ABSTRACT
The State is the strongest instrument of social action, the final organ of social authority, and, the need for a regulation and adjustment in the common interest involves an increasing use of that instrument and a more frequent appeal to that authority. The instrumentality of the State has been increased because it is an instrument which Society controls, not an authority which it obeys. And this social power which controls the State is no new or sudden growth. It is a continuous and silent development, which has its roots in the creative period of the Middle Ages. The great array of differentiated social cohesions, which represent in their totality the free Society of modern civilization, and from which the authority and force embodied in the State have withdrawn themselves, furnish the individual with that great variety of choice which constitutes real freedom.
