PROBLEMS OF POLITICAL THEORY 333 



desirable, such as the number of persons, the territorial basis, or the 

 end for which the state exists. These facts in regard to the state 

 may be enlightening to a general reader, but become a source of 

 confusion when attempt is made to use them in a definition for 

 political theorizing, as would be the case in a chemical experiment 

 where a bottle bearing a given name contains not merely what the 

 name indicates, but other chemicals as well. Frequently accidental 

 attributes are regarded as essential and are accordingly made a part 

 of the definition. The attempt should therefore be made to exclude 

 from trie definition everything not essential to the state and to include 

 everything essential. 



While the writer of this paper was requested to set forth some 

 of the problems of political theory only, it may not be out of place 

 to offer a tentative definition of the state. Whether or not this 

 definition meets the standards which the problem of definition sets 

 forth, it has in actual use been found a convenient point of departure 

 for political theorizing. The definition offered for consideration is 

 that the state is a sovereign political unity. 



This definition is offered in part that the proposition of subsequent 

 problems may be somewhat more definite, and that, if possible, their 

 solutions may be less complicated. The terms used in the definition 

 need for themselves definition, and in their definition important 

 theories are involved. 



The term " political " has had various meanings placed upon it and 

 its content has increased or diminished from time to time till now, 

 in the days of world-politics, its content is very different from what 

 it was in the days of the Grecian city-state. The \vord seems, how- 

 ever, to have attained a fairly clear meaning at present as the term 

 for public in distinction from private affairs of men. 



When coupled with the word " sovereign," the unity is marked off 

 from any other in which men are associated. The problems con- 

 nected with sovereignty will be considered later. 



By the definition, the state is distinguished from a social unity. 

 Consequently, there are many problems of the relationship between 

 the state and voluntary organizations within and without the state. 

 There may remain and does remain the problem of determining how 

 far the state, e. g., shall concern itself with religious affairs, but here 

 it will be a problem of determining the external conditions of relig- 

 ious life rather than the religious life itself. That the state could 

 only condition non-political life, not create or destroy it, has been 

 a lesson which nearly all religions have been slow to learn. It may 

 be said of the conduct of state authorities toward other human 

 activities that they have often mistaken the power to condition for 

 a creative or causal power and have attempted to solve by state 

 agencies problems which could only be solved by other means. 



