The State must be regarded as a great architectonic edifice, a hieroglyph of reason, manifesting itself in reality.  Everything referring merely to utility, externality, and the like, must be excluded from its philosophic treatment.  That the State is the self-determining and the completely sovereign will, the final decision being necessarily referred to it—­that is easy to comprehend.  The difficulty lies in grasping this “I will” as a person.  By this it is not meant that the monarch can act arbitrarily.  He is bound, in truth, by the concrete content of the deliberations of his council, and, when the constitution is stable, he has often nothing more to do than to sign his name—­but this name is important; it is the point than which there is nothing higher.

It may be said that an organic State has already existed in the beautiful democracy of Athens.  The Greeks, however, derived the final decision from entirely external phenomena, from oracles, entrails of sacrificial animals, and from the flight of birds.  Nature they considered as a power which in this wise made known and gave expression to what was good for the people.  Self-consciousness had at that time not yet attained to the abstraction of subjectivity; it had not yet come to the realization that an “I will” must be pronounced by man himself concerning the decisions of the State.  This “I will” constitutes the great difference between the ancient and the modern world, and must therefore have its peculiar place in the great edifice of the State.  Unfortunately this modern characteristic is regarded as merely external and arbitrary.

It is often maintained against the monarch that, since he may be ill-educated or unworthy to stand at the helm of the State, its fortunes are thus made to depend upon chance.  It is therefore absurd to assume the rationality of the institution of the monarch.  The presupposition, however, that the fortunes of the State depend upon the particular character of the monarch is false.  In the perfect organization of the State the important thing is only the finality of formal decision and the stability against passion.  One must not therefore demand objective qualification of the monarch; he has but to say “yes” and to put the dot upon the “i.”  The crown shall be of such a nature that the particular character of its bearer is of no significance.  Beyond his function of administering the final decision, the monarch is a particular being who is of no concern.  Situations may indeed arise in which his particularity alone asserts itself, but in that case the State is not yet fully developed, or else is ill constructed.  In a well-ordered monarchy the law alone has objective power to which the monarch has but to affix the subjective “I will.”

Monarchs do not excel in bodily strength or intellect, and yet millions permit themselves to be ruled by them.  To say that the people permit themselves to be governed contrary to their interests, aims, and intentions is preposterous, for people are not so stupid.  It is their need, it is the inner power of the idea, which, in opposition to their apparent consciousness, urges them to this situation and retains them therein.