ABSTRACT
Right is the claim for fulfilment of these conditions ; and they include, for example, food, security, education, and facilities for playing a part in life.1 Krause had once (Grundlage des Naturrechts, 1803) confined the definition to "external " conditions, but in his latest writings he withdraws the limitation.1 In his sketch of the history of the Law of Nature,3 he allows that he stands nearer to Fichte than to any other philosopher, and praises Fichte's attempt to deduce Right from the very nature of Self. But Fichte's adherence to the Kantian conception of Right as the " law of the mutual restriction of the freedom of each that it may be consistent with the freedom of all," is condemned, partly because Fichte only allows rights to belong to a man if the man respects them in others, partly because the notion is purely negative, partly because Fichte makes right depend on the common will, instead of the common will on Right. But Fichte, Schelling and Hegel have done well to connect the ideas of Right and of the State with the Supreme Being or Absolute Essence itsel£.4 "The Statute Book [of natural law J is the eternal cosmos." 6 What is organic and wellordered is of God and good ; what is chaotic is evil, which is essentially negative and exceptional.6 Right belongs to the former category ; it is nothing if not organic.
