It follows from all this that the state, as mere governance of human
life proceeding in its normal peaceable course, is not a primal thing
and one existing for itself, but that it is simply the means to the
higher end of the eternally uniform development of the purely human in
this nation; that it is only the vision and the love of this eternal
development which is continually to guide the higher outlook upon the
administration of the state, even in periods of calm, and which alone
can save the independence of the nation when this is endangered. In
the case of the Germans, among whom, as being a primitive people, this
love of country was possible and, as we firmly believe, has actually
existed hitherto, such patriotism could, up to our own time, count
with a high degree of certainty upon the safety of its most important
interests. As was the case only among the Greeks in antiquity, among
the Germans the State and the nation were actually severed from
each other, and each was represented separately; the former in the
individual German kingdoms and principalities; the latter visibly in
the Federation of the Empire, and invisibly--valid not in consequence
of written law but as a sequence of a law living in the hearts of all,
and in its results striking the eyes at every turn--in a multitude
of customs and institutions. As far as the German language extended,
every one who saw the light within its domain could regard himself
as a citizen in a two-fold sense, partly of his natal city, to whose
immediate protection he was recommended; and partly of the entire
common fatherland of the German nation.
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