Note 571 — Chapter X · THE STATE (A) THE PROBLEM OF THE ESTATES—NOBILITY AND PRIESTHOOD

No exact equivalent exists in common English for the German word “Stand.” “Aristocracy” is too narrow, as under most aspects the clergy and under some even the Tiers have to be reckoned in. “Class” fails because, for logical completeness, it has to be stretched so as to bring in the qualitatively unclassed as a distinct category. (A whole social history is contained in the use of these and similar words at different periods.) The word “Estate” itself is used nowadays for the “masses” (“Fourth Estate” = “Proletariat”), but this very use, by Socialists, is an assertion that the masses, as workers, possess a qualitative peculiarity and condition of their own, and the word thus continues to connote ideas of differentiation, specific constitution, and oriented outlook. It may, therefore, be employed here without fear of misunderstanding or reproach of pedantry.—Tr.