II. _In the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach, there will be no enacted law to be sure, but there will be law even there._ What Bakunin predicts with regard to this next stage of evolution enables us to perceive that according to his expectation norms will then prevail which "are based on a general will,"[345] and which even secure obedience by forcible compulsion if necessary,[346] so that they are legal norms. Among such legal norms of our next stage of evolution Bakunin mentions that by virtue of which there exists a "right to independence."[347] For me as an individual this means "that I as a man am entitled to obey no other man, and to act only in accordance with my own judgment."[348] But, furthermore, "every nation, every province, and every commune has the unlimited right to complete independence, provided that its internal constitution does not threaten the independence and liberty of the adjoining territories."[349] Likewise Bakunin regards it as a legal norm of the next stage of evolution that contracts must be lived up to. To be sure, the obligation of contracts has its limits. "Human justice cannot recognize anything as creating an obligation in perpetuity. All rights and duties are founded on liberty. The right of freely uniting and separating is the first and most important of all political rights."[350] Another legal norm mentioned by Bakunin as belonging to the next stage of evolution is that by virtue of which "the land, the instruments of labor, and all other capital, as the collective property of the whole of society, will exclusively serve for the use of the agricultural and industrial associations."[351] 4.--THE STATE I. _In the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human existence the State will shortly, according to Bakunin, disappear._ "The State is a historically temporary arrangement, a transitory form of society."[352] 1. The State belongs to a low stage of evolution. "Man takes the first step from his bestial existence to a human existence by religion; but so long as he remains religious he will never reach his goal; for every religion condemns him to absurdity, guides him into a wrong course, and makes him seek the divine in place of the human."[353] "All religions, with their gods, demigods, and prophets, their Messiahs and saints, are products of the credulous fancy of men who had not yet come to the full development and entire possession of their intellectual powers."[354] This holds good also, and particularly, of Christianity: it is "the complete inversion of common-sense and reason."[355]