Fifth Proposition.

The greatest practical Problem for the human race, to the solution of which it is compelled by Nature, is the establishment of a Civil Society, universally administering Right according to Law.

It is only in a Society which possesses the greatest Liberty, and which consequently involves a thorough Antagonism of its members—with, however, the most exact determination and guarantee of the limits of this Liberty in order that it may coexist with the liberty of others—that the highest purpose of Nature, which is the development of all her capacities, can be attained in the case of mankind. Now Nature also wills that the human race shall attain through itself to this, as to all the other ends for which it was destined. Hence a Society in which Liberty under external laws may be found combined in the greatest possible degree with irresistible Power, or a perfectly just Civil Constitution, is the highest natural problem prescribed to the human species. And this is so, because Nature can only by means of the solution and fulfilment of this problem, realise her other purposes with our race. A certain necessity compels man, who is otherwise so greatly prepossessed in favour of unlimited freedom, to enter into this state of coercion and restraint. And indeed, it is the greatest necessity of all that does this; for it is created by men themselves whose inclinations make it impossible for them to exist long beside each other in wild lawless freedom. But in such a complete growth as the Civil Union, these very inclinations afterwards produce the best effects. It is with them as with the trees in a forest; for just because everyone strives to deprive the other of air and sun, they compel each other to seek them both above, and thus they grow beautiful and straight, whereas those that in freedom and apart from one another shoot out their branches at will, grow stunted and crooked and awry. All the culture and art that adorn humanity, and the fairest social order, are fruits of that unsociableness which is necessitated of itself to discipline itself and which thus constrains man, by compulsive art, to develop completely the germs of his Nature.