Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/365

 A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW OF SOVEREIGNTY 351

Rousseau is sometimes held to have substituted for force as the basis of sovereignty an original voluntary agreement ; but he plainly holds that, "as nature gives to man absolute power over his members, the social compact gives to the i)ody politic absolute power over its members."' This absolute power, how- ever, is always directed by the general will instead of the will of the actually historical sovereign, and this general will is the will of the existing generation and can never be bound even by the original compact. Rousseau does not eliminate coercion, he only transfers it from the monarch to the people. Herbert Spencer, abandoning the original contract and perceiving that society originates in conquest, substitutes a vast system of indi- vidual contracts, as the basis of the modern "industrial regime."' Coercion with him is primitive and transitional ; it is destructive of personality, and gives way to free mutual agreement between individuals.

Spencer's view is, indeed, a just criticism upon that narrow description of sovereignty set forth by Austin. Austin's concep- tion is truly primitive. Its type is despotism. But Spencer overlooks the two elements which, following despotism, have been incorporated in sovereignty, namely, order and right. These have not eliminated coercion, but have changed its mode. In despotic times coercion was repressive, or criminal, enforcing uniformity in beliefs and habits. Now it is mainly civil or "restitutive,"3 setting forth the term and conditions for private contracts, enforcing and refusing to enforce certain ones, a func- tion in primitive times exercised by custom. For this reason it does not efface personality, but has relaxed its pressure from personal beliefs and desires, and by adopting and acting upon certain ideas of right has opened a wide field of free choice for the subordinate individual.

Green's contention that " will, not force, is the basis of sovereignty," differs from Rousseau's, not at all in eliminating force, but in giving a narrower interpretation to the "general

' The Social Contract, Book II, chap. 4.

' See DURKHEIM, Dc la division du travail social, p. 221.

3 Durkheim, as above.