On the Conception of Sovereignty

AUSTIN'S famous definition of sovereignty is expressed by him in the following sentence: &dquo; If a determinate human superior, not in a habit of obedience to a like superior, receive habitual obedience from the bulk of a given society, that determinate superior is sovereign in that society, and the society (including the superior) is a society political and independent.&dquo;-Lectures on Jurisprudence, Lecture VI., vol.i. p. 2z6 (Edit.4, 1879).The definition of a positive law, which is the counter- part of the definition of sovereignty, is given toward the close of the same prolonged &dquo;lecture&dquo; : : &dquo; Every positive law (or every law simply and strictly so called) is set, directly or circuitously, by a sovereign individual or body, to a member or members of the independent political society wherein its author is supreme.&dquo;-Ibid., p. 339.It is thus the fundamental assumption of the English school of jurisprudence and of the English writers on political science who follow in the path marked out by Hobbes, Bentham, and Austin, that in every political society sovereign power always resides in certain deter- minate persons (one, few, or many), and that all true laws (i.e., laws which the law-courts would recognize as such) may be regarded as the commands of this sovereign.A consequence of this conception of sovereignty is that the classification of the forms of government becomes rigidly precise, simple, and, it must be added, quite remote from the ordinary use of language either among practical politicians or among the most scientific of political historians.The phrases &dquo;mixed government&dquo; and &dquo; limited monarchy &dquo; are abominations to Austin and Cornewall Lewis, as much

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