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 366 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

not occasional or latent, but it is a situation, a social system ; it

is not an event, but a flow. It exists wherever there is will with

corporal or privative sanctions. This is its essential characteristic,

the will, the mere wish, the opinion, the expressed and obeyed

desire of one who commands, whether this command be good or

bad, wise or foolish, noble or base, right or wrong. Coercion is,

therefore, solely in the field of ethics. Here we find the third

factor in sovereignty, namely, right.

John R. Commons. Syracuse University.

[7» be continued.^