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PREFACE

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY is concerned with the essential characteristics of political life. Its inquiries fall within two well defined categories. Upon the one hand it is. juristic, having to deal with the State when regarded as an instrumentality for the creation and enforcement of law; upon the other hand it essays to establish upon firm ethical grounds the propriety of the coercion of individuals viewed as autonomous moral beings. In a volume which the author expects to publish in the near future the various questions relating to the ethical right of the State to exist and the legitimate extent of its authority will be discussed. In the present volume will be considered only those fundamental concepts which are employed by jurists in dealing with the State.

In Part One, the conclusions following from these fundamental concepts will be deductively determined. In Part Two the decisions of courts will be examined in order to ascertain the manner in which, and the extent to which, these primary assumptions and their logical consequences have been recognized and applied within the fields of constitutional and international law. By thus making more plain than has perhaps been previously done the processes of juristic thought within these fields it is hoped that the development of Public Law along consistent and coherent lines will be facilitated.

One point the author asks the reader to bear steadily in mind: that the doctrine of sovereignty that is developed in this study, is a purely juristic one, and, therefore, that the attribute of omnicompetence which is ascribed to the sovereign State in no way implies that

the actual power of the State has no limits, or that those who influence or control the policies of the State may disregard the obligations which ethical justice and right impose. Care is taken in the body of the work to enter this caveat, but, because of its importance, it is also stated here.

Twenty-five years ago the author published a volume entitled The Nature of the State. From this essay a certain amount of material has been taken for use in the present volume. The substance of these pages was presented in 1923 to the students of the University of Calcutta in a course of lectures given by the author as Tagore Law Professor for that year.

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