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 from that shown
by the artist of fine art to his work. He must spare man's
peculiarity and personality, not to produce a deceptive effect on
the senses, but objectively and out of consideration for his inner
being.
But the state is an organisation which fashions itself through
itself and for itself, and for this reason it can only be realised
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 generalisation 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 the people, so that only the oppression of the former
can give the 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 dishonours 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 honours
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.