CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. THE tions about one his other specula HE question about the rise of the State may be considered Two ques from two different points of view. Our intention may the rise of be either to examine the conditions and circumstances from the State: which actual States have arisen; or to discover the necessary torical, the cause which lies at the basis of all States-the basis of the State in law and justice (Rechtsgrund). The first question is tive. one for history to answer, the other for speculation. History distinguishes the different forms in which the State arises according to the manifold events which it considers. Speculation, starting with the unity of the conception of the State, requires also a unity of origin. Let us refer first to history and not enter upon philosophical consideration until we know the experience of nations. The rise of the first states took place farther back than our knowledge of history extends. There was no consciousness of history until there were already many states upon earth. Even the ancient sacred books of the Jews, which inform us of the first rise of the Jewish state, presuppose the Egyptian state, without telling us anything of its origin. Perhaps the Indian state served as a model for the Egyptian; but the sacred writings of the Indians give us no light on the subject. History since then has seen the beginning and the end of very many states, and thus tells us much more of their rise and fall than mere speculation. All the ancient European Three historical forms of states have perished centuries ago, and almost all the Asiatic. Most of the states which exist at present had their birth within a period known to history. Many of them are still quite young. The circumstances and the influences which have brought them into being are not concealed from our view, although, as in all spiritual and physical creation, the creative power itself remains hid as if by a divine mystery. The manner of the rise of a State is however not merely a phenomenon of great psychological and historical interest: it exercises a continued influence on the whole life of the State, and determines likewise in great measure its relation to other States 1. Thus it is even more important for the study of public law to consider the different origins of States, than it is for private law to examine the diverse forms of acquisition of property; yet the moderns have almost completely neglected the former enquiry while carefully considering the latter. We may distinguish three different groups :— 1. The original formation of the State, when it takes its the rise of beginning among the people and in the country without being derived from already existing States. states. 2. The secondary forms, when the State is produced from within, out of the people, but yet in dependence upon already existing States, which either unite themselves into one, or divide themselves into several. 3. The derived formation of the State, which receives its impulse and direction not from within but from without. The formation of a new State, of which alone we are here speaking, must not be confounded with mere changes in constitution—a distinction to which Bodin rightly called 2 1 De Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Transl. by Reeve), Part i. ch. 2: 'All nations bear some marks of their origin: and the circumstances, which accompanied their birth and contributed to their rise, affect the whole term of their being.' 2 Bodin, de Rep. iv. c. 1, calls the latter "conversiones": Conversionem civitatis appello, cum status ipsius convertitur ac omnino mutatur; id autem fit, cum imperium populare ad unum, aut paucorum potestas ad omnes cives defertur, contraque.' [Contrast the view of Aristotle, who makes the identity of a State depend upon identity of constitution. Pol. iii, c. 3.] attention. The change of the old Roman Monarchy into a Republic brought no new State into existence, nor again did the overthrow of the Republic and the introduction of the Empire. These changes in the form of government mark different periods of life in the same State, they are not the beginning of different States. |