The regulations and laws of the state are therefore misconceived when they are viewed as commands. The “command” theory of common and statute law is in reality a dialectical consequence of the theories, previously criticized, which define the state in terms of an antecedent causation, specifically of that theory which takes “will” to be the causal force which generates the state. If a will is the origin of the state, then state-action expresses itself in injunctions and prohibitions imposed by its will upon the wills of subjects. Sooner or later, however, the question arises as to the justification of the will which issues commands. Why should the will of the rulers have more authority than that of others? Why should the latter submit? The logical conclusion is that the ground of obedience lies ultimately in superior force. But this conclusion is an obvious invitation to trial of forces to see where superior force lies. In fact the idea of authority is abolished, and that of force substituted. The next dialectical conclusion is that the will in question is something over and above any private will or any collection of such wills: is some overruling “general will.” This conclusion was drawn by Rousseau, and under the influence of German metaphysics was erected into a dogma of a mystic and transcendent absolute will, which in turn was not another name for force only because it was identified with absolute reason. The alternative to one or other of these conclusions is surrender of the causal authorship theory and the adoption of that of widely distributed consequences, which, when they are perceived, create a common interest and the need of special agencies to care for it.