laws and leading the state to fulfill the tasks set by God. Stahl based his worldview not on logical necessity (like Hegel), but on the free personality of the revealed God. State and monarch are committed to something higher and have to work in that spirit. The foundation of Stahl's philosophy, which was strongly influenced by Schelling but also by Hegel, is the belief in a personal God, in the ruler of history. Guided by him, the "personality" unfolds in the religious-moral area as an individual, as a believer in the church community and as a citizen in the civil order of the "moral world", overarched by the state, the moral kingdom. The latter for Stahl was normatively determined by Christianity. For Stahl, the state was not a contractual structure, but rather the authority appointed by God; like the individual, the state as a personality strives towards morality. It is clear that this "Christian state" cannot know the Hegelian separation of state and society. Rather, the state is an association of a people under a rule (authority). This kingdom lives from monarchical authority, but is not a theocratic dictatorship. The monarch is "bound" as it has been throughout Lutheran political doctrine since its inception. Stahl's ethicized legal concept brings authority and freedom, monarchical principle and ideal "people" into balance, at least verbally. It follows from sovereignty that the prince is wholly and indivisibly entitled to exercise state power. Since responsibility is part of power, the prince also has the sole legislative initiative, the right to use the revenue and the right to convene the parliament of the people. In the event of constitutional conflicts between the chamber and the government, he has the absolute veto of final decision. But it is his duty to subordinate his interests to the state and to respect the rights of his subjects. The duty of the subjects is obedience and love for the legitimate authorities, devotion and sacrifice for the state. Their right is, first, the right to freedom of religion, teaching, and property; for the state as a highly imperfect institution, as the realm of the Fall of Man, can only stand negatively, only protectively, over everything that arises from within the individual. These living conditions could only be fulfilled in a higher unity, in that of God's commandments, which worked directly in the souls of his creatures. However, the rights of the