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

SOVEREIGNTY AND NATURAL RIGHTS 539
asked, "Who or what entitles the law to authorize the
person or body to exercise Sovereignty? " and, as before, we
are committed to a circular argument. A statement of the
issues raised by the problems of Sovereignty and an
account of the reasons which have led to its loss of importance
in contemporary political discussion will be found
at the end of the chapter.
III. NATURAL RIGHTS
Introductory. The doctrine of Natural Rights which,
like the theory of Sovereignty, was a centre of controversial
interest and attention in the eighteenth and early nine*
teenth centuries, has also fallen into the background of
discussion. It is riot so much that the
contemporary
problems round which the former discussions ranged are
not real problems, as that the terms in which they are
to-day formulated are not those which were used in the
controversies of a hundred and fifty years ago. In the case
both of Sovereignty and of Natural Rights, the influences
of Marxist theory 1 and of the idealist theory of the State'
have been largely responsible for superseding the traditional
discussions of the early and middle nineteenth century. A
brief historical retrospect of these discussions here follows.
Theories of Natural Rights tend to fall into two classes,
those which derive Natural Rights from Social Contract
theories of the origin of society, and those which link
Natural Rights with theories of the purpose of society.
The first are theories which explain in terms of origin,
the second in terms of end or goal. 8 There is also a number
of individual theories which do not fall wholly within
cither class. The second group of theories, more particularly
in the form in which they were propounded by T. H.' Green,
ultimately transferred the problems at issue to another level
of discussion, where they have remained ever since. It is at
this level that Idealist theory takes up
1 See Chapter XVII for an account of this.
the theme.
See Chapter XV for an account of .thin.
1 See Chapter I, pp. 28*33 for an account of these forms of explanation.