Corresponding to the three forms of the social organism (as we should now call the "natural community"), are the three kinds of _jus_,--_jus strictum_, equity, and piety. Each of these has its corresponding prescript. That of _jus strictum_ is to injure no one; of equity, to render to each his own; and of piety, to make the ethical law the law of conduct. _Jus strictum_ includes the right of war and peace. The right of peace exists between individuals till one breaks it. The right of war exists between men and things. The victory of person over thing is _property_. Things thus come to possess the right of the person to whom they belong as against every other person; that is, in the right of the person to himself as against the attacks of another (the right to peace) is included a right to his property. _Jus strictum_ is, of course, in all cases, enforceable by civil law and the compulsory force which accompanies it. Equity, however, reaches beyond this to obligation in cases where there is no right of compulsion. Its law is, Be of aid to all, but to each according to his merits and his claims. Finally comes piety. The other two stages are limited. The lowest is negative, it wards off harm; the second aims after happiness, but only within the limits of earthly existence. That we should ourselves bear misery, even the greatest, for the sake of others, and should subject the whole of this existence to something higher, cannot be proved excepting as we regard the society, or community, of our spirits with God. Justice with relation to God comprehends all virtues. Everything that is, is from God; and hence the law of all conduct is to use everything according to its place in the idea of God, according to its function in the universal harmony. It thus not only complements the other two kinds of justice but is the source of their inner ethical worth. "Strict justice" may conflict with equity. But God effects that what is of use to the public well-being--that is, to the universe and to humanity--shall be of use also to the individual. Thus from the standpoint of God the moral is advantageous, and the immoral hurtful. Kant's indebtedness to Leibniz will at once appear to one initiated into the philosophy of the former. Leibniz never worked out either his ethics or his political philosophy in detail; but it is evident that they both take their origin and find their scope in the fact of man's relationship to God, that they are both, in fact, accounts of the methods of realizing a universal but not a merely formal harmony. For harmony is not, with Leibniz, an external arrangement, but is the very soul of being. Perfect harmony, or adaptation to the universe of relations, is the end of the individual, and man is informed of his progress toward this end by an inner sentiment of pleasure.