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

SOVEREIGNTY AND NATURAL RIGHTS 553
Natural law, could it be discovered, would be found to
prescribe what acts in a society ought to be forbidden and
punished, if society was to realize its natural state. Natural
law, therefore, would be the legal and moral system of a
society which had reached its natural state. To sum up
Green's political theory, man has a higher nature which
consists in the continuous and unhesitating exercise of his
good will. That he should realize this higher nature accords
with God's plan for him. He has a right to become what
God intended him to be. In society alone can he exercise
this right. It is, then, the business of society to guarantee
his right to develop his ideal nature. In so far as society
adequately performs its. function, it becomes an ideal
society. The system of law by means of which man's conduct
in the external world would be regulated in such a
way as to enable him to realize his ideal nature, is natural
law. Society is ideal in the proportion to which its laws
approximate to natural law.
SOCIETY AND THE STATE. The distinction between
positive and natural law is connected with, another distinction
which Green introduces between the State and
society.- The distinctive feature of Green's conception of
society is its possession or ownership of a General Will,
which Green broadly conceives on Rousseau's lines. Green's
General Will differs, however, from Rousseau's in one
important respect. It is conceived not so much as the
continuing will, always existing and always right, of a
super-individual personality 1 called the State, as the
highest common factor of the hopes, fears and wishes of
the individual men and women who are members of a
society. The General Will, then, of a society must by its
very nature be fully representative and expressive of the
wills of its members. The distinguishing feature of the
State, as Green conceived it, is its possession of Sovereignty,
which Green, following Austin, identifies with the actual
effective power in a community. In virtue of its Sovereignty
* See Chapter XIII, pp. 499 5o, 5S
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