Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/179

 were dependent on this or that Individual, or on Individuals generally, and were composed of them:—almost the only way in which ordinary philosophers are able to conceive of a Whole. The State, in itself, is an unseen Idea; just as the Race has been described in our former lectures: it is—not single Individuals, but their continuous relation to each other, the living and ever-changing production of which is the work of Individuals as they exist in space. To make my idea clear by an example:—The Rulers are by no means the State, but merely Citizens like all the rest; and there is absolutely no individual character in the State but that of Citizen. The Rulers, as well as all other Individuals, with all their individual powers, are taken into account in order to direct the powers of the governed,—who no more than they constitute the State,—towards the common purpose, so far as they understand it, and to enforce this purpose on all who are opposed to it. Only that result which arises from their guidance and the directed power of the governed taken together, do we call the State in the strictest sense of the word.

Only one objection is here to be anticipated; which I meet directly. It may be said: Why then are all the powers of Individuals to be taken into account in the purpose of the State? If this purpose might be attained at less cost, would it not, in that case, be sufficient to secure the desired equality that the necessary expenditure of power should be equally divided among All; and the free use of the superfluous power be left to the free will of each Individual? To which we reply:—First of all, the supposed case, that the united power of all Individuals might not be necessary for the purpose of the State, can never occur, and is impossible. Such powers of the Individual as are perhaps unknown to himself, and also such as may be known to him but are unknown or unavailable to the State, are indeed not to be taken into account in the purpose of the State; but all individual