use this term at all as distinguishing, in ultimate generalization, any form of state? The author would have been more consistent had he classified states into ancient, classic, mediæval, and modern. Any one can see, however, that this would be unscientific; that it would be a chronological classification, and not one of political science. In a word, von Mohl's classification follows no one consistent principle; its different principles are not all political; and it confounds state and government again. His fundamental error is, I think, to be found in his proposition that states differ in their essence as well as in their form, and that it is the difference in essence instead of in form which is to be considered. He reaches this conclusion from the observation that one state devotes its energies more to the development of the religious life of the people, another cultivates more especially the aesthetic life, another the legal and practical, another the military, etc. Now evidently we have here no difference in the essence of these different states. The distinction here remarked is in the ends to be accomplished. The essence of the state is everywhere, and at all times, one and the same, viz; sovereignty. The difference is only in the form; and the difference in form determines, more than anything else, the end which will be made most prominent in the activity of any particular state. The monarchic states are more likely to develop the power of the state; the aristocratic make the creation of the system of private rights more prominent; while the democratic rather pronounce the socialistic end. Manifestly what von Mohl regards as a difference in essence is only a difference in ends, or a difference in what the French and Germans call "politique."

The book above all others from which we are justified in expecting clear treatment upon this topic is that of the noted Bluntschli, Lehre vom modernen Stat. Bluntschli

1 Encyklopädie der Staatswissenschaften, S. 110.

lived and thought for many years in Switzerland; i.e. in a European state in which considerable headway has been made practically with the distinction between state and gov ernment. Circumstances were more favorable to him than to most of the European publicists. But our expectation is not altogether fulfilled. He holds to the general principle that states are to be distinguished into monarchies, aristocracies and democracies, but undertakes to add a fourth form, which he calls "Idiokratie." He defines the idiocracy to be a state in which the supreme ruler is considered to be God or some superhuman spirit or an idea. This appears to me very fanciful. The person or body of persons who in last resort interpret the will of God or of the superhuman spirit or the idea for a given people, and who give their interpretations the force of law, constitute the state. It signifies nothing that that person or body of persons may have professed to derive his or its powers, so long as the will of God or of the superhuman spirit or the principles of the idea can only be known and légally formulated through him or it. Political science cannot examine into the truth or fiction of such a claim. Its dictum is simply that the highest human power over a given population is the state, no matter what may be the superhuman support upon which it may claim to rest. We must, therefore, reject this new creation from our political science. It must be relegated to the domain of political mysticism.

Bluntschli very properly condemns the notion that there is a mixed form of state.2 I do not think, however, that the reason he advances for so doing is satisfactory. He holds that one of the elements in what appears as the mixed form always holds the balance of power, and the other elements are really but limitations upon it. He has here, again, certainly confounded state and government. The state cannot

1 Lehre vom modernen Stat, Bd. I, S. 372.

2 Ibid. S. 372 ff.

be limited, simply because it is sovereign; and it does not hold simply the balance of power; it is the source of all power. The true reason for the rejection of the mixed form from the classification is that the state is and must be a unit. Its essence as sovereignty demands this; and where the state is not organized objectively as a unit, we have only to say that it has not perfected its organization, that it is, as the Germans express it, im werden begriffen, in the process of development. If we examine carefully the so-called mixed form, we shall either find that no one of the elements, nor any combination of the elements, is the state; or that one of them is the state, and the others are but parts of the government. Take for example the English system. The Parliament as government consists of King or Queen, Lords, and Commons. In legislation simply, the three elements have equal power. Each can legally initiate legislation, and each can veto absolutely the acts of the others. On the other hand, the Parliament, as state, is composed of but a single body, the Commons. When this body acts as the state, the Lords and the King must obey; for they are not separate organizations of the state, but only parts of the government. This view did not escape Bluntschli entirely.

He declared that the state must be a unit in its organization; but his adoption of the prin ciple of the relation of the government to the governed, instead of the principle of the relation of sovereign to subject, as the key to the modern explanation and adjustment of the Aristotelian proposition, obscured his vision and made his treatment of the topic confused, at the same time that he attained the correct result so far as the rejection of the notion of the mixed form of state is concerned.

A still more convincing proof that Bluntschli confounded state and government in his reflections is the fact that he introduces a large number of subdivisions into his classification, under such titles as these: the Hellenic and old Germanic kingship, the old Roman kingship and the Roman

imperium, the Frankish kingship; the feudal monarchy, the absolute monarchy, and the constitutional monarchy; the Roman aristocracy, the aristocracy of birth, of wealth, of learning; the antique democracy, the modern or representative democracy (the republic). Now here are, in the first place, cross-divisions in this classification, following, in some cases, non-political principles. For example, the terms Hellenic, Roman, old German, and Frankish belong to the nomenclature of ethnology, the terms antique and modern belong to that of chronology, while the term feudal is more economic than political. In the second place, all states are absolute, whether they be monarchic, aristocratic, or democratic. His feudal monarchy is but the government of an aristocratic state. His constitutional monarchy is but a royal government, limited, in its powers and procedure, by the state; while the imperium is, in theory, a monarchic state with monarchic government; but in practice it is more frequently, at least in modern politics, only kingly government over a large territory and population. In political science we must classify states upon a rigidly political principle, and we must always distinguish the state from the government. There is no other way to escape confusion and inconsequence in thought.

Bluntschli closes his discussion of this topic rather unexpectedly to the reader by introducing a fifth state-form, which he calls the compound state (Zusammengesetzte Statsform);1 i.e. the form in which the sovereignty is divided between the union and the states forming the same. This compound state he subdivides into states having colonies or vassal provinces, states in personal union, confederacies, and federal unions. This appears to me to be a continuation of the old error of confounding state and government. A colony is, at the outset, no state. It is a local government, with perhaps more

1 Lehre vom modernen Stat, Bd. I, S. 555 ff.

or less of local autonomy. It may grow to contain in itself the elements to form a state, and may become a state by revolution or by peaceable severance from the motherland; but before this, there is one simple state, and after it, there are two simple states, but at no time is there a compound state. If the motherland should so extend its state organization as to include the colony as active participant in the same, the state organization would still be simple; it would only be widened. A larger proportion of the population of such a state would be thereby introduced into the sovereign body. The only change which could be effected in this manner, as to the form of the state, would be possibly the advance from monarchy to aristocracy, or from aristocracy to democracy. The sovereignty would not be divided between the motherland and the colony, for the sovereignty is and must be a unit. It must be wholly in the motherland or wholly in the motherland and colony as one consolidated, not compounded, organization.

The same criticism will apply without modification to the vassal province. Its separate organization is only as government, not as state. If it should become a state, then it would cease really to be vassal; and if any relation, other than that prescribed by international law and treaty, should remain between it and the former suzerain, a scientific analysis will demonstrate that the so-called suzerain is now but a part of its government, for the accomplishment of certain limited and restricted purposes.

Again, two states in personal union form no compound state. They do not even form a compound government. A personal union of two or more states results when the executive head of the government of one becomes the executive head of the government or governments of the other or others. This person then acts in two or more entirely distinct capacities. In international congresses, for instance, he has as many votes as there are states represented by