From this tangle of hair-splitting and sophistry, from this muddle of syllogisms, dogmatism and deep-sounding phrases which mean nothing at all, one thought emerges pretty clearly, to wit, that only the highest authority in the State has the right to make laws. On this point there is perfect unanimity; and that is natural, for it is so obvious that it has no need to be circumstantially investigated and proved in the fifty thousand books that have been written on the subject. It is perfectly clear that one cannot possibly force all the members of a state to obey certain commands and prohibitions which the Law contains, unless one is stronger than each one of them, and therefore the Law must necessarily emanate from the highest power in the state. It is beside the point to obscure this simplest and most transparent fact by questions as to the right of the law-giver. He needs no theoretical right since he has the might. To use Kant's expression, positive Law is not a creation of the mind ([Greek: noumenon]), it is a phenomenon; its existence is a matter of empiricism, not of reason; it is a matter of fact and is under no obligation to justify itself intellectually to the intellect. No law-giver has ever troubled to tack on a preamble or an addition to the law he promulgates proving that he has the right to enact it. But in the literature dealing with this matter opinions differ widely as to who embodies or possesses the highest power in the state. According to some it is the king, because he wields the sword and therefore can enforce unconditional obedience; according to others it is the Church, because the Law, to be binding, must be moral, and Morality is established by God since the Church is the representative of God on earth. Others again regard the people as a whole as the highest power, because without their assent no law can prevail, and because even the king only has the power of which the people divests itself to transfer it to him. History has advanced beyond this quarrel.