cutive, at another time the executive had
usurped the legislative power.

THE CONSTITUTION

The constitution is rational, in so far as the State defines and
differentiates its functions according to the nature of its concept.

Who shall make the constitution? This question seems intelligible, yet
on closer examination reveals itself as meaningless, for it presupposes
the existence of no constitution, but only a mere mass of atomic
individuals. How a mass of individuals is to come by a constitution,
whether by its own efforts or by those of others, whether by goodness,
thought, or force, it must decide for itself, for with a disorganized
mob the concept of the State has nothing to do. But if the question does
presuppose an already existing constitution, then to make a constitution
means only to change it. The presupposition of a constitution implies,
however, at once, that any modification in it must take place
constitutionally. It is absolutely essential that the constitution,
though having a temporal origin, should not be regarded as made. It (the
principle of constitution) is rather to be conceived as absolutely
perpetual and rational, and therefore as divine, substantial, and above
and beyond the sphere of what is made.

Subjective freedom is the principle of the whole modern world--the
principle that all essential aspects of the spiritual totality should
develop and attain their right. From this point of view one can hardly
raise the idle question as to which form is the better, monarchy or
democracy. One can but say that the forms of all constitutions are
one-sided that are not able to tolerate the principle of free
subjectivity and that do not know how to conform to the fully developed
reason.

Since spirit is real only in what it knows itself to be, and since the
State, as the nation's spirit, is the law permeating all its affairs,
its ethical code, and the consciousness of its individuals, the
constitution of a people chiefly depends upon the kind and the character
of its self-consciousness. In it lies both its subjective freedom and
the reality of the constitution.

To think of giving a people a constitution _a priori_, though according
to its content a more or less rational one--such a whim would precisely
overlook that element which renders a constitution more than a mere
abstract object. Every nation, therefore, has the constitution which is
appropriate to it and belongs to it.

The State must, in