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

SOVEREIGNTY AND NATURAL RIGHTS 563
present grossly inequitable basis. The followers of Marx
would, then, insist that Sovereignty in a community
resides with the possessors of the instruments of production
and the controllers of the sources of wealth, that is to say,
with the capitalist class. As a matter of historical fact,
however, Marx did not develop his views in terms of a
theory of Sovereignty. He pointed out simply that the
State was based on force, and that this force was used in
the interests of those who held the keys of economic power.
Marxist views dominate contemporary political theory,
and it is in terms of their phraseology and modes of thought,
rather than of those derived from the eighteenth-century
conception of Sovereignty, that contemporary discussion
of the subject is carried on.
The Contract a Logical Presupposition of Society not
an Historical Occurrence. The various theories of
Natural Rights may also be criticized on the ground of
abstractness. They were put forward as corollaries of the
Social Contract theory of the origin of society. That it is
exceedingly improbable that a contract was ever made,
I have already suggested. The reasons for postulating
its occurrence are not historical but a priori. Reflecting
on the structure and nature of society, thinkers came to the
conclusion that it must have been formed as the result of a
contract. If they had said, 'we can only explain the facts
of society, jf we suppose that the natures of human beings
are to some extent moral and social, and that in virtue
of this social morality which they possess by nature, they
are justified in trusting one another and capable of abiding
by contracts made; we must also suppose that they have a
certain social flair in virtue of which they are enabled to
get on with one another in society* no exception could
have been taken to their statement. If I were to say, *
I
am unable to explain the facts of the universe around me,
unless I postulate a God who created the universe',
I should not consider my conclusion to have been shaken
by the fact that many primitive tribes do not believe in