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546
POLITICS
one of them, it does so only that it may the better secure
them as a whole; or it does so, only in order that it may the
better secure the rights of most of its members, even if
it does not secure the rights of a particular member at a
particular moment, or of a particular member at any
moment.
As I have just pointed out, there is a difficulty here, a
difficulty which provoked the criticisms which, from the
first, were levelled against the whole doctrine of Natural
Rights. To these criticisms which culminated in a different
conception of rights, we must now turn.
Criticisms of Natural Rights: Views of Burke. The
criticisms which were urged against the doctrines of
Natural Rights so far considered were bound up with
criticisms of the Social Contract theory of the origin of
society. These criticisms entailed a different view of the
nature and origin of society, a view which approximated
to that of the Greeks, in that, regarding society as an
organic whole, it interpreted human nature ideologically, 1
with reference to the part which individuals should
ideally play and the ends which they should ideally
pursue as members of this whole. This alternative view
of the nature of society entails in its turn a different con*
ception of rights, which is also ideological. An account
of the ideological conception of rights, which receives its
most celebrated expression in the works of T. H. Green,
will be given at the conclusion of the criticisms of the
traditional doctrine of Natural Rights, The alternative,
organic view of society will be expounded in the next
chapter in its fully developed form, which is known as
the Hegelian or idealist theory of the State.
A name prominently associated with the criticism of
Natural Right is that of Burke (1729-1797). Burke
represents the reaction of the concrete, empirical English
temperament to the doctrinairism of such theories as those
of Hobbes and Rousseau, theories which bought to prescribe
1 See Chapter I, pp. 30, 31.