s one
which merely exists. A sick body also exists; but it has no true
reality. A hand, which is cut off, still looks like a hand and exists,
but it has no reality. True reality is necessity. What is real is
internally necessary.

To the complete State belongs, essentially, consciousness and thought.
The State knows thus what it wills, and it knows it under the form of
thought.

The essential difference between the State and religion consists in that
the commands of the State have the form of legal duty, irrespective of
the feelings accompanying their performance; the sphere of religion, on
the other hand, is in the inner life. Just as the State, were it to
frame its commands as religion does, would endanger the right of the
inner life, so the church, if it acts as a State and imposes punishment,
degenerates into a tyrannical religion.

In the State one must want nothing which is not an expression of
rationality. The State is the world which the spirit has made for
itself; it has therefore a determinate and self-conscious course. One
often speaks of the wisdom of God in nature, but one must not believe
that the physical world of nature is higher than the world of spirit.
Just as spirit is superior to nature, so is the State superior to the
physical life. We must therefore adore the State as the manifestation of
the divine on earth, and consider that, if it is difficult to comprehend
nature, it is infinitely harder to grasp the essence of the State. It is
an important fact that we, in modern times, have attained definite
insight into the State in general and are much engaged in discussing and
making constitutions; but that does not advance the problem much. It is
necessary to treat a rational matter in the light of reason, in order to
learn its essential nature and to know that the obvious does not always
constitute the essential.

When we speak of the different functions of the powers of the State, we
must not fall into the enormous error of supposing each power to have an
abstract, independent existence, since the powers are rather to be
differentiated as elements in the conception of the State. Were the
powers to be in abstract independence, however, it is clear that two
independent things could never constitute a unity, but must produce war,
and the result would be destruction of the whole or restoration of unity
by force. Thus, in the French Revolution, at one time the legislative
power had swallowed up the exe