JOHANN KASPAR BLUNTSCHLI

While history informs us of the organic nature of the state, it at the same time gives us to understand that the state does not stand in the same rank with the lower vegetable and animal organisms, but is of a higher order. History represents the state as a moral-spiritual organism, as a great body that is capable of taking into itself the feelings and thoughts of the people, expressing them as law, and realizing them as deed. It acquaints us with the moral qualities, with the character of single states. It ascribes to the state a personality which has endowed its own will with spirit and body, and made it known....

While history informs us of the organic nature of the state, it at the same time gives us to understand that the state does not stand in the same rank with the lower vegetable and animal organisms, but is of a higher order. History represents the state as a moral-spiritual organism, as a great body that is capable of taking into itself the feelings and thoughts of the people, expressing them as law, and realizing them as deed. It acquaints us with the moral qualities, with the character of single states. It ascribes to the state a personality which has endowed its own will with spirit and body, and made it known....