NOTES
1. Philosophy of History, p. 38.
2. The Principle of Individuality and Value, p. 311.
3. Philosophy of History, E. T., p. 41.
5. Philosophie des Rechts, pp. 312-12.
6. Not that they are admitted to be abstract. They are believed by the idealist to be the very soul of reality (see, e.g., Phil des Rechts, p. 58).
7. Social and International Ideals (1917), p. 274.
9. The Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 186.
10. It may be permissible to define a structure by its function, provided the definition be unambiguous. For this purpose the structure must only have one function, and we must know what it is, and that it is invariably performed. If every government performed the function of promoting the common good and no other, there would be no harm in defining the state as that which exists for the common good, but if, e. g., the state is in the hands of a governing class which governs for selfish ends it does not perform this function. Do we then mean by the state the organization which sustains government or the organization which sustains a peculiar kind of government aiming at a particular kind of purpose? If the latter, we must get another name instead of the state for every actual organization in so far as it deflects from our ideal, otherwise we shall never know whether we are talking about the ideal world or the real world.
11. The truth seems to be that idealists suppose actual states to be so good that the error is insignificant. Thus, Hegel interrupts one of his rhapsodies (Phil. des Rects, p. 313) with the caution, "In the idea of the state one must not have particular states before one's eyes nor particular institutions. One must rather treat the idea of this actual god on its own account (f r sic)." For the moment the reader thinks that after all Hegel has only been romancing harmlessly about an ideal world. But he goes on, "Every state, though one may recognize this or that fault in it, has always, especially when it belongs to the developed states of our own time, the essential moments of its existence in itself." The god, it seems, is actually incarnated in actual states, though it seems to have some little trouble in the flesh. There is a case for restricting the use of the term "state" to those political organizations which recognize the rule of law and some measure of self-government. The present writer has himself used the term in this sense (Morals in Evolution, ch. ii); but this still defines the state by actual and assignable features of its organization, not by the way in which that organization performs its functions, and the term "state" is in practice used by many writers in a much wider sense, as applicable to all communities that possess an organized government. In the Hegelian state in particular, though the reign of law is certainly postulated, there is no notion of self-government.
12. Above the state stands the Spirit which realizes itself in world history and is the absolute judge of the state. There is here a hint of a wider view which perhaps explains how it was that Karl Marx could reach internationalism from a Hegelian basis. But for Hegel combinations of states are only relative and limited (Phil. des Rechts, p. 314).