The proof of this in the
practical connection, as will be shown afterwards, can be adduced in
an analytical manner.
8. To Have Anything External as One's Own is only Possible
in a Juridical or Civil State of Society under the
Regulation of a Public Legislative Power.
If, by word or deed, I declare my will that some external thing
shall be mine, I make a declaration that every other person is obliged
to abstain from the use of this object of my exercise of will; and
this imposes an obligation which no one would be under, without such a
juridical act on my part. But the assumption of this act at the same
time involves the admission that I am obliged reciprocally to
observe a similar abstention towards every other in respect of what is
externally theirs; for the obligation in question arises from a
universal rule regulating the external juridical relations. Hence I am
not obliged to let alone what another person declares to be externally
his, unless every other person likewise secures me by a guarantee that
he will act in relation to what is mine, upon the same principle. This
guarantee of reciprocal and mutual abstention from what belongs to
others does not require a special juridical act for its establishment,
but is already involved in the conception of an external obligation of
right, on account of the universality and consequently the reciprocity
of the obligatoriness arising from a universal Rule.
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