Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/421

THEORY OF RIGHT. 399 the state is the republican, i. e., that in which the executive power is separated from the legislative power, in contrast to despotism, where they are united in one hand. The best guaranty for just government and civil liberty is offered by constitutional monarchy, in which the people through its representatives exercises the legislative power, the sovereign the executive power, and judges chosen by the people the judicial power. The contract from which we may conceive the state to have arisen is not to be regarded as an historical fact, but as a rational idea or rule, by which we may judge whether the laws are just or not : that which the people as a whole cannot prescribe for itself, this cannot be prescribed for it by the ruler (cf. p. 235). That there is a constant progress — not only of individuals, but — of the race, not merely in technical and intellectual, but also in moral respects, is supported both by rational grounds (without faith in such progress we could not fulfill our duty as co-laborers in it) and by experiential grounds (above all, the unselfish sympathy which all the world gave to the French Revolution); and the never-ending complaint that the times are growing worse proves only that mankind is continually setting up stricter standards for itself. The beginning of history is to be placed at the point where man passes out of the condi- tion of innocence, in which instinct rules, and begins to subdue nature, which hitherto he has obeyed. The goal of history, again, is the establishment of the perfect form of the state. Nature itself co-operates with freedom in the gradual transformation of the state based on necessity {Notstaat) into a rational state, inasmuch as selfish competition and the commercial spirit require peace, order, and justice for their own security and help to bring them about. And so, further, we need not doubt that humanity will constantly draw nearer to the ideal condition of everlasting peace among the nations (guaranteed by a league of states which shall as a mediator settle disputes between individual states), however impracticable the idea may at present appear. If the bold declaration of Fortlage, that in Kant the system of absolute truth appeared, is true of any one part