In this identity of being-in-itself and being-posited, only what is law has binding force as right. Since being-posited constitutes the side of existence in which the contingency of self-will and of other particularity can also enter, what is law can, in its content, still be different from what is right in itself.

In positive right, therefore, what is lawful is the source of the cognition of what is right, or, properly, of what is rightful; positive legal science is, to that extent, a historical science that has authority as its principle. What further can be done is a matter for the understanding, and concerns external order, arrangement, consistency, further application, and the like. When the understanding involves itself with the nature of the matter itself, the theories — for example, of criminal law — show what it brings about with its reasoning from grounds. — Since positive science, on the one hand, has not only the right but also the necessary duty to deduce, out of its positive data, both the historical developments and the applications and ramifications of the given legal determinations, into all their particulars, and to show their consistency, it may, on the other hand, at least not be utterly astonished — even if it regards it as a side question for its own occupation — when the question is now raised whether, after all these proofs, a legal determination is rational. — Compare, on understanding, § 3, Remark.