The latest problem for mankind, the solution of which nature forces him to seek, is the achievement of a civil society which administers law generally. Nature can achieve its other intentions regarding mankind only through the solution and fulfillment of this task, for a completely just civic constitution is the highest task nature has set mankind. This is because only under such a constitution can there be achieved the supreme objective of nature, namely, the development of all the faculties of man by his own effort. It is also nature's intent that man should secure all these ends by himself only in a society that not only possesses the greatest freedom and hence a very general antagonism of its members but also possesses the most precise determination and enforcement of the limit of this freedom so that it can coexist with the freedom of other societies: this will serve the highest purpose of nature.
In other words, a society in which freedom under external laws is found combined in the highest degree with irresistible force, that is to say, a perfectly just civic constitution, must be the supreme task nature has set for mankind. Only through the solution and fulfillment of this task can nature hope to achieve its other objectives concerning man. Want forces man, who so greatly inclines toward unrestricted freedom, to enter into this state of constraint. It takes the greatest want of all to bring men to the point where they cannot live alongside each other in wild freedom but within such an enclosure as the civic association provides. These very same inclinations afterwards have a very good effect. It is like the trees in a forest that, since each seeks to take air and sun away from the other, compel each other to seek both and thus they achieve a beautiful straight growth. Whereas those that develop their branches as they please, in freedom and apart from each other, grow crooked and twisted. All culture and art that adorn mankind, the most beautiful social order, are the fruits of asociability that is self compelled to discipline itself and thus through a derived art to fulfill completely the germs of its nature.
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