And yet, so far as the essence of Hegel’s political philosophy is concerned, there is nothing in all this. The first sketch of the _Philosophy of Right_ was published in the _Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences_ in 1817, before Hegel left Heidelberg. His political interest, in its gradual development, can be traced back in unpublished writings to 1802. [1] He started from the conception of the Greek State, on which his early sketch of the ethical system (1802, unpublished in his lifetime) was founded. And his subsequent development consisted in enlarging this conception by drawing out its framework to include the more {250} accented freedom of modern life, as he divined it from the attentive study both of English and of German politics. His substantive political theory never changed, except by development, in accordance with his general attitude towards the differences between Greek and modern life. [1] See Wallace, _Op. cit_., clxxx. and clxxxvii. _(b)_ “But,” popular criticism will rejoin, “here we have Hegel’s ideal State, depicted by his own hand, and it is pretty much the Prussian State of his time, tempered by a few references to English politics. Is not this a narrow horizon and a low ideal?” This criticism is of value, because it leads up to an important feature of true political theory. To depict what most people call “an ideal State” is no more the object of political philosophy than it is the object, say, of Carpenter’s _Human Physiology_ to depict an “ideal” man or an angel. The object of political philosophy is to understand what a State is, and it is not necessary for this purpose that the State which is analysed should be “ideal,” but only that it should be a State; just as the nature of life is represented pretty nearly as well by one living man as by another. “Every State,” [1] Hegel says, “even if your principles lead you to pronounce it bad, even if you detect this or that deficiency in it, always has (especially if it belongs to the more developed States of our time) the essential moments of its existence in it. But because it is easier to discover defects than to grasp the affirmative, people easily fall into the error of allowing particular aspects to lead them to forget the inner organism {251} of the State. The State is no work of art, it stands in the world, that is, in the sphere of caprice, accident, and error; evil behaviour is able to mar it in many respects. But the ugliest human being, a criminal, a sick man, or a cripple, is all the same a living human being; the affirmative, his life, persists in spite of the defect, and this affirmative is what we are concerned with here.” [1] _Phil. d. Rechts_, p. 313.