ABSTRACT
The laws and rights invoked received their justification through their relation with the divine, revealed law and with the latter’s earthly reflection, natural law. A natural right in favour of the people existing apart from the state which might under certain circumstances be validly claimed even in opposition to the state and its power did not appear to the princes only as a logically untenable theory. Emmanuel Kant provided his theory with such reservations as to weaken it in itself, thus evading the danger which lay in merely pointing to the possibility of such a clash. In the meantime, however, on the part of the sovereigns a conception began to gain ground which, at least apparently, aimed at a consolidation of the rights of the people. This was the doctrine of a separation and contrast between the power of the state and the position of the sovereign.
