絕非如黑格爾所預期：國家理性之實現的歷史終極。黑格爾的錯誤固然在於他只 能做預期，而臺灣的國族主義學者與政治家之犯錯則絕不如黑氏之無辜。他們宣道式地促人 為一個名目或為一塊旗子什麼的而戰鬥，在這同時他們的呼籲不但正在建構國族 -- 國家， 同時更在將學術與政治上的權威授予這個或那個國族 -- 國家。相對照地，這篇文章則通過 建制（ institution ）這個概念來分析臺灣的國族主義問題； 建制也者，是指在相對穩定 位置之間的一組既定關係， 而且也是「使社會性質的東西被設定成看起來像是自然性質... 」的過程。 這篇文章將討論四個歷史上較早出現的「國族 -- 國家」中的一些重要制度 -- 包括國族語言（ national language ） -- 這些全球經驗的重要部份之討論是島內論詰中 所缺乏的；本文期加以補足。

　　　　　The state is a far cry from the culmination of history in Reason's realization, the anticipation of Hegel. For Hegel, the error was in prediction. Taiwan's nationalist professors and politicians err without this innocence. As they exhort us to battle for one name or another, for one piece of flag cloth or another (and in heeding their calls simultaneously constitute the nation and delegate authority to its scholary and political voices) this article analyzes the Taiwan nationalists' problem through the concept of institution, both a set relations between relatively stable positions and a process "assigning properties of a social nature in a way that makes them seem like properties of natural nature." This article summarizes a key part of the global experience missing from discourse on the island by discussing a key institution -- national language -- of the nation-state as it developed in history's first nation-states.