The People and the state -- nation, body politic, and state -- community and society -- the nation -- the body politic -- the state -- normal growth and the simultaneous process of perversion -- the people -- the concept of sovereignty -- the point at issue -- jean bodin's sovereign prince -- the original error -- what does sovereignty mean -- the Hobbesian mortal god -- neither the body politic nor the state is sovereign -- nor are the people -- rousseau's sovereign state -- conclusions -- the problem of means -- end and means -- the technical rationalization of political life -- the moral rationalization of political life -- the people's means of control and the democratic state -- the problem of means in a regressive or barbarous society -- the rights of man -- men mutually opposed in their theoretical conceptions can come to a merely practical agreement regarding a list of human rights -- the philosophical issue deals with the rational foundations of human rights -- natural law -- the first element (ontological) in natural law -- the second element (gnoseological) in natural law -- about human rights in general -- human rights in particular -- the democratic charter -- the democratic secular faith -- the political heretics -- education and the democratic charter -- problems concerning authority -- the prophetic shock minorities -- church and state -- preliminary marks -- the general immutable principles -- the human person and the body politic -- the freedom of the church -- the church the body politic -- the application of the immutable principles in actual historical existence -- thesis and hypothesis -- historical climates and concrete historical ideals -- the historical climate of modern civilization -- the principle of the moral superiority of the church -- the principle of cooperation -- the most general and indirect form of cooperation -- the public acknowledgement of the existence of god -- the specific forms of mutual cooperation -- some practical conclusions -- the problem of world government -- the alternative -- discarding the so called sovereignty of the state -- necessity for a world political society -- fully political vs. merely governmental theory -- a supra national advisory council -- index.