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OF POLITICAL THEOKIES. 325speculations, down to the time of Rousseau and;from theindefiniteness of the idea which itintroduced, has contributednot a little to perplex the theory of government.If by "the state of nature" 1 we are to understand thecondition of men who are not formed into one community,and who do not acknowledge the relations of civil life, itcannot be denied that nations have existed, and still exist, inthis condition. But in- order to determine the limits between the state of nature here understood, and the civilcommunity to which it is opposed, we must have a clearidea of what that civil community implies.Now, theorists usually define the latter as constituted bythe possession of sovereignty, whether exercised by thewhole body, or by a few, or by one of its members. Thisdefinition, however, is of little practical use in the study ofhistory, for there are many nations to which it would apply,and yet of whom it would be hard to say that they form astate, and live in civil society. All the great pastoral tribesare, or at least were, in possession of sovereignty as independent nations and this ;sovereignty was exercised by theheads of particular families among themselves; and yet noone would argue that the Calmucs, or the Kirgisian andArabian Bedouins, form what is properly termed a state(Civitas). This, in fact, historical sense, can only be constituted by a people, whether great or small, which possessesand permanently inif we use the word in its commonhabits one particular country ; or in other words, fixedplaces of abode and possessionsin land form the secondnecessary qualification of every state, in the practical senseof the word. The reason of this is, that the whole institution, or assembly of institutions, which we term a state,tains itsdevelopment and application only by property inland. The first, though not the only object of a state, is thesecurity of property : now, although moveables are just asmuch property as land, yet it is only where the latter hasbeen appropriatedthat the right of property attains to itsfull importance : and not only this, but the necessityof de-1[For a farther examination of this juggling ptiraseI cannot do better thanrefer the reader to Mr. LEWIS'S jRemarks on the Use andAfaiss of some PoliticalTerms. London, 1832. Doctor FERGUSON'S JSssay on the History of OmlS&ciett/, contains many beautiful and just observations on the true meaningof the words. TB.]at