[p. 247]
§ 25
The state of nature is the condition of crudeness, violence and injustice. Human beings must enter from such a condition into the society of the state, because only in it does the rightful relation have actuality.
Explanation. The state of nature is customarily portrayed as a perfect state of the human being, with regard both to happiness and to ethical goodness. In the first place, it is to be noted that innocence as such has no moral worth, inasmuch as it is ignorance of evil and rests on the lack of needs under which evil can occur. Secondly, this state is rather a state of force and of wrong, precisely because in it human beings are considered according to nature. According to nature, however, they are unequal, both with regard to bodily strength and to mental aptitudes, and assert their difference against one another by force and cunning. Reason is indeed also present in the state of nature, but the natural is what rules. Human beings must therefore pass out of it into a state in which the rational will is what rules.
§ 26
The law is the abstract expression of the universal will that is in and for itself.
Explanation. The law is the universal will, inasmuch as it is so according to reason. It is not necessary here that each individual should have known or found this will merely through himself. Nor is it necessary that each individual should have declared his will and that a universal result was then drawn from it. In actual history, accordingly, things did not proceed in such a way that every individual citizen of a people proposed a law and then reached agreement on the law with the others through common deliberation. The law contains the necessity of the relations of right toward one another.
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