arising primarily from family ties, and the rational principle, i.e. the power of conceiving a good consisting in the more perfect being of the individual and of those in whom he is interested), no process could be traced to the 'status civilis.' The two 'status' stand over against each other with an impassable gulf between. 'Homines civiles non nascuntur, sed fiunt.' They are so made, he seems to hold, by the action of the 'imperium' upon them. But how is the 'imperium' to be made? Men must first be, if not 'civiles,' yet something very different from what they are in the 'status naturalis,' between which and the 'status civilis' Spinoza recognises no middle term, before any 'imperium' which could render them 'civiles' could be possible. 38. The cardinal error of Spinoza's 'Politik' is the admission of the possibility of a right in the individual apart from life in society, apart from the recognition by members of a society of a correlative claim upon and duty to each other, as all interested in one and the same good. The error was the error of his time, but with Spinoza it was confirmed by his rejection of final causes. The true conception of 'right' depends on the conception of the individual as being what be really is in virtue of a function which he has to fulfil relatively to a certain end, that end being the common well-being of a society. A 'right' is an ideal attribute ('ideal' in the sense of not being sensibly verifiable, not reducible to any perceivable fact or facts) which the individual possesses so far as this function is in some measure freely fulfilled by him--i.e. fulfilled with reference to or for the sake of the end--and so far as the ability to fulfil it is secured to him through its being recognised by the society as properly belonging to him. The essence of right lies in its being not simply a power producing sensible effects, but a power relative to an insensible function and belonging to individuals only in so far as each recognises that function in himself and others. It is not in so far as I _can_ do this or that, that I have a right to do this or that, but so far as I recognise myself and am recognised by others as able to do this or that for the sake of a common good, or so far as in the consciousness of myself and others I have a function relative to this end. Spinoza, however, objects to regard anything as determined by relation to a final cause. He was not disposed therefore to regard individuals as being what they are in virtue of functions relative to the life of society, still less as being what they are in virtue of the recognition by each of such functions in himself and others. He looked upon man, like everything else in nature, as determined by material and efficient causes, and as himself a material and efficient cause. But as such he has no 'rights' or 'duties,' but only 'powers.'