[119]. No one has yet given us a satisfactory account of the history of the notion of sovereignty: just how and in what degree it has been affected by history, by philosophy, by jurisprudence, etc., and how all these have interacted. We have not only to disentangle many strands to trace each to its source, but we have, moreover, just not to disentangle them, but to understand the constant interweaving of all. To watch the interplay of legal theory and political philosophy from the Middle Ages down to the present day is one of the most interesting parts of our reading, but perhaps nowhere is it more fruitful than in the idea of sovereignty. We see the corporation long ignored and the idea of legal partnership influencing the development of the social contract theory, which in its turn reacted on legal theory. We find the juristic conception of group personality, clearly seen as early as Althusius (1557–1638), and revived and expanded by Gierke, influencing the whole German school of “group sociologists.” But to-day are not many of us agreed that however interesting such historical tracing, our present notion of sovereignty must rest on what we learn from group psychology?
[120]. The French syndicalists avowedly do not want democracy because it “mixes the classes,” because, as they say, interests and aims mingle in one great mass in which all true significance is lost.
[122]. This is the basis of Duguit’s international law—the place of a state in an international league is to be determined directly by services rendered.
[123]. Quoted by Duguit.
[124]. It must be remembered, however, that while in the Civil War we definitely gave up the compact theory held by us since the Mayflower compact, yet we did not adopt the organism theory. The federal state we have tried and are trying to work out in America is based on the principles of psychic unity described in [chapter X]. The giving up of the “consent” theory does not bring us necessarily to the organic theory of society.
[125]. Duguit says that the United States confers the rights of a state on a territory. No, it recognizes that which already exists.
[126]. “The word ‘and’ trails along after every sentence. Something always escapes.... The pluralistic world is thus more like a federal republic than like an empire or a kingdom.” “A Pluralistic Universe,” 321–322.
[127]. When they say that the passion for unity is the urge for a dominant One, they think of the dominant One as outside.
[128]. One of the pluralists says, “I cannot see that ... sovereignty is the unique property of any one association.” No, not sovereignty over “others,” but sovereignty always belongs to any genuine group; as groups join to form another real group, the sovereignty of the more inclusive group is evolved—that is the only kind of state sovereignty which we can recognize as legitimate. (See [ch. XXIX] on “Political Pluralism and Sovereignty.”)