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

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POLITICS
(4) The government must represent the people whose
contract to Uve in society makes government possible, and,
as soon as it ceases to do to, it must be superseded by one
which does. The powers conferred by the contract upon the
government are not, in other words, inalienable, as they
are according to Hobbes's political theory. They lapse so
soon as the government fails to fulfil the purpose for which
it exists, namely, that of fulfilling and interpreting the law
of nature. The law of nature is that men are "equal and
independent** and that they ought not to be allowed to
harm one another in respect of their "life, health, liberty
or possessions". In Locke's conception of society the state
of nature is not left behind when society is formed; on the
contrary, the law of nature is carried on, as it were, into
society and enforces in society those ideal conditions of
the state of nature which are unattainable in the state of
nature. Hence the object of government is, for Locke,
the establishment of the conditions under which the rights
which the law of nature prescribes may be realized; it is,
in other words, the establishment of the conditions under
which liberty may be preserved, health maintained,
wealth acquired, and life well lived according to the conception
of it which seems good to the liver. This may be
taken as the classical statement of the function of government,
as conceived by democrats during the last two
hundred years, and forms the basis of the view, put forward
in Chapter XIX, 1 of the functions of the State and the
relation between the State and the individual.
(5) REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT BY CONSENT.
Government must be by consent. The functions of government
just outlined, are derived directly from Locke's conception
ofthe nature ofman, that is to say, ofman in the state
of nature. Since men are rational by nature, they are able
to form a right judgment in regard to the policy of their
government; since they are by nature possessors of rights,
they have an interest in seeing that the government preserves
1 See Chapter XIX, pp. 770-788.