By being based on the will of men the legal norm is distinguished also from good manners; these are not based on the fact that men will a certain procedure, but on the fact that they themselves proceed in a certain way. It is manners that one goes to a ball in a dress coat and white gloves, uses his knife at table only for cutting, begs the daughter of the house for a dance or at least one round, takes leave of the master and mistress of the house, and lastly presses a tip into the servant's hand; for the correctness of such a behavior is not based on the fact that other men ask this of us,—to those who start a new fashion it is often actually unpleasant to find that the fashion is spreading to more extensive circles,—but solely on the fact that other men themselves behave so, and that we want "not to be peculiar," "not to make ourselves conspicuous," "to do like the rest," etc.
By being based on a will which relates at once to those whose will it is and to others whose will it is not, it is distinguished on the one hand from an arbitrary command, in which one's will applies only to others, and on the other from a resolution, in which it applies only to himself. It is an arbitrary command when Cortes with his Spaniards commands the Mexicans to bring out their gold, or when a band of robbers forbids a frightened peasantry to betray their hiding-place; here a human will decides, indeed, but a will that relates only to other men, and not at the same time to those whose will it is. A resolution is presented when I have decided to get up at six every morning, or to leave off smoking, or to finish a piece of work within a specified time—here a human will is indeed the standard, but it relates only to him whose will it is, not at all to others.
6. What is briefly summed up in the definition of the legal norm may, if one takes into account the explanations which have been given with this definition, be expanded as follows:
Men will that a given procedure be generally observed within a circle which includes themselves, and their power is so great that their will is competent to affect the men of this circle in their procedure. When such is the condition of things, a legal norm exists.
3.—THE STATE
The State is a legal relation by virtue of which a supreme authority exists in a certain territory.
1. The State is a legal relation.
A legal relation is the relation, determined by legal norms, of an obligated party, one to whom a procedure is prescribed, to an entitled party, one for whose sake it is prescribed. Thus, for instance, the legal relation of a loan is a relation of the borrower, who is bound by the legal norms concerning loans, to the lender, for whose sake he is bound.
The State is the legal relation of all the men who by legal norms are subjected to a supreme territorial authority, to all those for whose sake they are subjected to it. Here the circle of the entitled and the obligated is one and the same; the State is a bond upon all in favor of all.
To this it might perhaps be objected that the State is not a legal relation but a person. But the two propositions, that an association of men is a person in the legal sense and that it is a legal relation, are quite compatible; nay, its attribute of personality is based mainly on its attribute of being a legal relation of a particular kind; law, in viewing the association in its outward relationships as a person, starts from the fact that men are bound together by a particular legal relation. A joint-stock corporation is a person not although, but because, it is a legal relation of a peculiar kind. And similarly, the fact that the State is a person is not only reconcilable with its being a legal relation, but is founded on its being a peculiar legal relation.