The following quote is from Jakob Fries’s 1816 pamphlet, ‘The Danger Posed by the Jews to German Well-Being and Character’, translated in a footnote to Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right by H.S. Nisbet: Jews can be subjects of our government, but as Jews they can never become citizens of our people, for as Jews they want to be a distinct people, and so they necessarily separate themselves from our German national community. Indeed, they form not merely a people, but at the same time they form a state. The basic laws of Jewish religion are at the same time the basic laws of their state, their rabbis are at the same time their chiefs, to whom the people owe the highest reverence and the most blind obedience . ..Their nationality signifies in itself only their physical origin from a distinct people. Here we have to judge them as favourably as possible. No man who loves justice wants to stand by the proposition that black is the colour of slaves, or any other propo...
For Those Who Love Philosophy