ABSTRACT
The word ‘state’ in anything like its present sense is comparatively modern, not more than three or four hundred years old. The word, or its equivalent in other languages such as Hat in French, existed earlier, but suggested something much nearer what authors should now call ‘status’. It would be possible to examine a large number of instances of the use of the word ‘state in current speech and writing, and we should undoubtedly find that in different contexts the word did not always seem to suggest quite the same idea. Many political theorists nowadays would tell the authors that the Austinian theory has been too much riddled by criticism to be worthy any longer of serious discussion. The proposition that sovereignty rests on or is conferred by consent is, properly understood, a tautology. It follows necessarily from the definition of the sovereign as ‘the person or body of persons whose commands receive obedience’.
