Rights in Civil Society - Section Two
Part Three
Appendix To The Philosophy Of Right —
The Better Construction Of Civil Society
Chapter 5
Continuation — Enumeration of the goods which tend to balance one another
2596. What we have said becomes clearer if we enumerate the principal kinds of these goods, and consider how each kind inclines human beings to take possession of its neighbouring kind. These kinds of good can be reduced to the following: 1. population; 2. wealth; 3. civil authority; 4. material (military) force; 5. knowledge; 6. virtue.
Knowledge and virtue are invisible forces of the spirit. What can be said about them is strictly connected with what regards the activity of the spirit.
Relative to the first four forces (population, wealth, civil authority and material force), it is not difficult to understand how one easily draws the other to itself and how each one of these goods provides human beings with the means, and hence the temptation, to take possession of the other.