Abstract: Max Weber's Freiburg Address famously argued that the nation state represented the nation in the secular world. However,it is in Weber's own definition of state as a special means to all kinds of ends that the state's amenability to be the nation's representative becomes questionable. This intellectual contradiction leads to the inquiry of this paper into Weber's understanding of the nation in two sections of his corpus of "Economy and Society". In the "ethnic community",Weber sees in nation an ancient pathos that can be best fulfilled in the nation's search to found its political community. In the "political community", in contrast to Ernest Renan's words on nation,Weber offers a vigorous examination of the 19th century trend that regards the statehood as nationality itself. For Weber,the political core of the statehood with respect to the nation hinges on the state's ability to formalize the two most formless things:force and capital. However,this formalization even in the strongest normative sense creates tension rather than compatibility with the pathos and prestige in Weber's concept of nation. This tension is consistent with the difficulty we find in Freiburg Address regarding the state's amenability to be the secular representative of the nation,and its solution requires a more systematic investigation of the sociology of domination.

Key words: Nation State, Gemeinschaftshandel, pathos, prestige, statehood