ABSTRACT
The Idea of public service is to-day replacing the old theory of sovereignty as the basis of public law. It is not, of course, a new attitude. So soon as the distinction between rulers and subjects was established, the idea of public service was born. So soon as it was understood that certain duties were imposed on rulers from the fact of their power and that the justification and meaning of its exercise were therein to be discovered, the implications of the idea of public service were obvious. What is new is the important place that it to-day occupies in the field of law. Here, indeed, is the source of the profound change we have been witnessing. It is no longer an à priori formula. It has become the expression of our actual situation.
