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

544
* POLITICS
of contract to preserve their rights; society was the
result of this contract The State, then, was in origin
a contrivance to ensure that men should enjoy their
rights,, and since this was the purpose of its existence,
it had a right to make itself as effective as possible in order
that it might fulfil this purpose. Thus in the interests of
the individual's right to the development of the "free
energy of faculty", the State might restrict activities on
the part of other individuals which interfered with the
exercise of this right. This conception of the origin of
the State may be correct, but it is obviously inconsistent
with Spencer's earlier notion of the State 1 as a gradually
whose function is to effect a mutual
evolving organism,
adjustment between the individuals who compose it.
If this evolutionary view of the State is correct, the State
will 9 when adjustment between individuals is complete,
disappear. If, on the other hand, the Social Contract
view of the State is correct, the State will always
remain, since the exercise of its power of interference with
anti-social activities on the part of particular individuals
will always, be required for the preservation and, if
necessary, for the enforcement of rights.
Is There a Right of Revolt? Spencer's two views of
the function and nature of the State throw into relief the
dilemma in which the Natural Rights theory places its
exponents. If the State exists solely for the preservation of
rights, the individual has presumably a right to rebel
against it when it fails to perform the function for which
it exists. In all ages men have asserted this right. Sometimes
the assertion has been made in the interests of religion.
"We may obey the laws of the State/ 9
says Origen, "only
when they agree with the divine law; when they contra-
dict divine and natural law we must obey God alone."
Sometimes it has been made in the interests of the indi-
vidual's private conscience. "In the Court of Conscience,"
writes St Thomas Aquinas, "there is no obligation to obey
1 Sec p. 543 above.