GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THE PROBLEM STATED 39
unwillingly through fear of the consequences if they did not,
the whole conception of society as natural to man would
have to be abandoned. The existence in every society
of a police force and of prisons has, therefore, in some
way to be explained within the framework of that alternative
conception of the origin and nature of society which,
following the thought of Socrates in the Republic, I have
been endeavouring to build up, the conception, namely,
of society as a natural and therefore inevitable expression
of natural human tendencies.
The explanation might run as follows. We may agree
with Glaucon that force is a necessary and inevitable
element in every society; even, if the phrase be pressed,
that society is "based upon force", without committing
ourselves to Glaucon's deduction that because of this
necessity for force in a society, men obey the lavs un-
willingly. Force, it may be said, is necessary in a society
not for the restraint of the great mass of the citizens who,
being socially minded, have no incentive to act otherwise
than in accordance with the commands of the law and
the prescriptions of the accepted moral code, but against
an unrepresentative few whose activities, if unchecked,
would make the continuance of society impossible.
That A Background ofOrdered Security is Necessary to all
Qvilized Activity. Every society, it must be admitted,
contains a number of anti-social individuals who do, in
fact, obey its laws unwillingly. Anticipating a later discussion,
1 I may point out here that evil is parasitic upon
good, in the sense that it is only worth while for spme
people to do wrong because most people do right. Thus
the burglar is parasitic upon the householder, since if all
Were burglars there would be no property to. burgle. It
is the many honest men who make dishonesty profitable,
just as it is the many truthful men who make lying fruitful,
since, ifall men were dishonest, there would be no advantage
to be gained by dishonesty, while, if all told lies, nobody
1 Scc Chapter VI, pp. 208, 209.