common good, the desire on the part of each which he thinks of others as sharing, for a good which he conceives to be equally good for them, that transforms mere 'potentia' into what may fitly be called 'jus,' i.e. a power claiming recognition as exercised or capable of being exercised for the common good. [1] Certainly this is so, if we apply to the 'libera multitudo' the definition of freedom applied to the 'liber homo.' 'Hominem eatenus _liberum_ omnino voco, quatenus ratione ducitur, quia eatenus ex causis, quae per solam eius naturam possunt adaequate intelligi, ad agendum determinatur, tametsi ex iis necessario ad agendum determinetur. Nam libertas agendi necessitatem non tollit, sed ponit'(II. 11). 37. If this qualification of 'potentia' which alone renders it 'jus' had been apprehended by Spinoza, he would have been entitled to speak of a 'jus naturale' as preceding the 'jus civile,' i.e. of claims to the recognition of powers and the actual customary recognition of such, as exercised for a common good, preceding the establishment of any regular institutions or general laws for securing their exercise. As it is, the term 'jus naturale' is with him really unmeaning. If it means no more than 'potentia,' why call it 'jus'? 'Jus' might have a meaning distinct from that of 'potentia' in the sense of a power which a certain 'imperium' enables one man to exercise as against another. This is what Spinoza understands by 'jus civile.' But there is no need to qualify it as 'civile,' unless 'jus' may be employed with some other qualification and with a distinctive meaning. But the 'jus naturale,' as he understands it, has no meaning other than that of 'potentia,' and his theory as it stands would have been more clearly expressed if instead of 'jus naturale' and 'jus civile' he had spoken of 'potentia' and 'jus,' explaining that the latter was a power on the part of one man against others, maintained by means of an 'imperium' which itself results from a combination of 'powers.' He himself in one passage shows a consciousness of the impropriety of speaking of 'jus' except with reference to a community; 'jus naturae, quod humani generis proprium est, vix posse concipi, nisi ubi homines jura habent communia, qui simul terras, quas habitare et colere possunt, sibi vindicare, seseque munire, vimque omnem repellere et ex communi omnium sententia vivere possunt' (II. 15). He takes no notice, however, of any forms of community more primitive than that of the state. The division into the 'status naturalis' and the 'status civilis' he seems to treat as exhaustive, and the 'status naturalis' he regards, after the manner of his time, as one of pure individualism, of simple detachment of man from man, or of detachment only modified by conflict. From such a 'status naturalis,' lacking both the natural and the rational principles of social development (the natural principle, i.e. the interest in others