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THE LIMITS OF SOVEREIGNTY. 87
who had a right to rule, but the person who did, in fact, receive obedience. Now, the argument in the foregoing pages is an attempt to extend this principle, and to show that the existence of any law is a question of fact. A command or rule of conduct, ac- cording to this view, becomes a law, not because it ought to be such, or because it proceeds from a person in other respects sov- ereign, but only in case it is really obeyed ; and in the same way the extent of sovereign power being, like the very existence of sovereignty, a pure matter of fact, depends entirely upon the extent of the obedience actually rendered.
A. Lawrence Lowell. Boston.
