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State — it will be observed that each is at once more liberal and less definite 

 than its predecessor, and that the last is altogether without significance, 

 except in so far as it repudiates the notion of unlimited political power 

 either in a single ruler or in the government ; and thus, while preserving 

 the name, it in fact altogether denies the doctrine of absolute sovereignly. 

 It would, therefore, be altogether unobjectionable, were it not that 

 indefinite theories that to wise men mean nothing, to the multitude mean 

 anything that passion and prejudice maj^ suggest ; and hence, that such 

 theories constitute the most fruitful cause of political heresies and revo- 

 lutions. 



(4) Finally, under the influence of the more enlightened spirit, and 

 the more profound realization of the principle of liberty and of human 

 rights that characterizes our modern civilization, the term sovereign has 

 received a still wider extension of meaning, and is now often used to 

 denote mere abstractions, as when we speak of the sovereignty of Reason, 

 or of Justice, or Right, or of Public Opinion. Accordingly the doctrine 

 of sovereignty has undergone a still further and more satisfactory evolu- 

 tion into the doctrine of the sovereignty or supremacy of the law or of 

 right. But obviously this use of the term is purely metaphorical, and merely 

 expresses the notion that justice or right is at once the paramount stand- 

 ard of the rectitude of human conduct and the source of all rights, public 

 and private. This is in effect the doctrine expounded in this work, and 

 to render the expression of it entirely unobjectionable, it is only necessary 

 that the name as well as the substance of the doctrine of sovereignty be 

 abandoned, (g) 



(5) It is also to be observed that in each of the above expressions of the 

 doctrine of sovereignty — with the exception of the last, which cannot be 

 regarded as such — there is another ambiguous term which has been the 

 source of much confused political thinking and serious political error. 

 This is the term '"power," which is habitually used to denote, not merely 

 actual power or might, but also rightful power, or power that the gov- 

 ernment or individual ought to have, or, in other words, right. Hence, 

 accordingly as we use the term power, each of the propositions stated is 

 susceptible of two constructions ; and thus, under the apparently single 

 proposition that the sovereign power is unlimited, we have included six 

 essentially different doctrines, that to avoid confusion ought to be, but 

 which in general are not, distinguished by political writers. 



And to add to this confusion, there is in the brief proposition referred 

 to also another ambiguous term, namely, the term "unlimited" — a term 

 altogether without meaning, until we determine the nature of the limit 

 referred to, which may be either mere force, or law in the sense of lex, or 

 law in the sense of ^''/s, or theoretical right. And thus each of the six 

 propositions into which, as we have seen, the doctrine resolves itself, may 

 branch out into several others. 



