independent life, the assembly remaining under the name of Parliament in England and States-General in France.’’ 537. Bodin, writing in the reign of Henry the III of France (1551 to 1589), viewed sovereignty as an absolute unlimited power which, though established by law, was not controlled by it. According to him, under an ideal system, sovereignty was vested in the King by divine right. The King’s word was law. But, even according to Bodin, although the Sovereign was free from the trammels of positive law, as he was above it, yet, he was ‘‘bound by divine law and the law of nature as well as by the common law of nations which embodies principles distinct from these’’ (See: Dunning’s History of Political Theories’’: Ancient and Medeival’’ p. 28). Hobbes, a century later continued this line of thinking on an entirely secular and non-moral plane. He opined: ‘‘Unlimited power and unfettered discretion as to ways and means are possessed by the sovereign for the end with a view to which civil society is constituted, namely, peace and escape from the evils of the state of nature’’, in which the life of individuals was ‘‘nasty, brutish, and short.’’ Although, Hobbes visualised the existence of a social compact as the source of the authority of the soveign, yet, he looked upon the compact only as a mode of surrender by the subjects of all their individual rights and powers to the sovereign who could be either an individual or a body of persons. Subjects, according to him, had no right to rely upon the compact as a means of protection against the sovereign. He provided the fullest theretical foundations of a Machiavellian view of sovereignty. 538. As we know, in the 17th and 18th centuries, European monarchs came in sharp conflict with the representatives of their subjects assembled in ‘‘Parliament’’ in England and in ‘‘States-General’’ in France. And, theories were put forward setting up, as against the claims of Kings to rule as absolute sovereigns by indefeasible divine right, no lesser claims to inviolability and even divinity of the rights of the people. But, theories apart, practice of the art of Government proves that the effective power to govern, by the very nature of conditions needed for its efficient exercise, has had to be generally lodged in one or few especially in times of crisis, but not in all those who represent the people even under democratic forms of Government. Direct democracy, except in small city States such as those of ancient Greece, is not practically feasible. 539. Theories of popular sovereignty put forward by Locke and Rousseau came to the forefront in the 17th and 18th centuries– an era of revolutionary changes and upheavals. The theory of certain immutable individual natural rights, as the basis of a set of positive legal rights, essential and necessary to the fulfilment of the needs of human beings as individuals, was advanced by Locke. He visualised a social contract as a means of achieving the welfare of individuals composing Society. He also advocated separation of powers of Government in a Constitution as a method of securing rights of individual citizens against even their own Governments. Montesquieu elaborated this theory. The ideas of Rousseau were amongst those which contributed to produce that great conflagration, the French Revolution which was described