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

504 , POLITICS
developed by Hegel, and is the central feature of the
Hegelian theory of the State, 1 which constitutes one of the
foundations of modern Fascism. 1
Psychological Background of Rousseau's Theory of the
General Will. The reader may be tempted to wonder
why a doctrine combining inconsistencies so gross and
falsehoods so obvious should ever have been put forward
by a competent thinker. The explanation will, I would
suggest, 9 be found in a reference to circumstances. The
relevant circumstances are not, as in the case of Hobbes
and Locke, political, but personal.
One ofRousseau's outstanding personal characteristics as
a sense inherited from his Calvinist forebears and confirmed
by the circumstances of his own upbringing and character,
prom this sense of guilt there were two modes of escape;
the first by a denial of reason and morality and a return to
the supposedly instinctive life of the savage; the second by
moral redemption through the agency of some external
authority. Rousseau dallied with the first method, but in
the main chose the second. Where, however, was he to
look for an external authority to be the agent of moral
redemption? Not to the Church, not even to religion, but
to a secular institution, to society; and the form of social
organization which he describes in the Social Contract is
in effect a description of the ideal society which would be
of its members*
capable of effecting the moral redemption
reason of the
Redemption By society is rendered possible by
presence in most men of what Rousseau calls a sentiment
of sociability. This sentiment is described by Rousseau as a
mixture of reason, will and emotion. From the element of
reason in the sentiment, he derive the concept ofthe General
Will which, from this point of view, may be termed a
rational desire for the common good* The General Will
is then treated as being at once the uniting agency and the
and See Chapters XV, pp. td $87-393. XVI, pp. &
i indebted foe tikis fuggetuon to my friend Dennis Routh.