Thus much is certain. It is only when a third character, as previously
suggested, has preponderance that a revolution in a state according to
moral principles can be free from injurious consequences; nor can
anything else secure its endurance. In proposing or setting up a moral
state, the moral law is relied upon as a real power, and free will is
drawn into the realm of causes, where all hangs together mutually with
stringent necessity and rigidity. But we know that the condition of the
human will always remains contingent, and that only in the Absolute
Being physical coexists with moral necessity. Accordingly, if it is
wished to depend on the moral conduct of man as on _natural_ results,
this conduct must _become_ nature, and he must be led by natural impulse
to such a course of action as can only and invariably have moral
results. But the will of man is perfectly free between inclination and
duty, and no physical necessity ought to enter as a sharer in this
magisterial personality. If, therefore, he is to retain this power of
solution, and yet become a reliable link in the causal concatenation of
forces, this can only be effected when the operations of both these
impulses are presented quite equally in the world of appearances. It is
only possible when, with every difference of form, the matter of man’s
volition remains the same, when all his impulses agreeing with his
reason are sufficient to have the value of a universal legislation.
It may be urged that every individual man carries within himself, at
least in his adaptation and destination, a purely ideal man. The great
problem of his existence is to bring all the incessant changes of his
outer life into conformity with the unchanging unity of this ideal. This
pure ideal man, which makes itself known more or less clearly in every
subject, is represented by the state, which is the objective, and, so to
speak, canonical form in which the manifold differences of the subjects
strive to unite. Now two ways present themselves to the thought in which
the man of time can agree with the man of idea, and there are also two
ways in which the state can maintain itself in individuals. One of these
ways is when the pure ideal man subdues the empirical man, and the state
suppresses the individual, or again when the individual _becomes_ the
state, and the man of time is _ennobled_ to the man of _idea_.
I admit that in a one-sided estimate from the point of view of morality
this difference vanishes, for the reason is satisfied if her law
prevails unconditionally. But when the survey taken is complete and
embraces the whole man (anthropology), where the form is considered
together with the substance, and a living feeling has a voice, the
difference will become far more evident. No doubt the reason demands
unity, and nature variety, and both legislations take man in hand. The
law of the former is stamped upon him by an incorruptible consciousness,
that of the latter by an ineradicable feeling. Consequently education
will always appear deficient when the moral feeling can only be
maintained with the sacrifice of what is natural; and a political
administration will always be very imperfect when it is only able to
bring about unity by suppressing variety. The state ought not only to
respect the objective and generic, but also the subjective and specific
in individuals; and while diffusing the unseen world of morals, it must
not depopulate the kingdom of appearance, the external world of matter.
When the mechanical artist places his hand on the formless block, to
give it a form according to his intention, he has not any scruples in
doing violence to it. For the nature on which he works does not deserve
any respect in itself, and he does not value the whole for its parts,
but the parts on account of the whole. When the child of the fine arts
sets his hand to the same block, he has no scruples either in doing
violence to it, he only avoids showing this violence. He does not
respect the matter in which he works any more than the mechanical
artist; but he seeks by an apparent consideration for it to deceive the
eye which takes this matter under its protection. The political and
educating artist follows a very different course, while making man at
once his material and his end. In this case the aim or end meets in the
material, and it is only because the whole serves the parts that the
parts adapt themselves to the end. The political artist has to treat his
material—man—with a very different kind of respect than that shown by
the artist of fine art to his work. He must spare man’s peculiarity and
personality, not to produce a defective effect on the senses, but
objectively and out of consideration for his inner being.
But the state is an organization which fashions itself through itself
and for itself, and for this reason it can only be realized when the
parts have been accorded to the idea of the whole. The state serves the
purpose of a representative, both to pure ideal and to objective
humanity, in the breast of its citizens, accordingly it will have to
observe the same relation to its citizens in which they are placed to
it; and it will only respect their subjective humanity in the same
degree that it is ennobled to an objective existence. If the internal
man is one with himself he will be able to rescue his peculiarity, even
in the greatest generalization of his conduct, and the state will only
become the exponent of his fine instinct, the clearer formula of his
internal legislation. But if the subjective man is in conflict with the
objective, and contradicts him in the character of a people, so that
only the oppression of the former can give victory to the latter, then
the state will take up the severe aspect of the law against the citizen,
and in order not to fall a sacrifice, it will have to crush under foot
such a hostile individuality without any compromise.
Now man can be opposed to himself in a twofold manner; either as a
savage, when his feelings rule over his principles; or as a barbarian,
when his principles destroy his feelings. The savage despises art, and
acknowledges nature as his despotic ruler; the barbarian laughs at
nature, and dishonors it, but he often proceeds in a more contemptible
way than the savage to be the slave of his senses. The cultivated man
makes of nature his friend, and honors its friendship, while only
bridling its caprice.
Consequently, when reason brings her moral unity into physical society,
she must not injure the manifold in nature. When nature strives to
maintain her manifold character in the moral structure of society, this
must not create any breach in moral unity; the victorious form is
equally remote from uniformity and confusion. Therefore, _totality_ of
character must be found in the people which is capable and worthy to
exchange the state of necessity for that of freedom.