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Kant, Immanuel

"The Science Of Right"

3. Further, as the surface of the
earth is not unlimited in extent, but is circumscribed into a unity,
national right and international right necessarily culminate in the
idea of a universal right of mankind, which may be called
Cosmopolitical Right (jus cosmopoliticum). And national,
international, and cosmopolitical right are so interconnected, that,
if any one of these three possible forms of the juridical relation
fails to embody the essential principles that ought to regulate
external freedom by law, the structure of legislation reared by the
others will also be undermined, and the whole system would at last
fall to pieces.
I. Right of the State and Constitutional Law.
(Jus Civitatis).
44. Origin Of the Civil Union and Public Right.
It is not from any experience prior to the appearance of an external
authoritative legislation that we learn of the maxim of natural
violence among men and their evil tendency to engage in war with
each other. Nor is it assumed here that it is merely some particular
historical condition or fact, that makes public legislative constraint
necessary; for however well-disposed or favourable to right men may be
considered to be of themselves, the rational idea of a state of
society not yet regulated by right, must be taken as our
starting-point.


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