Section 270
Original German
270 Daß der Zweck des Staates das allgemeine Interesse als solches und darin als ihrer Substanz die Erhaltung der besonderen Interessen ist, ist seine 1) abstracte Wirklichkeit oder Substantialität; aber sie ist 2) seine Nothwendigkeit, als sie sich in die Begriffs-Unterschiede seiner Wirksamkeit dirimirt, welche durch jene Substantialität eben so wirkliche feste Bestimmungen, Gewalten, sind; 3) eben diese Substantialität ist aber der als durch die Form der Bildung hindurch gegangene sich wissende und wollende Geist. Der Staat weiß daher, was er will, und weiß es in seiner Allgemeinheit, als Gedachtes; er wirkt und handelt deswegen nach gewußten Zwecken, gekannten Grundsätzen, und nach Gesetzen, die es nicht nur an sich, sondern für's Bewußtseyn sind; und eben so, insofern seine Handlungen sich auf vorhandene Umstände und Verhältnisse beziehen, nach der bestimmten Kenntniß derselben.
Es ist hier der Ort, das Verhältniß des Staats zur Religion zu berühren, da in neuern Zeiten so oft wiederholt worden ist, daß die Religion die Grundlage des Staates sey, und da diese Behauptung auch mit der Prätension gemacht wird, als ob mit ihr die Wissenschaft des Staats erschöpft sey, — und keine Behauptung mehr geeignet ist, so viele Verwirrung hervorzubringen, ja die Verwirrung selbst zur Verfassung des Staats, zur Form, welche die Erkenntniß haben solle, zu erheben. — Es kann zunächst verdächtig scheinen, daß die Religion vornemlich auch für die Zeiten öffentlichen Elends, der Zerrüttung und Unterdrückung empfohlen und gesucht, und an sie für Trost gegen das Unrecht und für Hoffnung zum Ersatz des Verlustes gewiesen wird. Wenn es dann ferner als eine Anweisung der Religion angesehen wird, gegen die weltlichen Interessen, den Gang und die Geschäfte der Wirklichkeit gleichgültig zu seyn, der Staat aber der Geist ist, der in der Welt steht: so scheint die Hinweisung auf die Religion entweder nicht geeignet, das Interesse und Geschäft des Staats zum wesentlichen ernstlichen Zweck zu erheben, oder scheint andererseits im Staatsregiment Alles für Sache gleichgültiger Willkühr auszugeben, es sey, daß nur die Sprache geführt werde, als ob im Staate die Zwecke der Leidenschaften, unrechtlicher Gewalt u. s. f. das Herrschende wären, oder daß solches Hinweisen auf die Religion weiter für sich allein gelten, und das Bestimmen und Handhaben des Rechten in Anspruch nehmen will. Wie es für Hohn angesehen würde, wenn alle Empfindung gegen die Tyranney damit abgewiesen würde, daß der Unterdrückte seinen Trost in der Religion finde: so ist eben so nicht zu vergessen, daß die Religion eine Form annehmen kann, welche die härteste Knechtschaft unter den Fesseln des Aberglaubens und die Degradation des Menschen unter das Thier (wie bey den Aegyptiern und Indiern, welche Thiere als ihre höhere Wesen verehren) zur Folge hat. Diese Erscheinung kann wenigstens darauf aufmerksam machen, daß nicht von der Religion ganz überhaupt zu sprechen sey, und gegen sie, wie sie in gewissen Gestalten ist, vielmehr eine rettende Macht gefodert ist, die sich der Rechte der Vernunft und des Selbstbewußtseyns annehme. — Die wesentliche Bestimmung aber über das Verhältniß von Religion und Staat ergibt sich nur, indem an ihren Begriff erinnert wird. Die Religion hat die absolute Wahrheit zu ihrem Inhalt, und damit fällt auch das Höchste der Gesinnung in sie. Als Anschauung, Gefühl, vorstellende Erkenntniß, die sich mit Gott, als der uneingeschränkten Grundlage und Ursache, an der Alles hängt, beschäftigt, enthält sie die Foderung, daß alles auch in dieser Beziehung gefaßt werde, und in ihr seine Bestätigung, Rechtfertigung, Vergewisserung erlange. Staat und Gesetze, wie die Pflichten, erhalten in diesem Verhältniß für das Bewußtseyn die höchste Bewährung und die höchste Verbindlichkeit; denn selbst Staat, Gesetze und Pflichten sind in ihrer Wirklichkeit ein Bestimmtes, das in eine höhere Sphäre als in seine Grundlage übergeht. (Encyklop. der philos. Wissensch. §. 453.) Deswegen enthält die Religion auch den Ort, der in aller Veränderung und in dem Verlust wirklicher Zwecke, Interessen und Besitzthümer, das Bewußtseyn des Unwandelbaren und der höchsten Freyheit und Befriedigung gewährt. Wenn nun die Religion so die Grundlage ausmacht, welche das Sittliche überhaupt und näher die Natur des Staats als den göttlichen Willen enthält, so ist es zugleich nur Grundlage, was sie ist, und hier ist es, worin beyde auseinander gehen. Der Staat ist göttlicher Wille, als gegenwärtiger, sich zur wirklichen Gestalt und Organisation einer Welt entfaltender Geist. — Diejenigen, die bey der Form der Religion gegen den Staat stehen bleiben wollen, verhalten sich wie die, welche in der Erkenntniß das Rechte zu haben meynen, wenn sie nur immer beym Wesen bleiben und von diesem Abstractum nicht zum Daseyn fortgehen, oder wie die (s. oben §. 140. Anm.) welche nur das abstracte Gute wollen, und der Willkühr das, was gut ist, zu bestimmen vorbehalten. Die Religion ist das Verhältniß zum Absoluten in Form des Gefühls, der Vorstellung, des Glaubens, und in ihrem Alles enthaltenden Centrum ist Alles nur als ein Accidentelles, auch Verschwindendes. Wird an dieser Form auch in Beziehung auf den Staat so festgehalten, daß sie auch für ihn das wesentlich Bestimmende und Gültige sey, so ist er, als der zu bestehenden Unterschieden, Gesetzen und Einrichtungen entwickelte Organismus, dem Schwanken, der Unsicherheit und Zerrüttung Preis gegeben. Das Objective und Allgemeine, die Gesetze, anstatt als bestehend und gültig bestimmt zu seyn, erhalten die Bestimmung eines Negativen gegen jene alles Bestimmte einhüllende und eben damit zum Subjectiven werdende Form, und für das Betragen der Menschen ergibt sich die Folge: dem Gerechten ist kein Gesetz gegeben, seyd fromm, so könnt ihr sonst treiben, was ihr wollt, — ihr könnt der eigenen Willkühr und Leidenschaft euch überlassen und die Anderen, die Unrecht dadurch erleiden, an den Trost und die Hoffnung der Religion verweisen, oder noch schlimmer, sie als irreligiös verwerfen und verdammen. Insofern aber diß negative Verhalten nicht bloß eine innere Gesinnung und Ansicht bleibt, sondern sich an die Wirklichkeit wendet und in ihr sich geltend macht, entsteht der religiöse Fanatismus, der, wie der politische, alle Staatseinrichtung und gesetzliche Ordnung als beengende der innern, der Unendlichkeit des Gemüths unangemessene Schranken, und somit Privateigenthum, Ehe, die Verhältnisse und Arbeiten der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft u. s. f. als der Liebe und der Freyheit des Gefühls unwürdig verbannt. Da für wirkliches Daseyn und Handeln jedoch entschieden werden muß, so tritt dasselbe ein, wie bey der sich als das Absolute wissenden Subjectivität des Willens überhaupt (§. 140.) daß aus der subjectiven Vorstellung, d. i. dem Meynen und dem Belieben der Willkühr entschieden wird. — Das Wahre aber gegen dieses in die Subjectivität des Fühlens und Vorstellens sich einhüllende Wahre ist der ungeheure Ueberschritt des Innern in das Aeußere, der Einbildung der Vernunft in die Realität, woran die ganze Weltgeschichte gearbeitet, und durch welche Arbeit die gebildete Menschheit die Wirklichkeit und das Bewußtseyn des vernünftigen Daseyns, der Staatseinrichtungen und der Gesetze gewonnen hat. Von denen, die den Herrn suchen, und in ihrer ungebildeten Meynung alles unmittelbar zu haben sich versichern, statt sich die Arbeit aufzulegen, ihre Subjectivität zur Erkenntniß der Wahrheit und zum Wissen des objectiven Rechts und der Pflicht zu erheben, kann nur Zertrümmerung aller sittlichen Verhältnisse, Albernheit und Abscheulichkeit ausgehen, — nothwendige Consequenzen der auf ihrer Form ausschließend bestehenden und sich so gegen die Wirklichkeit und die in Form des Allgemeinen, der Gesetze, vorhandene Wahrheit wendenden Gesinnung der Religion. Doch ist nicht nothwendig, daß diese Gesinnung so zur Verwirklichung fortgehe, sie kann mit ihrem negativen Standpunkt allerdings auch als ein Inneres bleiben, sich den Einrichtungen und Gesetzen fügen und es bey der Ergebung und dem Seufzen oder dem Verachten und Wünschen bewenden lassen. Es ist nicht die Kraft, sondern die Schwäche, welche in unsern Zeiten die Religiosität zu einer polemischen Art von Frömmigkeit gemacht hat, sie hänge nun mit einem wahren Bedürfniß, oder auch bloß mit nicht befriedigter Eitelkeit zusammen. Statt sein Meynen mit der Arbeit des Studiums zu bezwingen und sein Wollen der Zucht zu unterwerfen und es dadurch zum freyen Gehorsam zu erheben, ist es das wohlfeilste, auf die Erkenntniß objectiver Wahrheit Verzicht zu thun, ein Gefühl der Gedrücktheit und damit den Eigendünkel zu bewahren, und an der Gottseeligkeit bereits alle Erforderniß zu haben, um die Natur der Gesetze und der Staatseinrichtungen zu durchschauen, über sie abzusprechen und wie sie beschaffen seyn sollten und müßten anzugeben, und zwar, weil solches aus einem frommen Herzen komme, auf eine unfehlbare und unantastbare Weise; denn dadurch, daß Absichten und Behauptungen die Religion zur Grundlage machen, könne man ihnen weder nach ihrer Seichtigkeit, noch nach ihrer Unrechtlichkeit etwas anhaben.
Die Religion hat, wie die Erkenntniß und Wissenschaft, eine eigenthümliche von der des Staates verschiedene Form zu ihrem Prinzip; sie treten daher in den Staat ein, theils im Verhältniß von Mitteln der Bildung und Gesinnung, theils, insofern sie wesentlich Selbstzwecke sind, nach der Seite, daß sie äusserliches Daseyn haben. In beyden Rücksichten verhalten sich die Principien des Staates anwendend auf sie; in einer vollständig concreten Abhandlung vom Staate müssen jene Sphären, so wie die Kunst, die bloß natürlichen Verhältnisse, u. s. f. gleichfalls in der Beziehung und Stellung, die sie im Staate haben, betrachtet werden; aber hier in dieser Abhandlung, wo es das Prinzip des Staats ist, das in seiner eigenthümlichen Sphäre nach seiner Idee durchgeführt wird, kann von ihren Prinzipien und der Anwendung des Rechts des Staats auf sie nur beyläufig gesprochen werden.
Insofern aber die Religion, wenn sie wahrhafter Art ist, ohne solche negative und polemische Richtung gegen den Staat ist, ihn vielmehr anerkennt und bestätigt, so hat sie ferner für sich ihren Zustand und ihre Aeußerung. Das Geschäft ihres Cultus besteht in Handlungen und Lehre; sie bedarf dazu Besitzthümer und Eigenthums, so wie dem Dienste der Gemeinde gewidmeter Individuen. Es entsteht damit ein Verhältniß von Staat und Kirchengemeinde. Die Bestimmung dieses Verhältnisses ist einfach. Es ist in der Natur der Sache, daß der Staat eine Pflicht erfüllt, der Gemeine für ihren religiösen Zweck allen Vorschub zu thun und Schutz zu gewähren, ja, indem die Religion das ihn für das Tiefste der Gesinnung integrirende Moment ist, von allen seinen Angehörigen zu fordern, daß sie sich zu einer Kirchen-Gemeinde halten, — übrigens zu irgend einer, denn auf den Inhalt, insofern er sich auf das Innere der Vorstellung bezieht, kann sich der Staat nicht einlassen. Der in seiner Organisation ausgebildete und darum starke Staat kann sich hierin desto liberaler verhalten, Einzelnheiten, die ihn berührten, ganz übersehen, und selbst Gemeinden (wobey es freylich auf die Anzahl ankommt) in sich aushalten, welche selbst die directen Pflichten gegen ihn religiös nicht anerkennen, indem er nämlich die Mitglieder derselben der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft unter deren Gesetzen überläßt und mit passiver, etwa durch Verwandlung und Tausch vermittelter, Erfüllung der direkten Pflichten gegen ihn zufrieden ist. — Insofern aber die kirchliche Gemeinde Eigenthum besitzt, sonstige Handlungen des Cultus ausübt, und Individuen dafür im Dienste hat, tritt sie aus dem Innern in das Weltliche und damit in das Gebiet des Staats herüber und stellt sich dadurch unmittelbar unter seine Gesetze. Der Eid, das Sittliche überhaupt, wie das Verhältniß der Ehe führen zwar die innere Durchdringung und die Erhebung der Gesinnung mit sich, welche durch die Religion ihre tiefste Vergewisserung erhält; indem die sittlichen Verhältnisse wesentlich Verhältnisse der wirklichen Vernünftigkeit sind, so sind es die Rechte dieser, welche darin zuerst zu behaupten sind, und zu welchen die kirchliche Vergewisserung als die nur innere, abstractere Seite hinzutritt. — In Ansehung weiterer Aeußerungen, die von der kirchlichen Vereinigung ausgehen, so ist bey der Lehre das Innere gegen das Aeußere das überwiegendere als bey den Handlungen des Cultus und andern damit zusammenhängenden Benehmungen, wo die rechtliche Seite wenigstens sogleich für sich als Sache des Staats erscheint; (wohl haben sich Kirchen auch die Exemtion ihrer Diener und ihres Eigenthums von der Macht und Gerichtsbarkeit des Staates, sogar die Gerichtsbarkeit über weltliche Personen in Gegenständen, bey denen wie Ehescheidungssachen, Eidesangelegenheiten u. s. f. die Religion concurrirt, genommen). — Die polizeyliche Seite in Rücksicht solcher Handlungen ist freylich unbestimmter, aber diß liegt in der Natur dieser Seite eben so auch gegen andere ganz bürgerliche Handlungen (s. oben §. 234.). Insofern die religiöse Gemeinschaftlichkeit von Individuen sich zu einer Gemeinde, einer Corporation erhebt, steht sie überhaupt unter der oberpolizeylichen Oberaufsicht des Staats. — Die Lehre selbst aber hat ihr Gebiet in dem Gewissen, stehet in dem Rechte der subjectiven Freyheit des Selbstbewußtseyns, — der Sphäre der Innerlichkeit, die als solche nicht das Gebiet des Staates ausmacht. Jedoch hat auch der Staat eine Lehre, da seine Einrichtungen und das ihm Geltende überhaupt über das Rechtliche, Verfassung u. s. f. wesentlich in der Form des Gedankens als Gesetz ist, und indem er kein Mechanismus, sondern das vernünftige Leben der selbstbewußten Freyheit, das System der sittlichen Welt ist, so ist die Gesinnung, sodann das Bewußtseyn derselben in Grundsätzen ein wesentliches Moment im wirklichen Staate. Hinwiederum ist die Lehre der Kirche nicht bloß ein Inneres des Gewissens, sondern als Lehre vielmehr Aeusserung, und Aeußerung zugleich über einen Inhalt, der mit den sittlichen Grundsätzen und Staats-Gesetzen aufs innigste zusammenhängt oder sie unmittelbar selbst betrifft. Staat und Kirche treffen also hier direct zusammen oder gegen einander. Die Verschiedenheit beyder Gebiete kann von der Kirche zu dem schroffen Gegensatz getrieben werden, daß sie als den absoluten Inhalt der Religion in sich enthaltend, das Geistige überhaupt und damit auch das sittliche Element als ihren Theil betrachtet, den Staat aber als ein mechanisches Gerüste für die ungeistigen äußerlichen Zwecke, sich als das Reich Gottes oder wenigstens als den Weg und Vorplatz dazu, den Staat aber als das Reich der Welt, d. i. des Vergänglichen und Endlichen, sich damit als den Selbstzweck, den Staat aber nur als bloßes Mittel begreift. Mit dieser Prätension verbindet sich dann in Ansehung des Lehrens die Foderung, daß der Staat die Kirche darin nicht nur mit vollkommener Freyheit gewähren lasse, sondern unbedingten Respect vor ihrem Lehren, wie es auch beschaffen seyn möge, denn diese Bestimmung komme nur ihr zu, als Lehren habe. Wie die Kirche zu dieser Prätension aus dem ausgedehnten Grunde, daß das geistige Element überhaupt ihr Eigenthum sey, kommt, die Wissenschaft und Erkenntniß überhaupt aber gleichfalls in diesem Gebiete steht, für sich wie eine Kirche sich zur Totalität von eigenthümlichem Prinzipe ausbildet, welche sich auch als an die Stelle der Kirche selbst noch mit größerer Berechtigung tretend betrachten kann, so wird dann für die Wissenschaft dieselbe Unabhängigkeit vom Staate, der nur als ein Mittel für sie als einen Selbstzweck zu sorgen habe, verlangt. — Es ist für dieses Verhältniß übrigens gleichgültig, ob die dem Dienste der Gemeinde sich widmenden Individuen und Vorsteher es etwa zu einer vom Staate ausgeschiedenen Existenz getrieben haben, so daß nur die übrigen Mitglieder dem Staate unterworfen sind, oder sonst im Staate stehen und ihre kirchliche Bestimmung nur eine Seite ihres Standes sey, welche sie gegen den Staat getrennt halten. Zunächst ist zu bemerken, daß ein solches Verhältniß mit der Vorstellung vom Staat zusammen hängt, nach welcher er seine Bestimmung nur hat im Schutz und Sicherheit des Lebens, Eigenthums und der Willkühr eines Jeden, insofern sie das Leben und Eigenthum und die Willkühr der andern nicht verletzt, und der Staat so nur als eine Veranstaltung der Noth betrachtet wird. Das Element des höheren Geistigen, des an und für sich Wahren, ist auf diese Weise als subjective Religiosität oder als theoretische Wissenschaft jenseits des Staates gestellt, der als der Laye an und für sich, nur zu respectiren habe, und das eigentliche Sittliche fällt so bey ihm ganz aus. Daß es nun geschichtlich Zeiten und Zustände von Barbarey gegeben, wo Alles höhere Geistige in der Kirche seinen Sitz hatte, und der Staat nur ein weltliches Regiment der Gewaltthätigkeit, der Willkühr und Leidenschaft, und jener abstracte Gegensatz das Hauptprinzip der Wirklichkeit war, (s. §. 358.) gehört in die Geschichte. Aber es ist ein zu blindes und seichtes Verfahren, diese Stellung als die wahrhaft der Idee gemäße anzugeben. Die Entwickelung dieser Idee hat vielmehr diß als die Wahrheit erwiesen, daß der Geist als frey und vernünftig, an sich sittlich ist, und die wahrhafte Idee die wirkliche Vernünftigkeit, und diese es ist, welche als Staat existirt. Es ergab sich ferner aus dieser Idee eben so sehr, daß die sittliche Wahrheit in derselben für das denkende Bewußtseyn, als in die Form der Allgemeinheit verarbeiteter Inhalt, als Gesetz, ist, — der Staat überhaupt seine Zwecke weiß, sie mit bestimmtem Bewußtseyn und nach Grundsätzen erkennt und bethätigt. Wie oben bemerkt ist, hat nun die Religion das Wahre zu ihrem allgemeinen Gegenstande, jedoch als einen gegebenen Inhalt, der in seinen Grund-Bestimmungen nicht durch Denken und Begriffe erkannt ist; eben so ist das Verhältniß des Individuums zu diesem Gegenstande eine auf Autorität gegründete Verpflichtung, und das Zeugniß des eigenen Geistes und Herzens, als worin das Moment der Freyheit enthalten ist, ist Glaube und Empfindung. Es ist die philosophische Einsicht, welche erkennt, daß Kirche und Staat nicht im Gegensatze des Inhalts der Wahrheit und Vernünftigkeit, aber im Unterschied der Form stehen. Wenn daher die Kirche in das Lehren übergeht (es gibt und gab auch Kirchen, die nur einen Cultus haben; andere, worin er die Hauptsache und das Lehren und das gebildetere Bewußtseyn nur Nebensache ist) und ihr Lehren objective Grundsätze, die Gedanken des Sittlichen und Vernünftigen betrifft, so geht sie in dieser Aeußerung unmittelbar in das Gebiet des Staats herüber. Gegen ihren Glauben und ihre Autorität über das Sittliche, Recht, Gesetze, Institutionen, gegen ihre subjective Ueberzeugung ist der Staat vielmehr das Wissende; in seinem Prinzip bleibt wesentlich der Inhalt nicht in der Form des Gefühls und Glaubens stehen, sondern gehört dem bestimmten Gedanken an. Wie der an und für sich seyende Inhalt, in der Gestalt der Religion als besonderer Inhalt, als die der Kirche als religiöser Gemeinschaft eigenthümlichen Lehren, erscheint, so bleiben sie außer dem Bereiche des Staats (im Protestantismus gibt es auch keine Geistlichkeit, welche ausschließender Depositär der kirchlichen Lehre wäre, weil es in ihm keine Layen gibt); indem sich die sittlichen Grundsätze und die Staats-Ordnung überhaupt in das Gebiet der Religion herüber ziehen, und nicht nur in Beziehung darauf setzen lassen, sondern auch gesetzt werden sollen, so gibt diese Beziehung einer Seits dem Staate selbst die religiöse Beglaubigung; andererseits bleibt ihm das Recht und die Form der selbstbewußten, objectiven Vernünftigkeit, das Recht, sie geltend zu machen und gegen Behauptungen, die aus der subjectiven Gestalt der Wahrheit entspringen, mit welcher Versicherung und Autorität sie sich auch umgebe, zu behaupten. Weil das Prinzip seiner Form als Allgemeines, wesentlich der Gedanke ist, so ist es auch geschehen, daß von seiner Seite die Freyheit des Denkens und der Wissenschaft ausgegangen ist, (und eine Kirche hat vielmehr den Jordanus Bruno verbrannt, den Galilei wegen der Darstellung des copernikanischen Sonnensystems auf den Knieen Abbitte thun lassen u. s. f.) Auf seiner Seite hat darum auch die Wissenschaft ihre Stelle; denn sie hat dasselbe Element der Form, als der Staat, sie hat den Zweck des Erkennens, und zwar der gedachten objectiven Wahrheit und Vernünftigkeit. Das denkende Erkennen kann zwar auch aus der Wissenschaft in das Meynen, und in das Raisonniren aus Gründen herunterfallen, sich auf sittliche Gegenstände und die Staats-Organisation wendend in Widerspruch gegen deren Grundsätze sich setzen, und diß etwa auch mit denselben Prätensionen, als die Kirche für ihr Eigenthümliches macht, auf diß Meynen als auf Vernunft und das Recht des subjectiven Selbstbewußtseyns, in seiner Meynung und Ueberzeugung frey zu seyn. Das Prinzip dieser Subjectivität des Wissens ist oben (§. 140. Anm.) betrachtet worden; hieher gehört nur die Bemerkung, daß nach einer Seite der Staat gegen das Meynen, eben insofern es nur Meynung, ein subjectiver Inhalt ist und darum, es spreitze sich noch so hoch auf, keine wahre Kraft und Gewalt in sich hat, eben so, wie die Maler, die sich auf ihrer Palette an die drey Grundfarben halten, gegen die Schulweisheit von den sieben Grundfarben, eine unendliche Gleichgültigkeit ausüben kann. Nach der andern Seite aber hat der Staat, gegen diß Meynen schlechter Grundsätze, indem es sich zu einem allgemeinen und die Wirklichkeit anfressenden Daseyn macht, ohnehin insofern der Formalismus der unbedingten Subjectivität, der den wissenschaftlichen Ausgangspunkt zu seinem Grunde nehmen und die Lehrveranstaltungen des Staates selbst zu der Prätension einer Kirche gegen ihn erheben und kehren wollte, die objective Wahrheit und die Grundsätze des sittlichen Lebens in Schutz zu nehmen, so wie er im Ganzen gegen die, eine unbeschränkte und unbedingte Autorität ansprechende, Kirche umgekehrt, das formelle Recht des Selbstbewußtseyns an die eigne Einsicht, Ueberzeugung und überhaupt Denken dessen, was als objective Wahrheit gelten soll, geltend zu machen hat.
Von Quäkern, Wiedertäufern u. s. f. kann man sagen, daß sie nur active Mitglieder der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft sind, und als Privatpersonen nur im Privatverkehr mit anderen stehen, und selbst in diesem Verhältnisse hat man ihnen den Eid erlassen; die directen Pflichten gegen den Staat erfüllen sie auf eine passive Weise und von einer der wichtigsten Pflichten, ihn gegen Feinde zu vertheidigen, die sie direct verleugnen, wird etwa zugegeben, sie durch Tausch gegen andere Leistung zu erfüllen. Gegen solche Secten ist es im eigentlichen Sinne der Fall, daß der Staat Toleranz ausübt; denn da sie die Pflichten gegen ihn nicht anerkennen, können sie auf das Recht, Mitglieder desselben zu seyn, nicht Anspruch machen. Als einst im nordamerikanischen Congreß die Abschaffung der Sklaverey der Neger mit größerm Nachdruck betrieben wurde, machte ein Deputirter aus den südlichen Provinzen die treffende Erwiederung: „gebt uns die Neger zu, wir geben euch die Quäker zu.“ — Nur durch seine sonstige Stärke kann der Staat solche Anomalien übersehen und dulden, und sich dabey vornämlich auf die Macht der Sitten und der innern Vernünftigkeit seiner Institutionen verlassen, daß diese, indem er seine Rechte hierin nicht strenge geltend macht, die Unterscheidung vermindern und überwinden werde. So formelles Recht man etwa gegen die Juden in Ansehung der Verleihung selbst von bürgerlichen Rechten gehabt hätte, indem sie sich nicht bloß als eine besondere Religions-Parthey, sondern als einem fremden Volke angehörig ansehen sollten, so sehr hat das aus diesen und andern Gesichtspunkten erhobene Geschrey übersehen, daß sie zu allererst Menschen sind und daß diß nicht nur eine flache, abstracte Qualität ist (§. 209. Anm.), sondern daß darin liegt, daß durch die zugestandenen bürgerlichen Rechte vielmehr das Selbstgefühl, als rechtliche Personen in der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft zu gelten, und aus dieser unendlichen von Allem andern freyen Wurzel die verlangte Ausgleichung der Denkungsart und Gesinnung zu Stande kommt. Die den Juden vorgeworfene Trennung hätte sich vielmehr erhalten und wäre dem ausschließenden Staate mit Recht zur Schuld und Vorwurf geworden; denn er hätte damit sein Prinzip, die objective Institution und deren Macht verkannt (vergl. §. 268. Anm. am Ende). Die Behauptung dieser Ausschließung, indem sie aufs Höchste Recht zu haben vermeynte, hat sich auch in der Erfahrung am thörigtsten, die Handlungsart der Regierungen hingegen als das Weise und Würdige erwiesen. —
Laplace Darstellung des Weltsystems, Vtes Buch. 4tes Kap. „Da Galilei die Entdeckungen, (zu denen ihm das Teleskop verhalf, die Lichtgestalten der Venus u. s. f.) bekannt machte, zeigte er zugleich, daß sie die Bewegungen der Erde unwidersprechlich bewiesen. Aber die Vorstellung dieser Bewegung wurde durch eine Versammlung der Cardinäle für ketzerisch erklärt, Galilei, ihr berühmtester Vertheidiger, vor das Inquisitionsgericht gefodert, und genöthiget, sie zu widerrufen, um einem harten Gefängniß zu entgehen. Bey dem Manne von Geist ist die Leidenschaft für die Wahrheit eine der stärksten Leidenschaften. — Galilei, durch seine eigenen Beobachtungen von der Bewegung der Erde überzeugt, dachte lange Zeit auf ein neues Werk, worin er alle Beweise dafür zu entwickeln sich vorgenommen hatte. Aber um sich zugleich der Verfolgung zu entziehen, deren Opfer er hätte werden müssen, wählte er die Auskunft, sie in der Form von Dialogen zwischen drey Personen darzustellen; man sieht wohl, daß der Vortheil auf der Seite des Vertheidigers des copernicanischen Systems war; da aber Galilei nicht zwischen ihnen entschied, und den Einwürfen der Anhänger des Ptolemäus so viel Gewicht gab, als nur möglich war, so durfte er wohl erwarten, im Genusse der Ruhe, die sein hohes Alter und seine Arbeiten verdienten, nicht gestört zu werden. Er wurde in seinem siebzigsten Jahre aufs neue vor das Inquisitions-Tribunal gefodert; man schloß ihn in ein Gefängniß ein, wo man eine zweyte Widerrufung seiner Meynungen von ihm foderte, unter Androhung der für die wieder abgefallenen Ketzer bestimmten Strafe. Man ließ ihn folgende Abschwörungsformel unterschreiben: „Ich Galilei, der ich in meinem siebzigsten Jahre mich persönlich vor dem Gerichte eingefunden, auf den Knieen liegend, und die Augen auf die heiligen Evangelien, die ich mit meinen Händen berühre, gerichtet, schwöre ab, verfluche und verwünsche mit redlichem Herzen und wahrem Glauben die Ungereimtheit, Falschheit und Ketzerey der Lehre von der Bewegung der Erde u. s. f.“ Welch ein Anblick war das, einen ehrwürdigen Greis, berühmt durch ein langes, der Erforschung der Natur einzig gewidmetes Leben, gegen das Zeugniß seines eigenen Gewissens die Wahrheit, die er mit Ueberzeugungskraft erwiesen hatte, auf den Knieen abschwören zu sehen. Ein Urtheil der Inquisition verdammte ihn zu immerwährender Gefangenschaft. Ein Jahr hernach wurde er, auf die Verwendung des Großherzogs von Florenz, in Freyheit gesetzt. — Er starb 1642. Seinen Verlust betrauerte Europa, das durch seine Arbeiten erleuchtet, und über das von einem verhaßten Tribunale gegen einen so großen Mann gefällte Urtheil aufgebracht war.“
Die Einheit des Staats und der Kirche, eine auch in neuen Zeiten viel besprochene und als höchstes Ideal aufgestellte Bestimmung, kann noch erwähnt werden. Wenn die wesentliche Einheit derselben ist die der Wahrheit der Grundsätze und Gesinnung, so ist eben so wesentlich, daß mit dieser Einheit der Unterschied, den sie in der Form ihres Bewußtseyns haben, zur besondern Existenz gekommen sey. Im orientalischen Despotismus ist jene so oft gewünschte Einheit der Kirche und des Staats, — aber damit ist der Staat nicht vorhanden, — nicht die selbstbewußte, des Geistes allein würdige Gestaltung in Recht, freyer Sittlichkeit und organischer Entwicklung. — Damit ferner der Staat als die sich wissende, sittliche Wirklichkeit des Geistes zum Daseyn komme, ist seine Unterscheidung von der Form der Autorität und des Glaubens nothwendig; diese Unterscheidung tritt aber nur hervor, insofern die kirchliche Seite in sich selbst zur Trennung kommt; nur so, über den besondern Kirchen, hat der Staat die Allgemeinheit des Gedankens, das Prinzip seiner Form, gewonnen und bringt sie zur Existenz; um diß zu erkennen, muß man wissen, nicht nur was die Allgemeinheit an sich, sondern was ihre Existenz ist. Es ist daher so weit gefehlt, daß für den Staat die kirchliche Trennung ein Unglück wäre oder gewesen wäre, daß er nur durch sie hat werden können, was seine Bestimmung ist, die selbstbewußte Vernünftigkeit und Sittlichkeit. Eben so ist es das Glücklichste, was der Kirche für ihre eigene und was dem Gedanken für seine Freyheit und Vernünftigkeit hat wiederfahren können.
Musean translation
Machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from Hegel's German in the Berlin Nicolai first edition, dated 1821. Complete preface, introduction and sections 1–360, including the author's remarks and notes; no later Gans additions.
270 That the end of the state is the universal interest as such, and, in it as their substance, the preservation of particular interests, is its (1) abstract actuality or substantiality; but this is (2) its necessity, inasmuch as it divides itself into the distinctions of the concept belonging to its activity, which through that substantiality are just as much actual, firm determinations—powers; (3) but this very substantiality is spirit knowing and willing itself, as spirit that has passed through the form of culture. The state therefore knows what it wills, and knows it in its universality, as something thought; it therefore works and acts according to known ends, familiar principles, and laws that are such not only in themselves but for consciousness; and likewise, insofar as its actions relate to existing circumstances and relations, according to a determinate knowledge of them.
This is the place to touch on the relation of the state to religion, since in recent times it has been so often repeated that religion is the foundation of the state, and since this assertion is also made with the pretension that the science of the state is exhausted by it—and no assertion is better suited to produce so much confusion, indeed to elevate confusion itself into the constitution of the state, into the form that knowledge is supposed to have. — It may seem suspect at the outset that religion is recommended and sought above all for times of public misery, disorder and oppression, and that people are directed to it for consolation against injustice and for the hope of compensation for loss. When it is further regarded as an instruction of religion to be indifferent to worldly interests and to the course and business of actuality, while the state is spirit that stands in the world, the reference to religion seems either unsuited to raise the interest and business of the state to an essential, serious end, or else to declare everything in the government of the state a matter of indifferent arbitrary choice—whether it is only that the language is used as though in the state the ends of the passions, of wrongful force and so on were the ruling thing, or that such a reference to religion wants to hold good by itself alone and to claim the determining and administering of what is right. Just as it would be regarded as mockery if all feeling against tyranny were turned aside with the remark that the oppressed finds his consolation in religion, so it is equally not to be forgotten that religion can assume a form that brings with it the harshest servitude under the fetters of superstition and the degradation of the human being beneath the animal (as among the Egyptians and Indians, who venerate animals as their higher beings). This phenomenon can at least draw attention to the fact that one should not speak of religion quite in general, and that against it, as it is in certain shapes, a saving power is rather required that takes up the rights of reason and of self-consciousness. — The essential determination of the relation of religion and state, however, emerges only when their concept is recalled. Religion has absolute truth for its content, and thus the highest disposition falls within it. As intuition, feeling, representational cognition, occupied with God as the unrestricted ground and cause on which everything depends, it contains the demand that everything be grasped in this relation too, and obtain in it its confirmation, justification, assurance. State and laws, like duties, receive in this relation, for consciousness, their highest corroboration and highest obligation; for even state, laws and duties are, in their actuality, something determinate that passes over into a higher sphere as into its ground. (Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, § 453.) For this reason religion also contains the place that, amid all change and in the loss of actual ends, interests and possessions, affords the consciousness of the unchangeable and of the highest freedom and satisfaction. If religion thus makes up the foundation that contains the ethical in general and, more closely, the nature of the state as the divine will, it is at the same time only foundation that it is, and here is where the two part ways. The state is divine will as present spirit, unfolding itself into the actual shape and organization of a world. — Those who want to stay with the form of religion as against the state behave like those who think they have what is right in cognition if they only keep always to the essence and do not advance from this abstraction to existence, or like those (see above, § 140, Remark) who will only the abstract good and reserve to arbitrary choice the determining of what is good. Religion is the relation to the Absolute in the form of feeling, representation, faith, and in its all-containing center everything is only something accidental, even vanishing. If this form is held to in relation to the state as well, so that it is the essentially determining and valid thing for the state too, then the state, as the organism developed into lasting distinctions, laws and institutions, is abandoned to wavering, insecurity and disorder. The objective and universal, the laws, instead of being determined as standing and valid, receive the determination of a negative against that form which enshrouds everything determinate and thereby turns it into the subjective; and for the conduct of human beings the consequence follows: for the righteous no law is given; be pious, and for the rest you may do as you like—you may give yourselves over to your own arbitrary choice and passion, and refer the others, who suffer injustice thereby, to the consolation and hope of religion, or, still worse, reject and condemn them as irreligious. But insofar as this negative attitude does not remain merely an inner disposition and view, but turns to actuality and asserts itself in it, there arises religious fanaticism, which, like the political, banishes all state institutions and legal order as confining barriers unsuited to the inner life, to the infinity of the heart, and therefore banishes private property, marriage, the relations and labors of civil society and so on as unworthy of love and of the freedom of feeling. Since, however, a decision must be made for actual existence and action, the same thing occurs as with the subjectivity of the will that knows itself as the Absolute in general (§ 140): the decision is made out of subjective representation, that is, out of opining and the whim of arbitrary choice. — But the true, as against this truth enshrouding itself in the subjectivity of feeling and representation, is the immense passage of the inner into the outer, of the building of reason into reality, on which the whole of world history has labored, and through which labor cultivated humanity has won the actuality and the consciousness of rational existence, of state institutions and of laws. From those who seek the Lord, and in their uncultivated opining assure themselves that they possess everything immediately, instead of imposing on themselves the labor of raising their subjectivity to the cognition of truth and to the knowledge of objective right and duty, nothing can proceed but the shattering of all ethical relations, folly and abomination—the necessary consequences of the disposition of religion that rests exclusively on its form and so turns against actuality and against the truth present in the form of the universal, of laws. Yet it is not necessary that this disposition should advance in this way to realization; with its negative standpoint it can indeed also remain something inward, submit to the institutions and laws, and let matters rest with resignation and sighing, or with contempt and wishing. It is not strength but weakness that in our times has made religiosity a polemical kind of piety, whether it be connected with a true need or merely with unsatisfied vanity. Instead of subduing one's opining by the labor of study and subjecting one's willing to discipline, and thereby raising it to free obedience, the cheapest course is to renounce the cognition of objective truth, to preserve a feeling of oppression and with it self-conceit, and to have in devoutness already every requirement for seeing through the nature of laws and state institutions, for pronouncing on them, and for stating how they ought and must be constituted—and indeed, because it comes from a pious heart, in an infallible and untouchable manner; for, since intentions and assertions make religion their foundation, nothing, it is claimed, can be done against them, whether on account of their shallowness or of their wrongfulness.
Religion, like cognition and science, has as its principle a form of its own, different from that of the state; they therefore enter the state, partly in the relation of means of culture and disposition, partly, insofar as they are essentially ends in themselves, on the side that they have external existence. In both respects the principles of the state relate to them as applied; in a fully concrete treatise on the state those spheres, like art, the merely natural relations and so on, would likewise have to be considered in the relation and position they have in the state; but here, in this treatise, where it is the principle of the state that is carried through in its own proper sphere according to its Idea, their principles and the application of the state's right to them can be spoken of only in passing.
But insofar as religion, when it is of a true kind, is without such a negative and polemical bearing toward the state, and rather acknowledges and confirms it, it has further for itself its own condition and its expression. The business of its worship consists in actions and doctrine; for this it needs possessions and property, as well as individuals devoted to the service of the congregation. Thereby a relation arises between state and church community. The determination of this relation is simple. It lies in the nature of the matter that the state fulfills a duty in giving the community every support and protection for its religious end, and indeed, since religion is for the state the integrating moment of the deepest part of disposition, in requiring of all its members that they belong to a church community—to some church or other, moreover, for the state cannot enter into the content, insofar as it concerns the inner side of representation. The state that is developed in its organization, and therefore strong, can behave all the more liberally in this matter, overlook altogether particulars that touch it, and even endure within itself communities (where, to be sure, numbers matter) that do not acknowledge, on religious grounds, even their direct duties toward it, in that it leaves their members to civil society under its laws, and is content with a passive fulfillment of the direct duties toward it, perhaps mediated by conversion and exchange. — But insofar as the church community possesses property, performs other actions of worship, and has individuals in its service for this, it steps out of the inner into the worldly and thereby into the domain of the state, and so places itself immediately under its laws. The oath, the ethical in general, like the relation of marriage, do bring with them the inner interpenetration and the elevation of disposition which receives its deepest assurance through religion; but since the ethical relations are essentially relations of actual rationality, it is the rights of this that are first to be asserted in them, and to which the church's assurance is added as the merely inner, more abstract side. — With regard to further expressions proceeding from the church association, in the case of doctrine the inner outweighs the outer more than in the case of the actions of worship and other conduct connected with them, where the legal side at least immediately appears of itself as a matter for the state (churches, to be sure, have also taken for themselves the exemption of their servants and their property from the power and jurisdiction of the state, even jurisdiction over secular persons in matters in which, as in divorce cases, oath affairs and so on, religion concurs). — The police side with regard to such actions is, to be sure, less determinate, but this lies in the nature of this side, just as it does with other, wholly civil actions (see above, § 234). Insofar as the religious community of individuals rises to a congregation, a corporation, it stands in general under the higher police supervision of the state. — But doctrine itself has its domain in conscience, stands in the right of the subjective freedom of self-consciousness—the sphere of inwardness, which as such does not make up the domain of the state. Yet the state too has a doctrine, since its institutions and what holds good for it in general concerning what is lawful, the constitution and so on, is essentially in the form of thought, as law; and since it is not a mechanism but the rational life of self-conscious freedom, the system of the ethical world, disposition, and then the consciousness of it in principles, is an essential moment in the actual state. Conversely, the church's doctrine is not merely something inward in conscience but, as doctrine, rather expression, and expression at the same time about a content that is most intimately connected with the ethical principles and laws of the state, or immediately concerns them. State and church therefore here coincide directly or come into conflict with each other. The difference of the two domains can be driven by the church to the sharp opposition in which it, as containing in itself the absolute content of religion, regards the spiritual in general, and so also the ethical element, as its part, but the state as a mechanical scaffolding for unspiritual external ends; in which it conceives itself as the kingdom of God, or at least as the way and forecourt to it, but the state as the kingdom of the world, that is, of the transitory and finite; and thereby conceives itself as the end in itself, but the state as a mere means. With this pretension there is then joined, with regard to teaching, the demand that the state not only leave the church in this perfectly free, but show unconditional respect for its teaching, whatever it may be, since this determination belongs to it alone, as teaching. As the church arrives at this pretension on the broad ground that the spiritual element in general is its property, science and cognition in general stand likewise in this domain, and for themselves form, like a church, a totality of their own principle, which can also regard itself as stepping into the place of the church itself with still greater title; so the same independence from the state is then demanded for science, the state having to care for it only as a means, since science is an end in itself. — It is, moreover, a matter of indifference for this relation whether the individuals and heads devoted to the service of the community have perhaps driven things to an existence separated from the state, so that only the remaining members are subject to the state, or whether they otherwise stand within the state and their ecclesiastical vocation is only one side of their station, which they hold apart from the state. It is first to be noted that such a relation is connected with that conception of the state according to which it has its vocation only in the protection and security of everyone's life, property and arbitrary choice, insofar as these do not injure the life, property and arbitrary choice of others, and the state is thus regarded only as an arrangement of need. The element of the higher spiritual, of what is true in and for itself, is in this way placed, as subjective religiosity or as theoretical science, beyond the state, which as the layman in and for itself has only to respect it, and the properly ethical thus drops out altogether for the state. That there have been historically times and conditions of barbarism in which all the higher spiritual had its seat in the church, and the state was only a worldly regime of violence, arbitrary choice and passion, and that abstract opposition was the chief principle of actuality (see § 358), belongs to history. But it is too blind and shallow a procedure to give out this position as the one truly corresponding to the Idea. The development of this Idea has rather proved this to be the truth: that spirit, as free and rational, is in itself ethical, and the true Idea is actual rationality, and that this is what exists as the state. It further resulted equally from this Idea that the ethical truth in it is, for thinking consciousness, as content worked into the form of universality, law—that the state in general knows its ends, and recognizes and puts them into effect with determinate consciousness and according to principles. As noted above, religion has the true as its universal object, yet as a given content, which in its fundamental determinations is not cognized through thinking and concepts; likewise the individual's relation to this object is an obligation founded on authority, and the testimony of one's own spirit and heart, in which the moment of freedom is contained, is faith and feeling. It is philosophical insight that recognizes that church and state stand not in opposition as to the content of truth and rationality, but in difference of form. If, therefore, the church passes over into teaching (there are and have been also churches that have only a worship; others in which it is the main thing and teaching and the more cultivated consciousness only a side matter), and its teaching concerns objective principles, the thoughts of the ethical and the rational, then in this expression it passes immediately over into the domain of the state. Against its faith and its authority over the ethical, right, laws, institutions, against its subjective conviction, the state is rather the knowing; in its principle the content essentially does not remain standing in the form of feeling and faith, but belongs to determinate thought. As the content that is in and for itself appears, in the shape of religion, as particular content, as the doctrines peculiar to the church as a religious community, so these remain outside the sphere of the state (in Protestantism there is also no clergy that would be the exclusive depositary of church doctrine, because in it there are no laymen); since the ethical principles and the order of the state in general draw over into the domain of religion, and can not only be put into relation to it but ought to be, this relation on one side gives the state itself religious authentication; on the other side there remains to it the right and the form of self-conscious, objective rationality, the right to make it valid and to maintain it against assertions that spring from the subjective shape of truth, with whatever assurance and authority it may surround itself. Because the principle of its form, as universal, is essentially thought, it has also come about that the freedom of thought and of science has proceeded from its side (and it was a church that burned Giordano Bruno, and made Galileo, for the exposition of the Copernican solar system, beg pardon on his knees, and so on). On its side, therefore, science too has its place; for it has the same element of form as the state, it has the end of cognizing, and indeed of thought, objective truth and rationality. Thinking cognition can, to be sure, also fall away from science into opining, and into reasoning from grounds; turning to ethical objects and to the organization of the state, it can set itself in contradiction to their principles, and this perhaps with the same pretensions as the church makes for what is peculiar to it, appealing for this opining to reason and to the right of subjective self-consciousness to be free in its opinion and conviction. The principle of this subjectivity of knowing has been considered above (§ 140, Remark); here belongs only the remark that on one side the state can exercise an infinite indifference toward opining, precisely insofar as it is only opinion, a subjective content, and therefore, however loftily it may puff itself up, has no true force or power in itself—just as painters who keep to the three primary colors on their palette can toward the school wisdom of the seven primary colors. On the other side, however, the state has to take under its protection objective truth and the principles of ethical life against this opining of bad principles, when it makes itself into a universal existence eating away at actuality—all the more so insofar as it is the formalism of unconditioned subjectivity, which would take the scientific point of departure for its ground and would raise the teaching arrangements of the state itself to the pretension of a church and turn them against it; just as, on the whole, against the church that claims an unrestricted and unconditioned authority, it has conversely to assert the formal right of self-consciousness to its own insight, conviction, and in general thinking of what is to count as objective truth.
Of Quakers, Anabaptists and the like one may say that they are only active members of civil society, and as private persons stand only in private dealings with others, and even in this relation they have been excused from the oath; the direct duties toward the state they fulfill in a passive way, and as to one of the most important duties, that of defending it against enemies, which they directly disown, it is perhaps allowed that they fulfill it by exchange for another service. Toward such sects it is in the proper sense the case that the state exercises toleration; for since they do not acknowledge their duties toward it, they cannot lay claim to the right of being members of it. When once in the North American Congress the abolition of the slavery of Negroes was being pressed with greater emphasis, a deputy from the southern provinces made the telling reply: "Give us the Negroes, and we will give you the Quakers." — Only through its strength in other respects can the state overlook and tolerate such anomalies, relying in this chiefly on the power of customs and the inner rationality of its institutions, which, in that the state does not strictly assert its rights in this matter, will diminish and overcome the distinction. However much formal right one might have had against the Jews with regard to the granting of even civil rights, in that they were supposed to regard themselves not merely as a particular religious party but as belonging to a foreign people, the outcry raised from this and other points of view has overlooked that they are first of all human beings, and that this is not merely a flat, abstract quality (§ 209, Remark), but that it lies in this that, through the civil rights conceded, the self-feeling of counting as legal persons in civil society rather comes about, and from this infinite root, free from everything else, the demanded equalization of ways of thinking and disposition comes about. The separation reproached to the Jews would rather have been preserved, and would justly have become a fault and reproach to the excluding state; for it would thereby have misjudged its principle, the objective institution and its power (compare § 268, Remark at the end). The maintenance of this exclusion, while it thought it had the highest right, has also proved itself in experience the most foolish, and the way the governments acted, by contrast, the wise and worthy. —
Laplace, Exposition of the System of the World, Book V, Chapter 4. "When Galileo made known his discoveries (to which the telescope helped him, the phases of Venus and so on), he showed at the same time that they proved the motions of the earth beyond contradiction. But the notion of this motion was declared heretical by an assembly of cardinals, Galileo, its most famous defender, was summoned before the tribunal of the Inquisition, and compelled to recant it in order to escape a harsh imprisonment. In a man of spirit the passion for truth is one of the strongest passions. — Galileo, convinced by his own observations of the motion of the earth, thought for a long time of a new work in which he had resolved to set out all the proofs for it. But in order at the same time to escape the persecution of which he would have had to become the victim, he chose the expedient of presenting them in the form of dialogues among three persons; one sees well that the advantage lay on the side of the defender of the Copernican system; but since Galileo did not decide between them, and gave the objections of the followers of Ptolemy as much weight as was possible, he might well expect not to be disturbed in the enjoyment of the peace that his great age and his labors deserved. In his seventieth year he was summoned anew before the tribunal of the Inquisition; he was shut up in a prison, where a second recantation of his opinions was demanded of him, under threat of the penalty appointed for relapsed heretics. He was made to sign the following formula of abjuration: 'I, Galileo, who in my seventieth year have appeared in person before the court, kneeling, and with my eyes fixed on the holy Gospels, which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse and detest, with a sincere heart and true faith, the absurdity, falsity and heresy of the doctrine of the motion of the earth, and so on.' What a sight it was, to see a venerable old man, famous for a long life devoted solely to the investigation of nature, abjure on his knees, against the testimony of his own conscience, the truth that he had proved with convincing force. A judgment of the Inquisition condemned him to perpetual imprisonment. A year later he was set free, at the intercession of the Grand Duke of Florence. — He died in 1642. Europe, enlightened by his labors, and indignant at the judgment passed by a hated tribunal against so great a man, mourned his loss."
The unity of state and church, a determination much discussed also in recent times and set up as the highest ideal, may still be mentioned. If their essential unity is that of the truth of principles and disposition, it is just as essential that with this unity the difference they have in the form of their consciousness should have come to particular existence. In oriental despotism there is that so often wished-for unity of church and state—but with it the state is not present—not the self-conscious shape, worthy of spirit alone, in right, free ethical life, and organic development. — Further, in order that the state may come into existence as the self-knowing ethical actuality of spirit, its distinction from the form of authority and of faith is necessary; but this distinction emerges only insofar as the ecclesiastical side comes to division within itself; only so, above the particular churches, has the state gained the universality of thought, the principle of its form, and brings it to existence; to recognize this, one must know not only what universality is in itself, but what its existence is. It is therefore so far from being the case that the ecclesiastical division is or was a misfortune for the state that only through it could it become what its vocation is, self-conscious rationality and ethical life. It is likewise the happiest thing that could have befallen the church for its own sake, and thought for its freedom and rationality.
Plain English translation
Independent machine-assisted Plain English translation made directly from the German first-edition source, not from the Musean edition or an existing English translation. Complete preface, introduction and sections 1–360 with the author's remarks and notes.
270 The aim of the state is the universal interest as such, and in it, as its substance, the preservation of particular interests. This is, first, its 1) abstract actuality or substantiality. But it is also 2) its necessity, since it divides itself into the conceptual differences of its activity. Through that substantiality, these differences are just as much actual, fixed determinations, that is, powers. 3) This same substantiality, however, is spirit that knows and wills itself, having passed through the form of cultivation. The state therefore knows what it wills, and knows it in its universality, as something thought. For that reason it works and acts according to known aims and recognized principles, and according to laws that exist not only in themselves but for consciousness. In the same way, insofar as its actions relate to existing circumstances and conditions, it acts according to a precise knowledge of them.
This is the place to touch on the relation of the state to religion. In recent times it has been repeated so often that religion is the foundation of the state. This claim is also made with the pretension that it exhausts the science of the state. And no claim is better suited to produce so much confusion, even to raise confusion itself to the constitution of the state, to the form that knowledge should take. — At first it may seem suspicious that religion is recommended and sought above all in times of public misery, disorder and oppression. People are pointed to it for comfort against injustice and for hope of compensation for loss. It is then also taken as a teaching of religion to be indifferent to worldly interests and to the course and business of actuality. But the state is spirit that stands in the world. So pointing to religion seems either unfit to raise the interest and business of the state to an essential, serious aim, or else it seems to give out everything in the government of the state as a matter of indifferent arbitrary choice. This happens whether the talk goes as if the aims of passions, of unjust force and so on ruled in the state, or whether this pointing to religion wants to count on its own and claim the determining and the carrying out of what is right. It would be taken as mockery if all feeling against tyranny were turned aside by saying that the oppressed find their comfort in religion. In the same way we must not forget that religion can take a form that brings the harshest servitude under the chains of superstition, and the degradation of human beings below the animal. (This was so among the Egyptians and the Indians, who worship animals as their higher beings.) This phenomenon can at least draw our attention to the fact that we should not speak of religion quite in general. Against religion as it is in certain shapes, a saving power is needed that takes up the rights of reason and of self-consciousness. — The essential determination of the relation between religion and state comes out only when we recall their concept. Religion has absolute truth as its content, and so the highest of disposition falls within it. It is intuition, feeling and representational knowledge. It is concerned with God as the unlimited foundation and cause on which everything depends. So it contains the demand that everything also be grasped in this relation and obtain in it its confirmation, justification and certainty. In this relation, the state and laws, like duties, receive for consciousness their highest proof and their highest binding force. For even state, laws and duties, in their actuality, are something determinate that passes over into a higher sphere as its foundation. (Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, § 453.) For this reason religion is also the place that gives consciousness of the unchangeable, and of the highest freedom and satisfaction, amid all change and in the loss of actual aims, interests and possessions. If religion in this way makes up the foundation that holds the ethical in general, and more precisely the nature of the state, as the divine will, then it is at the same time only a foundation, and here is where the two part ways. The state is divine will as present spirit, unfolding itself into the actual shape and organization of a world. — Those who want to stay with the form of religion in opposition to the state behave like those who think they have what is right in knowledge if they always stay with the essence and do not go on from this abstraction to existence. Or they behave like those (see above, § 140, Remark) who want only the abstract good and leave it to arbitrary choice to decide what is good. Religion is the relation to the absolute in the form of feeling, representation and faith. In its all-containing center, everything is only an accident, and also something vanishing. Suppose this form is held to in relation to the state as well, so that it is also essentially decisive and valid for the state. Then the state, as an organism developed into lasting differences, laws and institutions, is given up to wavering, insecurity and disorder. The objective and universal, the laws, are not set as standing and valid. Instead they take on the character of a negative against that form, which wraps everything determinate in itself and so becomes subjective. For human conduct the consequence follows: no law is given to the righteous. Be devout, and you can otherwise do as you please. You can give yourselves over to your own arbitrary choice and passion. You can send the others, who suffer wrong because of it, to the comfort and hope of religion. Or, worse, you can reject and condemn them as irreligious. But suppose this negative attitude does not stay merely an inner disposition and view, and turns to actuality and asserts itself in it. Then religious fanaticism arises. Like political fanaticism, it banishes all arrangements of the state and all legal order as confining limits, unsuited to the inner side and to the infinity of the heart. It therefore banishes private property, marriage, the relations and labors of civil society and so on, as unworthy of love and of the freedom of feeling. But a decision must be made for actual existence and action. So the same thing happens as with the subjectivity of the will that knows itself as the absolute in general (§ 140). The decision comes from subjective representation, that is, from opining and from the whim of arbitrary choice. — But what is true, against this truth wrapped in the subjectivity of feeling and representing, is the immense passage of the inner into the outer, the building of reason into reality. All of world history has worked on this. Through this work cultivated humanity has won the actuality and the consciousness of rational existence, of state institutions and of laws. From those who seek the Lord, and in their uncultivated opinion assure themselves that they have everything immediately, instead of taking on the work of raising their subjectivity to knowledge of the truth and to knowing objective right and duty, nothing can come but the smashing of all ethical relations, silliness and abomination. These are necessary consequences of the disposition of religion when it rests exclusively on its form and so turns against actuality and against the truth that is present in the form of the universal, of laws. Yet it is not necessary that this disposition go on to realization in this way. With its negative standpoint it can indeed also remain something inner, submit to the institutions and laws, and leave it at resignation and sighing, or at contempt and wishing. It is not strength but weakness that in our times has made religiosity a polemical kind of piety, whether it is connected with a real need or merely with unsatisfied vanity. Instead of mastering one's opining by the labor of study, and subjecting one's willing to discipline and so raising it to free obedience, the cheapest course is to give up knowledge of objective truth. One keeps a feeling of being oppressed, and with it self-conceit. And one takes devoutness to be already all that is needed to see through the nature of laws and state institutions, to pass judgment on them, and to say how they should and must be. One does this, moreover, in an infallible and untouchable way, because it comes from a pious heart. For when intentions and claims make religion their foundation, nothing can be held against them, neither for their shallowness nor for their injustice.
Religion, like knowledge and science, has as its principle a form of its own, different from that of the state. They therefore enter the state partly as means of cultivation and disposition. And partly, insofar as they are essentially ends in themselves, they enter on the side that they have external existence. In both respects the principles of the state apply to them. In a fully concrete treatment of the state, those spheres, and art, merely natural relations and so on, must likewise be considered in the relation and position they have in the state. But here in this treatise, where it is the principle of the state that is carried through in its own sphere according to its idea, their principles and the application of the state's right to them can be spoken of only in passing.
If religion is of the true kind, it takes no such negative and polemical stance against the state. It rather acknowledges and confirms the state. In that case it has its own further condition and its own expression. The work of its worship consists of acts and teaching. For this it needs possessions and property, and also individuals devoted to the service of the congregation. So a relation arises between the state and the church community. The rule for this relation is simple. It is in the nature of the matter that the state has a duty to give the congregation every support and protection for its religious aim. Since religion is, for the state, an integral moment of the deepest part of disposition, it is also a duty of the state even to require all its members to belong to a church community, and to some church or other, for the state cannot enter into the content, insofar as it concerns the inner side of representation. A state that is fully developed in its organization, and therefore strong, can be all the more liberal here. It can overlook individual cases that touch it. It can even put up with communities within it (here the number does matter) that do not recognize, on religious grounds, even their direct duties toward it. It does this by leaving the members of such communities to civil society under its laws. It is content with their passive fulfillment of their direct duties to the state, perhaps through substitution or exchange. — But when the church community owns property, performs other acts of worship, and has individuals in its service for this, it steps out of the inner realm into the worldly one. It thereby crosses into the territory of the state and so places itself directly under its laws. The oath, the ethical in general, and the relation of marriage do bring with them an inner penetration and an elevation of disposition, which receives its deepest assurance through religion. But ethical relations are essentially relations of actual rationality. So it is the rights of this rationality that must be asserted first in them, and the church's assurance joins them as only the inner, more abstract side. — Consider further expressions that come from the church association. In the case of doctrine, the inner side outweighs the outer more than it does in the acts of worship and in other conduct connected with them. In these acts and conduct, the legal side at least appears right away, on its own, as a matter for the state. (Churches have indeed taken for themselves exemption of their servants and property from the power and jurisdiction of the state. They have even taken jurisdiction over lay persons in matters, such as divorce cases and oath matters, where religion has a share.) — The side of police regulation, in regard to such acts, is admittedly less defined. But that lies in the nature of this side, equally in regard to other, entirely civil acts (see above, § 234). Insofar as the religious community of individuals raises itself into a congregation, a corporation, it stands in general under the supervision of the state's higher police authority. — But doctrine itself has its territory in conscience. It stands in the right of the subjective freedom of self-consciousness, the sphere of inwardness, which as such is not the territory of the state. Yet the state too has a doctrine. Its institutions, and what holds for it in general about right, the constitution and so on, are essentially in the form of thought, as law. And the state is not a mechanism, but the rational life of self-conscious freedom, the system of the ethical world. So disposition, and then the consciousness of it in principles, is an essential moment in the actual state. Conversely, the church's doctrine is not merely something inward in conscience. As doctrine it is rather an expression, and at the same time an expression about a content that is most closely connected with ethical principles and the laws of the state, or that directly concerns them. State and church therefore meet directly here, either together or against each other. The church can push the difference between the two territories to a sharp opposition. It holds that it contains the absolute content of religion in itself, and so regards the spiritual in general, including the ethical element, as its part. It regards the state as a mechanical framework for unspiritual external aims. It sees itself as the kingdom of God, or at least as the way and forecourt to it, and the state as the kingdom of the world, that is, of the transient and finite. In this way it takes itself as the end in itself, and the state as a mere means. With this pretension, in regard to teaching, goes the demand that the state not only let the church act in it with complete freedom. The state must also show unconditional respect for its teaching, whatever it may be, because this determination belongs to the church alone, as teaching. The church comes to this pretension on the broad ground that the spiritual element in general is its property. But science and knowledge in general also stand in this territory. Science forms itself, as a church does, into a totality with a principle of its own, and it can even regard itself as taking the place of the church with still greater right. So the same independence from the state is demanded for science, which the state is supposed to care for only as a means, with science as an end in itself. — For this relation, by the way, it makes no difference whether the individuals and leaders devoted to the service of the congregation have been driven to an existence separate from the state, so that only the other members are subject to the state. Nor does it matter whether they otherwise stand in the state and their church calling is only one side of their station, which they hold apart from the state. First, it should be noted that such a relation goes together with a certain notion of the state. On that notion the state has its purpose only in the protection and security of each person's life, property and arbitrary choice, so far as these do not harm the life, property and arbitrary choice of others. The state is then regarded only as an arrangement for need. In this way the element of the higher spiritual, of what is true in and for itself, is placed beyond the state, as subjective religiosity or as theoretical science. The state, as a layperson by its very nature, has only to respect it. And what is properly ethical drops out of the state entirely. History has indeed seen times and conditions of barbarism, when everything higher in spirit had its seat in the church. The state was then only a worldly government of violence, arbitrary choice and passion, and that abstract opposition was the main principle of actuality. (See § 358.) That belongs to history. But it is too blind and shallow a procedure to give out this position as the one truly in keeping with the idea. The development of this idea has rather proved this to be the truth: spirit, as free and rational, is ethical in itself. The true idea is actual rationality, and this is what exists as the state. It also followed just as much from this idea that the ethical truth in it is, for thinking consciousness, a content worked into the form of universality, as law. The state in general knows its ends. It recognizes them with definite consciousness and according to principles, and it carries them out. As noted above, religion has the true as its universal object, but as a given content, whose basic determinations are not known through thinking and concepts. In the same way, the individual's relation to this object is an obligation founded on authority. The testimony of one's own spirit and heart, in which the moment of freedom is contained, is faith and feeling. It is philosophical insight that recognizes that church and state do not stand in opposition in the content of truth and rationality, but in a difference of form. So when the church moves into teaching, and its teaching concerns objective principles, the thoughts of the ethical and the rational, it passes in this expression directly into the territory of the state. (There are, and have been, churches that have only worship. In others worship is the main thing, and teaching and more cultivated consciousness are only secondary.) Against the church's faith and its authority over the ethical, right, laws and institutions, against its subjective conviction, the state is rather the one that knows. In the state's principle the content essentially does not stay in the form of feeling and faith, but belongs to determinate thought. The content that is in and for itself appears, in the shape of religion, as a particular content, as the doctrines peculiar to the church as a religious community. In that shape they remain outside the state's domain. (In Protestantism there is no clergy that would be the exclusive depositary of church doctrine, because in it there is no laity.) But ethical principles and the order of the state in general draw into the territory of religion. They can be put in relation to it, and they should be. This relation, on the one hand, gives the state itself religious authentication. On the other hand, the state keeps the right and the form of self-conscious, objective rationality. It keeps the right to make this rationality count and to uphold it against claims that spring from the subjective shape of truth, whatever assurance and authority surround them. The principle of the state's form, as universal, is essentially thought. So it has also happened that the freedom of thought and of science has come from its side. (A church, by contrast, burned Giordano Bruno and made Galileo kneel and beg pardon for presenting the Copernican solar system, and so on.) Science too therefore has its place on the state's side. For it has the same element of form as the state. It has the aim of knowing, namely of thought-through objective truth and rationality. Thinking knowledge can, it is true, also fall away from science into opining and into arguing from grounds. It can turn to ethical matters and to the organization of the state and set itself in contradiction to their principles. It may even do this with the same pretensions the church makes for what is its own, appealing to this opining as reason, and to the right of subjective self-consciousness to be free in its opinion and conviction. The principle of this subjectivity of knowing was considered above (§ 140, Remark). Here we need only remark the following. In one respect the state can show an infinite indifference toward opining, insofar as it is only opinion, a subjective content, and so has no true strength or power in itself, however much it puffs itself up. It is like painters who keep to the three primary colors on their palette and are infinitely indifferent to the school wisdom of seven primary colors. In another respect, however, the state has to take the objective truth and the principles of ethical life under its protection against this opining of bad principles. This applies when such opining makes itself into a general existence that eats away at actuality. It applies all the more when the formalism of unconditional subjectivity, which would take the scientific starting point as its ground, would turn and raise the state's own teaching institutions into the pretension of a church against the state. And in the whole, conversely, against the church that claims an unlimited and unconditional authority, the state has to uphold the formal right of self-consciousness to its own insight and conviction, and in general to its own thinking about what is to count as objective truth.
Of the Quakers, Anabaptists and similar groups, one can say that they are only active members of civil society. As private persons they deal only in private dealings with others, and even in these they have been excused from the oath. They fulfill their direct duties to the state in a passive way. One of the most important duties is to defend the state against enemies, and they directly refuse it. It is sometimes allowed that they fulfill it by exchange for another service. Toward such sects it is true in the strict sense that the state practices toleration. For since they do not acknowledge their duties toward the state, they cannot claim the right to be members of it. Once, when the abolition of the slavery of Negroes was being pressed with greater force in the North American Congress, a deputy from the southern provinces made a fitting reply: "Give us the Negroes, and we will give you the Quakers." — Only through its strength in other respects can the state overlook and tolerate such anomalies. It relies mainly on the power of custom and on the inner rationality of its institutions. Since it does not assert its rights strictly in this matter, these will reduce and overcome the distinction. However much formal right one might have had to withhold from the Jews even the grant of civil rights, since they were supposed to regard themselves not merely as a particular religious party but as belonging to a foreign people, the outcry raised from this and other points of view overlooked all the more that they are first of all human beings. And this is not only a flat, abstract quality (§ 209, Remark). It also means that, through civil rights being granted, the self-esteem of counting as legal persons in civil society arises. From this infinite root, free of everything else, the equalization of ways of thinking and of disposition that is demanded comes about. The separation charged against the Jews would rather have been kept up. It would have become, with justice, the fault and reproach of the excluding state. For the state would thereby have failed to recognize its own principle, the objective institution and its power. (Compare § 268, Remark at the end.) The claim to this exclusion believed it had the highest right on its side. Experience has shown it to be the most foolish, and the way the governments acted to be the wise and worthy one. —
Laplace, Exposition of the System of the World, Book V, Chapter 4. "When Galileo made known his discoveries (to which the telescope helped him, the phases of Venus and so on), he showed at the same time that they proved the motion of the Earth beyond contradiction. But the idea of this motion was declared heretical by an assembly of cardinals. Galileo, its most famous defender, was summoned before the Inquisition. He was forced to retract it, to escape a harsh imprisonment. In a man of spirit, the passion for truth is one of the strongest passions. — Galileo, convinced of the motion of the Earth by his own observations, thought for a long time of a new work in which he had resolved to set out all the proofs for it. But to escape at the same time the persecution of which he would have had to become the victim, he chose the expedient of presenting them in the form of dialogues among three persons. One sees well that the advantage lay with the defender of the Copernican system. But Galileo did not decide between them, and he gave the objections of the followers of Ptolemy as much weight as possible. So he might well have expected not to be disturbed in the enjoyment of the peace that his great age and his labors deserved. In his seventieth year he was summoned again before the tribunal of the Inquisition. They shut him in a prison, where they demanded from him a second retraction of his opinions, under threat of the punishment intended for relapsed heretics. They had him sign the following formula of abjuration: 'I, Galileo, who in my seventieth year have appeared in person before the court, kneeling, with my eyes fixed on the holy Gospels, which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse and detest, with a sincere heart and true faith, the absurdity, falsity and heresy of the doctrine of the motion of the Earth, and so on.' What a sight it was: a venerable old man, famous for a long life devoted solely to the study of nature, abjuring on his knees, against the testimony of his own conscience, the truth that he had proved with convincing force. A judgment of the Inquisition condemned him to perpetual imprisonment. A year later, through the intervention of the Grand Duke of Florence, he was set free. — He died in 1642. Europe mourned his loss. Europe had been enlightened by his labors and was enraged at the judgment passed against so great a man by a hated tribunal."
The unity of state and church is a notion much discussed in recent times as well and put forward as the highest ideal. It can still be mentioned. If their essential unity is the unity of the truth of principles and of disposition, it is just as essential that, along with this unity, the difference they have in the form of their consciousness has come to particular existence. In oriental despotism there is that unity of church and state which is so often wished for. But with it the state is not there. What is not there is the self-conscious shape, worthy of spirit alone, in right, free ethical life and organic development. — Further, for the state to come to existence as the ethical actuality of spirit that knows itself, it must be distinguished from the form of authority and of faith. This distinction emerges only when the church side comes to a division within itself. Only in this way, above the particular churches, has the state won the universality of thought, the principle of its form, and brought it to existence. To see this, one must know not only what universality is in itself but what its existence is. It is therefore so far from true that the division of the church is, or was, a misfortune for the state, that only through it could the state become what its vocation is, self-conscious rationality and ethical life. It is also the happiest thing that could have happened to the church for its own sake, and to thought for its freedom and rationality.
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Section 270 is part of Elements of the Philosophy of Right by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is section 272 of 362 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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