This rational form
of possession establishes the proposition that "whatever I bring under
my power in accordance with laws of external freedom, and will that it
shall be mine, becomes mine."
The rational title of acquisition can therefore only lie
originally in the idea of the will of all united implicitly, or
necessarily to be united, which is here tacitly assumed as an
indispensable condition (conditio sine qua non). For by a single
will there cannot be imposed upon others an obligation by which they
would not have been otherwise bound. But the fact formed by wills
actually and universally united in a legislation constitutes the civil
state of society. Hence, it is only in conformity with the idea of a
civil state of society, or in reference to it and its realization,
that anything external can be acquired. Before such a state is
realized, and in anticipation of it, acquisition, which would
otherwise be derived, is consequently only provisory. The
acquisition which is peremptory finds place only in the civil state.
Nevertheless, such provisory acquisition is real acquisition. For,
according to the postulate of the juridically practical reason, the
possibility of acquisition in whatever state men may happen to be
living beside one another, and therefore in the state of nature as
well, is a principle of private right.
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