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IN A FAMOUS dialogue between the Athenian ambassadors and the Council of the small island of Melos, Thucydides has given the classical statement of the "right" of the stronger. "The brave Milesians soon see that they cannot appeal to the Athenians' sense of justice, because the Athenians recognize no standard but their own political advantage…By making the Athenians justify the right of the stronger through the law of nature, and transform God from the guardian of justice into the pattern of all earthly authority and force, Thucydides gives the realistic policy of Athens the depth and validity of a philosophical doctrine." The Dutch, in the days of Peter Breughel, used to say: "the big fish devour the little fish" to which Spinoza added "by natural right." That is the doctrine of the "state,"as inherited from the Greeks. Similar situations still haunt us. Did the Russians by natural right seek to destroy Finnish independence?

It is a Common heritage of English and American liberals to denounce state absolutism, to deny it as regimentation, paternalism, etc. etc. Indeed, Englishmen and Americans have always been inclined to adopt a condescending attitude towards other traditions which seemed to exalt state power. French and German, Russian and Italian tendencies have in turn been pictured as "naturally" inclined toward state "absolutism," and when anyone in rebuttal mentioned Hobbes or Bentham or Austin, the "exceptional" position of these thinkers has been emphasized. Still, can there be any question that the idea of the state as an ultimate source of authority has been as strong in Great Britain as anywhere? For reasons which will become plainer in the course of the argument, English-writing thinkers have accordingly been in the vanguard of those who sought to construct the "state" as the "highest" of all human communities, thus following out the Aristotelian heritage. In spite of all the titter-tatter about national character, muddling through and the rest, the fact remains that Britain has provided us with the most radical, deep-laid expositions of an "absolute" state. This much admitted, one might add that the limited state also has found eloquent and epoch-making exponents in English-speaking lands. In short, the whole gamut of modern political philosophy has been most thoroughly expounded in English.