'The notions of sovereignty and independent political society may be expressed concisely thus. If a _determinate_ human superior, _not_ in a habit of obedience to a like superior, receive _habitual_ obedience from the _bulk_ of a given society, that determinate superior is sovereign in that society, and the society (including the superior) is a society political and independent' (p. 226). 'In order that a given society may form a society political and independent, the two distinguishing marks which I have mentioned above must unite. The _generality_ of the given society must be in a _habit_ of obedience to a _determinate_ and _common_ superior; whilst that determinate person, or determinate body of persons, must _not_ be habitually obedient to a determinate person or body. It is the union of that positive with this negative mark which renders that certain superior sovereign or supreme, and which renders that given society (including that certain superior) a society political and independent' (p. 227). [1] _Lectures on Jurisprudence_, vol. i. p. 88 (edit. of 1869, in two vols.) 82. It may be remarked in passing that, according to the above, while every law implies a sovereign, from whom directly or indirectly (through a subordinate political superior) it proceeds, it is not necessary to a sovereign that his commands should take the form of laws, as opposed to 'particular or occasional commands.' A superior might signify his desires only in the form of such particular and occasional commands, and yet there might be a habit of obedience to him, and he might not be habitually obedient to any other person or body; in which case he would be a 'sovereign.' 83. Austin's doctrine seems diametrically opposite to one which finds the sovereign in a 'volonté générale,' because _(a)_ it only recognises sovereignty in a _determinate_ person or persons, and _(b)_ it considers the essence of sovereignty to lie in the power, on the part of such determinate persons, to put compulsion without limit on subjects, to make them do exactly as it pleases. [1] The 'volonté générale,' on the other hand, it would seem, cannot be identified with the will of any determinate person or persons; it can, indeed, according to Rousseau, only be expressed by a vote of the whole body of subject citizens; but when you have got them together, there is no certainty that their vote does express it; and it does not--at any rate necessarily--command any power of compulsion, much less unlimited power. Rousseau expressly contemplates the possibility of the executive power conflicting with and overbearing the general will. Indeed, according to his view, it was the ordinary state of things; and though this view may be exaggerated, no one could maintain that the 'general will,' in any intelligible sense of the words, had always unlimited force at its command.