preponderant force is for us the
visible and practical equivalent of right.

It is, then, puerile to admit the existence of a natural right inherent
in individuals or in nations, and manifested in their aspirations, their
powers, their sympathies, their wills. The right of peoples should be
determined by a purely objective method.

Now in this sense people should be divided into _Naturvoelker_,
_Halbkulturvoelker_, and _Kulturvoelker_--people in the state of nature,
half-cultivated people, and cultivated people. This is not all. There
are people who are simply cultivated--_Naturvoelker_--and people who are
wholly cultivated--_Vollkulturvoelker_. Now the degree of right depends
on the degree of culture. As compared with the _Kulturvoelker_ the
_Naturvoelker_ have no rights. They have only duties--submission,
docility, obedience. And if there exists a people which deserves more
than all others the title of _Vollkulturvoelker_--completely cultured
people--to this people the earth belongs and the supremacy thereof. Its
mission is to bend all other peoples beneath the yoke of its omnipotence
co-ordinated with its supreme culture.

*The Master Nation.*

Such is the idea of the master nation. This nation must not be simply an
abstract type, it must necessarily be able to realize itself in our
world. In effect the spirit is the supreme form of being; it necessarily
wishes to be; and as it is infinite, it can be realized only by means of
an infinite force. A nation capable of imposing its will upon everybody
is the necessary instrument of the Divine will which can grant the
prayer: "Our Father, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it
is done in heaven."

As a master nation is necessary in the world there must be subordinate
nations. There can be no efficient "yes" without a decided "no." The
ego, says Fichte, is effort. Therefore it presupposes something that
resists it, namely, that which we call matter. The master nation
commands. Therefore nations must exist who are made to obey it. It is
needful even that these nations, which are to the master nation what the
non ego is to the ego, should resist the action of this superior nation.
For this resistance is necessary to enable the latter to develop and
employ its force and to become fully itself; that is, to become the
whole, enriching itself by the spoils of its enemies.

The ideal nation is thus defined by a transcendental deduction, and this
same deduction