The expression “The Many” [Greek:  oi polloi] characterizes the empirical totality more correctly than the customary word “All.”  Though one may reply that, under this “all,” children, women, etc., are obviously meant to be excluded, yet it is more obvious that the definite expression “all” should not be used when something quite indefinite is in question.

There are, in general, current among the public so unspeakably many distorted and false notions and phrases about the people, the constitution, and the classes, that it would be a vain task to mention, explain, and correct them.  The prevalent idea concerning the necessity and utility of an assembly of estates amounts to the assumption that the people’s deputies, nay, the people itself, best understand what would promote the common weal, and that they have indubitably the good will to promote it.  As for the first point, the case is just the reverse.  The people, in so far as this term signifies a special part of the citizens, stands precisely for the part that does not know what it wills.  To know what one wills, and, what is more difficult, to know what the absolute will, viz., reason, wills, is the fruit of deep knowledge and insight; and that is obviously not a possession of the people.  As for the especially good will, which the classes are supposed to have for the common good, the usual point of view of the masses is the negative one of suspecting the government of a will which is evil or of little good.

The attitude of the government toward the classes must not be essentially a hostile one.  Belief in the necessity of this hostile relation is a sad mistake.  The government is not one party in opposition to another, so that both are engaged in wresting something from each other.  When the State is in such a situation it is a misfortune and not a mark of health.  Furthermore, the taxes, for which the classes vote, are not to be looked upon as gifts, but are consented to for the best interests of those consenting.  What constitutes the true meaning of the classes is this—­that through them the State enters into the subjective consciousness of the people and thus the people begin to share in the State.

In despotic countries, where there are only princes and people, the people assert themselves, whenever they act, as a destructive force directed against the organization, but the masses, when they become organically related to the State, obtain their interests in a lawful and orderly way.  When this organic relation is lacking, the self-expression of the masses is always violent; in despotic States the despot shows, therefore, indulgence for his people, and his rage is always felt by those surrounding him.  Moreover, the people of a despotic State pay light taxes, which in a constitutional State are increased through the very consciousness of the people.  In no other country are taxes so heavy as they are in England.