s an
alteration which is imperceptible, but has not the form of an
alteration. Thus, for example, the emperor was formerly judge, and went
about the empire administering justice. Through the merely apparent
advance of civilization it has become practically necessary that the
emperor should gradually yield his judicial function to others, and thus
came about the transition of the judicial function from the person of
the prince to a body of judges; thus the progress of any condition is an
apparently calm and imperceptible one. In this way and after a lapse of
time a constitution attains a character quite different from what it had
before.

In the legislative power as a whole are operative both the monarchical
element and the executive. To the former belongs the final decision; the
latter as advisory element possesses concrete knowledge, perspective
over the whole in all its ramifications, and acquaintance with the
objective principles and wants of the power of the State. Finally, in
the legislature the different classes or estates are also active. These
classes or estates represent in the legislature the element of
subjective formal freedom, the public consciousness, the empirical
totality of the views and thought of the many.

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 i