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

SOVEREIGNTY AND NATURAL RIGHTS 555
society was entitled to exert against recalcitrant individuals
was moral force. For it is only the moral will of a society
which can be regarded as a living whole or personality,
which can justify the use of force against its members to
further the freedom of its members. Green was thus led to
endow society with a moral consciousness, or a con-
sciousness of a common moral end, an end presumably
to be identified with the uninterrupted exercise ofthe moral
will on the part of all its members. This common moral
consciousness is again reminiscent of Rousseau's General
Will. It justifies the. use offeree against individuals in order
to create freedom and, presumably, constitutes the ground
for Green's declaration that "will, not force, is the basis of
the State". Garlyle' was declaring about the same time
that "the true liberty of man . . . consisted in his finding
out, or being forced to find out, the right path, and to walk
thereon." Green's conclusions on this point have an important
bearing on the idealist theory of the State to be
considered in the next chapter.
Is there a Right of Revolt? But suppose that the
State commands something with which the individual
disagrees. Let us imagine a particular case. A man
has, we will suppose, a vivid conception of what ought
to be; his society embodies a mbre than usually faulty
version of what is. To express the distinction in Green's
terminology a man who possesses an insight
into the
provisions of natural law, which is the ideal law of society,
perceives them to be hopelessly at variance with the provisions
of the positive law of his State. Now he has a
right to realize the ideal elements in his personality,
elements which acknowledge the natural law and which are
realized in obedience to it. He has, then, a right to
act in accordance with the natural law, even if this
means disobeying the positive law. Is he to exercise this
right? The problem is one which we have already glanced
at in connection with Aristotle's philosophy; 1 it is the
1 See Chapter IV, pp. 91, 92.