198 Declining Effectiveness of Force 



plete absence of tension . Between sovereign States^ 

 juridical relations are a happy accident : there is 

 perpetual tension, and latent, if not actual war. 



The philosophy of force affirms that the State 

 could not have been created without the employ- 

 ment of force, and that any one who denies this 

 doctrine is convicted of absolute ignorance of 

 sociology. But force signifies war, and war 

 signifies anarchistic relations. To say that the 

 State could only have been produced by war, is 

 to say that the State could only have been pro- 

 duced by anarchistic relations. In the last 

 analysis, then, this amounts to saying that 

 juridical relations can only be created by anar- 

 chistic relations, or in other words, that a thing 

 can only be created by its contrary. It is difficult 

 to imagine a more complete contradiction. 



Why does Germany constitute a State at the 

 present time? Because Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, 

 Wurttemberg, have ceased to be sovereign States, 

 i. e., free to declare war upon each other at 

 any time they choose. If Bavaria should invade 

 Wurttemberg, a federal decision made by all of 

 Germany would oblige the Bavarians to retiirn to 

 their own territory. The relations between the 

 German States are now of a juridical order. But 

 if tomorrow Prussia, Saxony, Hesse, and Bavaria 

 were to become again sovereign States, i. e., to pass 

 from juridical relations to a state of war, either 

 active or potential, immediately the State of 

 Germany would cease to exist. 



