Publisher's Synopsis
In 1906, Professor Krabbe of the University of Leyden wrote Die Lehre der Rechtssouveranetat and in 1915 and 1917 further elaborations of this earlier volume which are now put forth under the title of The Modern Idea of the State. The translation is the work of Professors George H. Sabine and Walter J. Shepard, who have also written an elaborate introduction to the volume.
Professor Krabbe's work was reviewed in an earlier number of this journal and therefore will not be discussed in great detail on this occasion. Krabbe's study is a protest against the absolutist theory of sovereignty, and a constructive attempt paralleling those of Preuss and Duguit to provide a substitute theory. The substance of his doctrine is that the basis of the modern state must be sought in the sense of right (Rechtsgefuhl). The process of modern political development is essentially the substitution of a spiritual power for personal authority. The spiritual nature is the source from which spring real forces and "these forces rule in the strictest sense of the term There is only one source of law-the feeling or sense of right which resides in a man and has a place in his conscious life." Both state and law are the creatures of this "Rechtsgefuhl" which may be regarded as the adequate substitute for sovereignty and the ultimate basis of political obligation.
The translation is happily done and its makers deserve special praise for avoiding the atrocities often unwittingly committed by linguists who are innocent of the vocabulary or concepts of jurisprudence, politics and philosophy. The industrious translators have somewhat less happily prefixed an extended introduction to Professor Krabbe's work. In the main this is a running interpretation of the author's work, but it is difficult at times to know whether the preface is intended as a free interpretation of Krabbe or as the independent views of Sabin and Shepard. It is an admirable preface but altogether out of proportion to the length of the body of the book and would have been better placed as an independent treatise. Students of political theory will hope that Professors Shepard and Sabine, jointly or severally, may in the near future develop their interesting views on political theory much more fully on the basis of the hopeful beginning here made.
-The American Political Science Review [1922]
