g of individuals for a general good, in Hegel and in
Bosanquet the conflicting willings of individuals are reconciled by
their being taken up into the supra-personal will of the state. With the
former therefore the morality of individuals is the primary fact, the
existence of the state the secondary; with the latter on the whole the
existence of the state is the primary moral fact, the moral willing of
individuals secondary. Just because the wills of individuals are
reconciled, not by each recognizing certain abstract principles of duty,
but by being taken up into the supra-personal will of the state, where
there is no such supra-personal will there is no reconciliation of
conflicting wills and no morality beyond and outside the boundaries of
communities. Hence arises a conception of the state which fits into the
absolutist doctrine of sovereignty which we have described.

The first thing to be said about this doctrine of the independent
sovereign state is that political facts have obviously outrun it. It was
derived from a study of the unitary state and will hardly fit any
federal state. It is manifestly absurd when applied to the British
Empire. If we disregard, as we must, the superficial legal facts and
look at the real nature of the British Empire, we must admit that the
Dominions are neither separate sovereign states nor parts of one
sovereign state, and that the unity of the Empire is a unity of will--a
willingness to co-operate which has not yet clothed itself in legal
forms, and which is not, for geographical and other reasons, as intense
as that will to co-operate which must be at the basis of a unitary
sovereign state. This must suggest to us that the willingness to
co-operate admits of degrees, and the relations of communities to one
another to have stability must reflect these degrees. The importance of
these considerations is obvious if we think of the problems with which
we are confronted at the present moment, when we are attempting to form
an international organization. The problems which have confronted the
Peace Conference have brought two things clearly to light. The first,
that the nation state is far too simple a solution of modern
difficulties. Self-determination will not carry us very far. There are
many cases where the boundaries dictated by nationality on the one hand
and by the need for common organization on the other do not coincide,
and where the only solution is one which impairs sovereignt