interpretation, it would appear that these articles, from the point of view of their legal efficacy, may be divided into three categories. (1) Those having the force of law. These create actually and immediately some new law, and consequently abrogate contradictory provisions of antecedent laws. Such, for example, is Article 109, par. 6: “No German may accept a title or order from a foreign Government.” (2) Others limit themselves to _indicating_ to legislators of the Reich and of the States the _course which they must in the future follow_ and prescribe the laws they must enact. But these provisions do not in themselves constitute laws, and, therefore, cannot abrogate _ipso facto_, contradictory provisions in antecedent laws. Such is the principle in Article 145, according to which “Instruction and school supplies … are free.” This cannot have for its effect the immediate doing away with payments by pupils in the schools for supplies furnished them. There is no doubt that the principle of gratuity cannot enter into operation except through a special law expressly prescribed. (3) Other provisions express _general truths_, which are most often _ordinary philosophico-legal commonplaces_, whose exact meaning and bearing in a text such as the Constitution is difficult to grasp. For example, it is hard to see the special significance which a phrase can have in a constitutional document such as the one which declares that marriage is placed under the special protection of the Constitution. * * * * * However diverse may be the conceptions that prevailed at the drawing up of the fundamental rights, and whatever uncertainty they may present from the legal point of view, it is possible, nevertheless, when the whole of the second part of the Constitution of Weimar is surveyed, to discover in these articles some common characteristics and to unfold the fundamental ideas that have inspired the majority of the Constituent Assembly. It is evident that the Assembly conceived the fundamental rights and duties in a manner quite different from that of the authors of preceding Declarations of Rights in America, France, or even in Germany. These declarations were inspired by purely individualistic doctrine. Man is by nature free and independent; he holds rights that are limited only by such other rights as will assure to other men the enjoyment of the same rights as his. From this ensues a twofold consequence. First, he may act in his own right provided that he confines himself within the limits of the right in question. Within these rights he is truly sovereign, and the state may not encroach on them to impose any obligation whatsoever. On the other hand, conversely, the state does not owe any positive service or pledge to the profit of the individual. It must abstain from all interference and allow him free individual activities. The State owes nothing to the individual, who in turn can claim nothing from it.