316 



time, a peculiarly objectionable expression, viz., "the common good," 

 he is elsewhere careful to explain that "the political good is justice" 

 {Pol., Bk. iii, Chap, xii); of which he says, "all others must yield her 

 the precedence " {11., Bk. iii. Chap, xiii), and that it is "the rule of the 

 social State, and the very criterion of what is right" {Id., Bk. i, Chap, 

 iii); which is an anticipation of the view of German philosophers, that 

 the State is a jural institution {Rechtsstaai, status juris), and that its 

 essential end is the realization of justice. 



Thus understood, this division of Aristotle agrees precisely with that of 

 Mr. Ahrens ; according to which there are two kinds of States only, 

 namely, the jural and the despotic; {a) the former of which, he agrees 

 with Aristotle in thinking, can only be secured by a participation of the 

 people in the government.* This division is thus explained by Mr. 

 Ahrens : 



"The principle of life of the State is Right {droit), and there is only 

 one just form of the State; it is that which, by the mode in which its 

 powers, and their relations to the national life are organized, assures the 

 reign of right {regne de droit, liechtsstaat) as the ethical and objective 

 principle, to which the will of all ought to be submitted, and as the 

 organic principle which guarantees to all its members and parts their 

 position, and free action, and participation in the exercise of all the 

 political powers. The Jural State {L' Etat de Droit — Rechtsstaat) is then 

 the normal State, formally organized, of which self-government forms the 

 most salient characteristic. The opposite of the jural State is despotism, 

 the arbitrary personal will, which puts itself in the place of right, and of 

 law enacted by the free consent of the people, and efhcaciously controlled 

 in its execution. Between the Jural State, and despotism, there are with- 

 out doubt many intermediate terms ; but the way to despotism is opened, 

 whenever a government, in matters of public order, puts its own, in the 

 place of the action of its citizens, and carries into effect its personal will, 

 without seeking to know, or without respecting the national will." f 



§ 57. Of the So-called Ideocracy. 



Mr. Bluntschli, while agreeing generally with Aristotle, thinks a fourth 

 form of the State should be added, the normal form of which he calls 

 "ideocracy," and the perverted form, " idolocracy ;" and which is defined 

 by him as the Stale " in which the supreme power has been attributed 

 either to God, or some other .... superhuman being, or an Idea." 

 " This form," he says, " can exist only in a theocracy '' — which, accord- 

 ingly, he uses as an identical terni.| But Aristotle's doctrine of the 

 supremacy of the law, (c) or, as expressed by Hesiod, "The reign of 

 King Nomos " {Nomocracy), or, in the language of modern times, "the 

 sovereignty of the law," or, still better, "the sovereignty of right," 

 conies equally within the definition. It is, however, obvious that, in 



*Pol., Bk. iii, Chap, vii, et seq. % Theory of the State, pp. 331-338. 



t Corns De Droit Natarel, Sec. 114. (6) 



