1. Concept
Along with “state of nature” and “social contract,” “purpose of state” was one of the formative concepts of the model of the general theory of state in natural law in the early modern period (State, general theory of). That theory saw the state as a “natural” (i.e. natural-law) society, that is, as a civil society (Latin societas civilis; Bourgeois society) that, like the other contractual societies of natural law (e.g. marriage, the societies of parents and children, masters and …