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 sovereignty in the old sense.  The second is that the League of Nations, if it is to mean anything at all, will have to impair the sovereignty of the states which join it without thereby constituting in itself a world state.  Much of the opposition to the League of Nations is concerned with this implied impairment of sovereignty.  Whether this opposition will weigh with us will depend on whether we regard the independent sovereign state as the be-all and end-all of political theory, or see that the fundamental fact to be taken into account is man’s readiness to co-operate for common purposes.  If we take the latter view, we shall still be holding to what was the fundamental contribution of the idealist school, the teaching that the basis of all political questions is moral.  The essence of the matter is how we are prepared to treat other people, for what purposes we are prepared to act with them, how far we are prepared to recognize and give settled organized recognition to our mutual obligations.  The political organization is the vehicle and not the creator of these moral facts.  As the facts vary, so will its forces.  We may learn from the Hegelian school to recognize the enormous importance of the state, the great achievement of the human spirit which its organization represents, and the folly of light-heartedly endangering its existence, without making one form which it has taken in the nation state sacrosanct and absolute.