THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
indivisibility, but it does not and cannot mean independence or isolation ; and this, to repeat, for the simple reason that isola- tion or negation makes inner as well as outer division. So, to return, in the very indivisibility of sovereignty is evidence of an international state.
But, further, the rise of individual constitutional governments and of an accompanying international life, the equal natural man or the indivisibility of sovereignty being the bond that associates the two, has brought with it one change that is most significant and that needs now to be pointed out. David Hume, living between 1711 and 1776, certainly an important period in politi- cal evolution, has often been criticised for advancing the police theory of government. "We are to look upon all the vast appa- ratus of our government as having ultimately no other object or purpose than the distribution of justice, or, in other words, the support of the twelve judges. Kings and parliaments, fleets and armies, officers of the court and revenue, ambassadors, ministers and privy councilors, are all subordinate in the end to this part of administration." So writes Hume. 1 Perhaps his meaning was not all that I am disposed to make it. History, however, is always the best test of meaning, and history shows at least that Hume "builded better than he knew." Thus, taken in connec- tion with the views, notably the laissez-faire economics, of his friend and contemporary Adam Smith, or in connection with' the positive political events of the period, the police theory of govern- ment was quite timely, since it meant simply that the business of government is not to make the laws, but only to know and interpret and to execute them. Under a constitutional govern- ment, as we have ourselves concluded from the inner meaning of the contract theory, upon which constitutionalism is estab- lished, the actual making of law is nature's, not man's ; and, quite apart from conclusions and inner meanings, do but consider in the actual practice of modern governments how important the bureaus of information, the records and reports of all kinds, the special committees and commissions, have become. All of these are devices by which governments show themselves only
1 Essay on the Origin of Government.
