Political and Moral Essays

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ... ESSAY I A DISSERTATION ON THE ORIGIN AND EXTENT OF CIVIL AUTHORITY Ixryypov Ti Ttokk ia-rl vaa. -- Plato, Politicus, 302 A Part '1/ -- Exposition | I. I propose,first to set forward' my own views, afterwards to criticise the views of others. I shall treat of.the 'origin' of civil authority theoretically, then historically: thenI,,0ome to the 'extent' of-civil authority. - ."Having exposed my owh,"Ivproceed to the, discussion of other opinions,'in the cours©/£tf, which discussion my own thought, such .as it is, will more fully appear. C § 2. Civil authority is the supreme power of command in a perfect community of the temporal order. A perfect community is selfsufficient, airdpKrjs. It is not referred to any other community as a part to the whole. It takes the law from no other: it is a community with sovereignty inherent somewhere within itself. It supplies, or is capable of supplying, all its own earthly needs. Were the rest of mankind to perish, it could still subsist, and flourish in some sort. Such a perfect community is the State. The State may be either a city or a nation: a city with a small adjacent territory, as the cities of ancient Greece and of mediaeval Italy, or a nation, as States commonly are now. Civil authority is supreme, final, ultimate, in a State as such. § 3. Self-sufficiency, or the management by a community-of Its own affairs in perfect independence .of laiK neighbours, is a position attained by. degrees, and these degrees shade into one another. The United - States have been termed"" a sovereign assembly of sovereign States.!'..-But the war of forty-years ago evinced the conclusion that the Uniojr alone is sovereign, not the individual States' that compose it. The question.-whether...