_Entailments_ are dissolved. This provision is an obligatory prescription imposed on the legislatures of the States, which obliges them to put an end to entailments, for this matter is given over by the Civil Code to the rights of States. By entailments is understood the legal institution by which a patrimony, particularly holdings of land, because of the limitation of the right to sell and the establishment of a certain succession provided by a testament, creates for the owning family in the person of the holder of the entail an economic position of security and thereby of increased advantage. These entails often go back considerably in time, but they are very frequent in Germany, to such an extent that land holdings subject to this legislation comprise, for example, in Prussia about seven per cent of all the landed properties, with about two and a half million hectares. In certain sections entailed property represents about twenty-two per cent of the whole agricultural service. For a long time now it has been questioned whether this institution, which tends to the concentration of more and more land into fewer and fewer hands, should not be abrogated. It is argued in particular against the entails that the community cannot allow a mere decision taken by the private will of a proprietor to be perpetuated; that entails have an unfavourable effect on the distribution of land and that they finally tend to wipe out the small and the average property. It follows of itself that with the victory of the democratic idea and in an epoch in which the tendency is to divide each piece of land as far as possible, entailments must be dissolved. In leaving to the States the legislation on this dissolution, the Constitution has only applied logically the democratic principles on which it rests.[51] II.--IN TURN THE STATE IS OBLIGED TO FULFIL A CERTAIN NUMBER OF DUTIES TO THE BENEFIT OF INDIVIDUALS.--The classic individualist doctrine limits the rights of the State but does not impose upon it any positive service, no obligation to the benefit of its citizens. The State must abstain from certain interferences, but the individual may claim no more than that of it. German constitutional law, however, adopts another conception, and while it restrains individual rights for the benefit of a community, it also imposes upon the latter obligations to the profit of the individual. From this there arise to the profit of the latter new rights corresponding to the restrictions to which he is subject. The individual owes the duty of working, but the State owes him the chance to work, must protect his work and according to circumstances must furnish him with the necessities of life. From this is derived for the individual the right to work, the right to the protection of his work and the right of subsistence. * * * * *