It may be objected that, had such
scrupulousness about making a beginning in founding a legal state with
force been always maintained, the whole earth would still have been in
a state of lawlessness. But such an objection would as little annul
the conditions of right in question as the pretext of the political
revolutionaries that, when a constitution has become degenerate, it
belongs to the people to transform it by force. This would amount
generally to being unjust once and for all, in order thereafter to
found justice the more surely, and to make it flourish.
CONCLUSION
Conclusion.
If one cannot prove that a thing is, he may try to prove that it
is not. And if he succeeds in doing neither (as often occurs), he
may still ask whether it is in his interest to accept one or other
of the alternatives hypothetically, from the theoretical or the
practical point of view. In other words, a hypothesis may be
accepted either in order to explain a certain phenomenon (as in
astronomy to account for the retrogression and stationariness of the
planets), or in order to attain a certain end, which again may be
either pragmatic, as belonging merely to the sphere of art, or
moral, as involving a purpose which it is a duty to adopt as a maxim
of action. Now it is evident that the assumption (suppositio) of the
practicability of such an end, though presented merely as a
theoretical and problematical judgement, may be regarded as
constituting a duty; and hence it is so regarded in this case.
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