In Rights in Civil Society, Rosmini examines the nature of civil society and its role in modifying the exercise of rights possessed by its members. Civil society exists not to create rights for its citizens, nor to deprive them of their rights, but to enable the maximum exercise of the rights of all. The purpose of civil society is simply to regulate, for the benefit of all, the form in which rights are exercised. Civil society, including the State as we know it today, has reached the zenith of its possibilities when it succeeds in encouraging the greatest possible activity of the rights of its citizens.