Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/560

 A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW OF SOVEREIGNTY.

CHAPTER IX.

SOVEREIGNTY RIGHT.

Besides reducing coercion to order, sovereignty also squares it with right. In so far as we have considered order alone, we have defined it merely in mechanical terms, as the balancing of force against force ; as the extension of rule over wide areas. But social force is the expression of human will. Will is the out- come of beliefs and desires. We must now ask: What part have ideas and beliefs in sovereignty ? We shall find that order itself is possible only on condition of a common belief animating sepa- rate classes and all classes.

First, the partnership of different social classes in determin- ing the sovereign will is possible only for those classes which have developed the capacity and power of cooperation. Such capacity is based, in the last analysis, on a belief in the moral perfection of the unseen powers that rule the world. Such a conviction alone can sustain that optimism by which hopeful, united action persists. Whether this take the form of belief in a divine ruler, or in the rule of reason and nature, it is the inspir- ing confidence of the believer that he is working in harmony with a power mightier than all human opposition. It is the per- ception of a rational aim in the work he is doing, instead of the dictates of caprice, that enlists the will and energy of the worker. The alternative is suicide or slavery. If life were conceived as mere task-work, the mere carrying of bricks back and forth from one point to another, then only hunger or the lash could hold the toiler to his work. A society or a class convinced at heart of such pessimism would perish or be enslaved. For this rea- son religious revivals have usually preceded, in English history, the political uprisings of new social classes.

On the other hand, the ruling classes themselves must have accepted in general the same beliefs of moral perfection, else

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