Rights in Civil Society - Part Four
Occasional And Efficient Causes Of Civil Society
1896. So far we have examined the nature of civil society and its Right (Parts 1 and 2), and the manner in which it is formed, that is, the jural acts from which it originates (Part 3). But knowledge of the essence of civil society and of the jural manner in which it is composed is not sufficient. Our theory has to take more account of real societies and investigate `the stimuli that impel people to set up actual, civil society.'
1897. Note that this is different from the investigation already undertaken. The jural manner in which a society is formed is one thing; the stimulus that moves people to effectively form civil society is another. Society does not receive real existence from the jural manner of its formation; it receives only its jural essence, the form of justice, its legitimacy. The stimulus which moves people, and their real actions, is the source of society's actual realisation.
1898. However, it is not the case that teaching about these stimuli, which move people to come together in civil commonalties, pertains to real Right.(114) It, too, belongs to pure Right, to the theory of Right, because the stimuli of which we are speaking are possible stimuli (although, if we consider our mental progress, we see that the mind came to them from experience and history). We are dealing also with specific stimuli (types of stimuli), not with individual stimuli (realities corresponding to types). We must now examine the stimuli which move people to set up civil society.
Notes
(114) Cf. USR, 142-145.