment of a duty, their 
business is also a right relieved of contingency.” 

The only thing to note is the “objective aspect of the sovereignty 
dwelling in the monarch”. 

294. “The individual who is appointed by sovereign act (para. 292) to an 
official position has to fulfil the duties—the substantial feature — of his post as the 
condition of his appointment, where as a consequence of this substantial relationship 
he finds means and the assured satisfaction of his particularity (para. 264), and is 
freed in his external circumstances and his official activity from other kinds of 
subjective dependence and influence.” 

“The service of the state [...] requires,” the Remark says, “the renunciation of 
independent and arbitrary satisfaction of subjective aims; and at the same time 
offers the right to find satisfaction in, but only in, the discharge of one’s duties. In 
this fact, so far as this aspect is concerned, there lies the link between the general 
and the particular interests which constitutes both the concept of the state and its 
inner stability (para. 260).” “The assurance of satisfaction of particular needs 
removes the external pressure which may induce a man to seek means for their 
satisfaction at the expense of his work and his duty as an official. In the general 
power of the state, those entrusted with its affairs find protection against that other 
subjective aspect, the private passions of the governed, whose private interests, etc., 
suffer as the general interest is made to prevail against them.” 

295. “The security of the state and of the governed against the abuse of power 
by government departments and their officials lies, on the one hand, directly in 
their hierarchical structure and accountability and, on the other hand, in the rights 
vested in local authorities and corporations. This prevents the intrusion of 
subjective arbitrariness into the power entrusted to a civil servant, and supplements 
from below the control from above which does not reach down to the conduct of 
individuals.” 

296. “But the fact that behaviour marked by dispassionateness, uprightness and 
kindness becomes customary [among civil servants] is partly connected with direct 
moral and intellectual education, which provides a spiritual counterpoise to whatever 
there is of the mechanical and suchlike in the learning of the so-called sciences 
related to their spheres of work, in the requisite professional training, in the actual 
work itself, etc.; in part the size of the state is also an important factor, weakening 
the pressure of family and other personal ties, and making less potent and less 
keen such passions as hatred, revenge, etc. In preoccupation with the large 
interests present in a great state these subjective features disappear of themselves, 
and habituation to general interests, points of view, and concerns is produced.” 

297. “The members of the government and the civil servants constitute the 
major part of the middle estate, in which is concentrated the developed intelligence 
of the mass of a people and its consciousness of what is lawful. That this section 
should not assume the isolated position of an aristocracy or use education and 
ability as a means to arbitrary domination, depends on the institutions of 
sovereignty working from above and on the corporate institutions’ rights 
exercised from below.” 

3¢ 

44 Kar] Marx 

“Addition: In the middle estate, to which civil servants belong, there is 
consciousness of the state and the most pronounced degree of education. This 
estate therefore constitutes the pillar of the state in terms of uprightness and 
intelligence.” “The education of this middle estate is a principal interest of the 
state, but this can only occur in an organic structure such as we have been 
considering, namely, as a result of the rights vested in particular, relatively 
independent circles, and through a world of officials whose arbitrariness is 
checked by those who possess such rights. Action in accordance with general law, 
and habituation to such action, is a consequence of the antithesis constituted by 
these independent circles.” 

What Hegel says about the “executive” does not deserve to be 
called a philosophical exposition. Most of the paragraphs could 
stand word for word in the Prussian Common Law.’ And yet, the 
administration proper is the most difficult point of all in the 
exposition. 

As Hegel has already assigned the “police” and the “judiciary” 
to the sphere of civil society, the executive is nothing more than the 
administration, which he expounds as bureaucracy. 

The bureaucracy presupposes, firstly, the “self-government” of 
civil society in “corporations”. The only stipulation added is that the 
selection of administrators, officials, etc., for these corporations is 
a mixed responsibility, initiated by the citizens and ratified by the 
executive proper (“ratification by a higher authority”, as Hegel 
puts it). 

Over this sphere, for the “maintenance of the general state 
interest and of legality”, stand “representatives of the executive”, 
the “executive civil servants” and the “collegiate bodies”, which 
converge in the “monarch”. 

“Division of labour” takes place in the “business of the govern- 
ment”. Individuals must prove their suitability for government 
service —i.e., pass examinations. The choice of specific individuals 
for public office is the prerogative of*the monarchical state 
authority. The division of state business is “given by the nature of 
the subject-matter”. The responsibility of office is the duty of civil 
servants and their life’s vocation. They must therefore receive 
salaries from the state. The guarantee against the abuse of 
bureaucratic power is partly the hierarchical structure and account- 
ability of the bureaucracy, and on the other hand the rights which 
communities and corporations possess. The humanity of the 
bureaucracy depends partly on the “direct moral and intellectual 
education”, partly on the “size of the state”. Officials form the 
“major part of the middle estate”. Against their becoming an 
“aristocracy and arbitrary domination” protection is provided, 
partly by “the institutions of sovereignty working from above”, 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegei’s Philosophy of Law 45 

and partly by “the corporate institutions’ rights exercised from 
below”. The “middle estate” is the estate of “education”. Voila 
tout. Hegel gives us an empirical description of the bureaucracy, 
partly as it is in actual fact, and partly as it is on its own 
estimation. And with this the difficult chapter on the “executive” 
is done with. 

Hegel proceeds from the separation of the “state” and “civil” 
society, from “particular interests” and the “intrinsically and 
explicitly general”; and indeed bureaucracy is based on this 
separation. Hegel proceeds from the presupposition of the “corpo- 
rations”, and indeed the bureaucracy does presuppose the corpora- 
tions, or at least the “spirit of the corporations”. Hegel expounds 
no content for the bureaucracy, but only some general features of 
its “formal” organisation; and indeed the bureaucracy is only the 
“formalism” of a content which lies outside itself. 

The corporations are the materialism of the bureaucracy, and the 
bureaucracy is the spiritualism of the corporations. The corpora- 
tion is the bureaucracy of civil society; the bureaucracy is the 
corporation of the state. In actual fact, therefore, bureaucracy as 
the “civil society of the state” confronts the “state of civil society”, 
the corporations. Wherever the “bureaucracy” is a new principle, 
wherever the general state interest begins to become something 
“distinctive and separate” and thus a “real” interest, the bureau- 
cracy fights against the corporations, as every consequence fights 
against the existence of its premises. On the other hand, once the 
state actually comes to life and civil society frees itself from the 
corporations by its own rational impulse, the bureaucracy tries to 
restore them. For with the fall of the “state of civil society” goes 
the fall of the “civil society of the state”. The spiritualism 
disappears along with the materialism which opposes it. The conse- 
quence fights for the existence of its premises as soon as a new 
principle challenges not their existence, but the principle of their 
existence. The same spirit which creates the corporation in society 
creates the bureaucracy in the state. Hence, the attack on the spirit 
of the corporations is an attack on the spirit of the bureau- 
cracy; and if earlier the bureaucracy combated the existence 
of the corporations in order to make room for its own existence, 
so now it tries forcibly to keep them in existence in order 
to preserve the spirit of the corporations, which is its own 
spirit. 

The “bureaucracy” is the “state formalism” of civil society. It is 
the “state consciousness”, the “state will”, the “state power”, as 
one corporation—and thus a: particular, closed society within the 

state. (The “general interest” can maintain itself against the 
particular as “something particular” only so long as the particular 
maintains itself against the general as “something general”. The 
bureaucracy must therefore protect the imaginary generality of the 
particular interest, the spirit of the corporations, in order to 
protect the imaginary particularity of the general interest — its own 
spirit. The state has to be a corporation so long as the corporation 
wants to be a state.) The bureaucracy wants the corporation, 
however, as an imaginary power. To be sure, the individual 
corporation, too, on behalf of its particular interest, has the same 
wish as regards the bureaucracy, but it wants the bureaucracy 
against other corporations, against other particular interests. The 
bureaucracy as the perfect corporation is therefore victorious over 
the corporation as the imperfect bureaucracy. The bureaucracy 
reduces the corporation to an appearance, or wants to do so, but it 
wants this appearance to exist, and to believe in its own existence. 
The corporation is the attempt of civil society to become the state; 
but the bureaucracy is the state which has actually turned itself 
into civil society. 

The “state formalism” which bureaucracy is, is the “state as 
formalism”; and it is as a formalism of this kind that Hegel has 
described bureaucracy. Since this “state formalism” constitutes 
itself as an actual power and itself becomes its own material 
content, it goes without saying that the “bureaucracy” is a web of 
practical illusions, or the “illusion of the state”. The bureaucratic 
spirit is a jesuitical, theological spirit through and through. The 
bureaucrats are the jesuits and theologians of the state. The 
bureaucracy is la république prétre. 

Since by its very nature the bureaucracy is the “state as formal- 
ism”, it is this also as regards its purpose. The actual purpose of the 
state therefore appears to the bureaucracy as an objective hostile to 
the state. The spirit of the bureaucracy is the “formal state spirit”. 
The bureaucracy therefore turns the “formal state spirit” or the 
actual spiritlessness of the state into a categorical imperative. The 
bureaucracy takes itself to be the ultimate purpose of the state. 
Because the bureaucracy turns its “formal” objectives into its 
content, it comes into conflict everywhere with “real” objectives. It 
is therefore obliged to pass off the form for the content and the 
content for the form. State objectives are transformed into 
objectives of the department, and department objectives into 
objectives of the state. The bureaucracy is a circle from which no 
one can escape. Its hierarchy is a hierarchy of knowledge. The top 
entrusts the understanding of detail to the lower levels, whilst the 

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law 47 

lower levels credit the top with understanding of the general, and 
so all are mutually deceived. 

The bureaucracy is the imaginary state alongside the real 
state—the spiritualism of the state. Each thing has therefore a 
double meaning, a real and a bureaucratic meaning, just as 
knowledge (and also the will) is both real and bureaucratic. The 
really existing, however, is treated in the light of its bureaucratic 
nature, its other-worldly, spiritual essence. The bureaucracy has 
the state, the spiritual essence of society, in its possession, as its 
private property. The general spirit of the bureaucracy is the secret, 
the mystery, preserved within itself by the hierarchy and against 
the outside world by being a closed corporation. Avowed political 
spirit, as also political-mindedness, therefore appear to the 
bureaucracy as treason against its mystery. Hence, authority is the 
basis of its knowledge, and the deification of authority is its 
conviction. Within the bureaucracy itself, however, . spiritualism 
becomes crass materialism, the materialism of passive obedience, of 
faith in authority, of the mechanism of fixed and formalistic 
behaviour, and of fixed principles, views and traditions. In the 
case of the individual bureaucrat, the state objective turns into his 
private objective, into a chasing after higher posts, the making of a 
career. In the first place, he looks on actual life as something 
material, for the spirit of this life has its distinctly separate existence in 
the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy must therefore proceed to 
make life as material as possible. Secondly, actual life is material 
for the bureaucrat himself, i.e., so far as it becomes an object of 
bureaucratic manipulation; for his spirit is prescribed for him, his 
aim lies beyond him, and his existence is the existence of the 
department. The state only continues to exist as various fixed 
bureaucratic minds, bound together in subordination and passive 
obedience. Actual knowledge seems devoid of content, just as 
actual life seems dead; for this imaginary knowledge and this 
imaginary life are taken for the real thing. The bureaucrat must 
therefore deal with the actual state jesuitically, whether this 
jesuitry is conscious or unconscious. However, once its antithesis 
is knowledge, this jesuitry is likewise bound to achieve self- 
consciousness and then become deliberate jesuitry. 

Whilst the bureaucracy is on the one hand this crass material- 
ism, it manifests its crass spiritualism in the fact that it wants to do 
everything, i.e., by making the will the causa prima. For it is purely