This is the juridical law (lex juridica). But the
distributive law of the mine and thine, as applicable to each
individual on the soil, according to the axiom of external freedom,
cannot proceed otherwise than from a primarily united will a priori-
which does not presuppose any juridical act as requisite for this
union. This Law can only take form in the civil state (lex justitiae
distributivae); as it is in this state alone that the united common
will determines what is right, what is rightful, and what is the
constitution of Right. In reference to this state, however- and
prior to its establishment and in view of it- it is provisorily a duty
for every one to proceed according to the law of external acquisition;
and accordingly it is a juridical procedure on the part of the will to
lay every one under obligation to recognise the act of possessing
and appropriating, although it be only unilaterally. Hence a provisory
acquisition of the soil, with all its juridical consequences, is
possible in the state of nature.
Such an acquisition, however, requires and also obtains the favour
of a permissive law (lex permissiva), in respect of the
determination of the limits of juridically possible possession. For it
precedes the juridical state, and as merely introductory to it is
not yet peremptory; and this favour does not extend farther than the
date of the consent of the other co-operators in the establishment
of the civil state.
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