3

Right is positive in general (a) in its form, since it has validity in a
state; and this established authority is the principle for the knowledge
of right. Hence we have the positive science of right. (b) On the side
of content this right receives a positive element [a] through the
particular character of a nation, the stage of its historical
development, and the interconnection of all the relations which are
necessitated by nature: [b] through the necessity that a system of
legalised right must contain the application of the universal
conception to objects and cases whose qualities are given externally.
Such an application is not the speculative thought or the
development of the conception, but a subsumption made by the
understanding: [c] through the ultimate nature of a decision which
has become a reality.

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