Ebook Authority in the Modern State

His volume is in some sort the sequel to a book on the problem of sovereignty which I published in March, 1917. It covers rather broader ground, since its main object is to insist that the problem of sovereignty is only a special case of the problem of authority, and to indicate what I should regard as the main path of approach to its solution. Where, therefore, the previous studies were, in the main, nega tive and critical, this book is positive and constructive. In the main, the evidence upon which its conclusions are based is French. That is because an earlier study of de Maistre con vinced me that it is in France, above all, that the ideals I have tried to depict are set in the clearest and most suggestive light. I had originally intended to follow this volume by a third essay on the political theory of the Conciliar Movement. But it now seems to me more useful to attempt a definitely con structive analysis of politics in the perspective set by the first chapter of this present volume. Accordingly I have planned a full book on the theory of the state which I hope to have ready within a reasonable time. For so modest a volume this book, like its predecessors, has debts too immense to go without acknowledgement. Among the dead, I would like to emphasise how very much I have learned from Acton and Maitland; their writings have been to me a veritable store-house of inspiration. Among living men, I owe much to Professor Duguit of Bordeaux, to Dr. Figgis, and, in spite of, and perhaps because of, our differences, to Professor Dicey. My old tutor, Mr. Ernest Barker of New College, is the unconscious sponsor of this, as of my earlier book. Indeed, if it has merit of any kind, it is to the teaching of politics in the Modern History School at Oxford that I would ascribe it.