STATE (OF. estut, Fr. etut, from Lat. status, state, condition, from stare, to stand; connected with Gk. tordpat, histanai, Skt. stka, °Church Slay. stuti, OHG. star, stuntan, Ger. stehen, Goth., AS. stundan, Eng. stand), 'fits;. The theory of the State in its broadest sense may be taken to cover the whole field of political philos ophy, involving the comprehensive examination of the laws underlying political phenomena. (See POLITICAL SCIENCE.) In a narrower sense, the theory of the State is concerned primarily with the essential nature of the State, its origin and basis, its various forms, and proper function or purpose.
The essential elements of the State, together distinguishing it from other social groups, are generally considered to he the following: a ter ritorial basis serving as the physical foundation of the State, a population constituting its citi zenship, and a more or less complete form of political organization exercising the power of life and death. Finally, the State is a sovereign body, being supreme over all persons on its terri tory and independent internationally. It is also held by some authorities that the State is an organism or a person.
The origin and basis of the State have been explained in various ways for the purpose of justifying or condemning various political sys tems. It has been held that the State owes its genesis and continuance to the will o• command of God, a doctrine that has been used in the de fense of all forms of government, including de moc•acy. The origin of the State has been traced by others to the family, and explained as a devel opment of the power of the early patriarchs. Others have maintained that the State was created by and exists in virtue of a voluntary contract to which the parties were either (1) the government on the one hand and the people on the other; o• (2) separate individuals who agreed to form a political society and a govern ment by a contractual process. Again it is argued that the foundation and support of the State is superior force, which in its first and last analysis is the essential fact in a political sys tem. The modern theory is that the State owes its being to an historical process in which many o• all of the foregoing factors may have played a part as the varying conditions required. The explanation of the present existence of a coercive power over individuals is generally found in a variety of motives for obedience. Of these the principal ones are custom or habit, fear, utility or the calculation of accruing advantages and dis advantages, and the element of conscious and rational consent. The general tendency of politi cal development is toward a State based on gen eral perception of its utility, and consequent consent to its laws. It may be added that the anarchistic school denies the existence of any rational justification for the State, demanding its complete abolition, and the substitution of some such principle as that of 'justice' or 'hu manity' for that of coercive power.
The forms of the State are three, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, according as political power rests with one, the few, or the many. All other forms of government may be resolved into the three forms enumerated. Thus, theoc racy is any one of these three forms in which the rulers are supposed to posses., a special di vine sanction for their government. The so called federal State may be resolved either (1) into a union of many States for certain general purposes; o• (2) one State with a dual form of government and with sovereignty vested in the group as a whole. Plutocracy and oligarchy are perverted forms of aristocracy. 'Constitutional,' 'despotic,' free,' when applied to States, have reference to the method in which the govern ment is organized o• administered, rather than to the form of the State, and might be applied to any of the three types. In recent years con siderable attention has been given to the classi fication of various forms of State associations o• groups. Of these the most important are the Personal-Union, the Real-Union, the Con federacy, the Protectorate, and the Federal or Composite State. (G. Jellinek, Die Lehrc eon den Staatenrerbinduvgen; H. Rehm, Allgeineime Staatsleh-re), The function or purpose of the State has been variously interpreted. It has been held that the proper function of the State is the development of the moral o• religions nature of its $ubjeets, and that this should he the controlling purpose of its activity. Again it has been maintained that the function of the State is merely to pre serve order among its citizens and to protect them from external attack, leaving all else to the domain of individual initiative. It is also held that the function of the State is to further the general welfare of its subjects, including in this all sides of their life. In modern times the contest lies between the advocates of the 'legal' State and those of the 'paternal' State, holding respectively the individualistic and the social istic conceptions of the function of organized political society. One of these theories has been carried to the extreme of a demand for anarchy, and the other to the opposite pole of a demand for the extension of the functions of government to the immediate control of industrial activity. At present the most widely accepted doctrine is that no general principle governing the activ ity of the State can he laid down, but that each case of proposed State action must he decided in accordance with what appears to he the great est good to the greatest. number.