III. Between these two corporations the family--that deep, solid foundation of the social edifice below--and the church, that high, expansive and illumined vault above--stands the state. Schlegel defines the state, "a corporation armed for the maintenance of peace." "Its existence," says he, "is bound up with all the other corporations; it lives and moves in them; they are its natural organs; and as soon as the state, whether with despotic or anarchical views, attempts to impede the natural functions of these organs, to disturb or derange their peculiar sphere of action, it impairs its own vital powers, and prepares the way sooner or later for its own destruction." IV. There are two intermediate corporations--the guild, which stands between the family and the state; and the school, which stands between the church and the state. By the guild, Schlegel understands "every species of traffic, industry and commerce, bound together in every part of the world by the common tie of money." The object of this corporation is the advancement of the material interests of the family; interests which it is the bounden duty of the state to protect and promote. V. By the school, the author signifies the "whole intellectual culture of mankind--not merely the existing republic of letters, but all the tradition of science from the remotest ages to the present times." This corporation, I should say, has for its object the glorification of the church, the utility of the state, and the intellectual activity of the family, or rather its individual members. But among these primary corporations, it is the state which forms the immediate object of the author's inquiries. I shall now proceed to lay before the reader the several characteristics which, according to the author, distinguish the Christian state, or the state animated with the spirit of Christianity. §§ I. _The Christian state is without slaves, and honours the sanctity of the nuptial tie._