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THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE* STATE 583
(5)
Influence of Plato and Aristotle
Fifth and more important than any of the preceding
is the influence of Greek thought. Indeed, the theory may
be not inappropriately regarded in the light of an extension,
or, by those who repudiate it, as a perversion of
Greek thought. Among the elements which the theory
derives from Greek sources there is, in the first place, the
view of human nature as an organic growth which
comes to maturity only in a society. 1 The life of the individual
isolated from his fellows is a life against nature, and
the real nature of the individual can in consequence only
be developed in a community. It is only by living in
society that a man can realize all that he has it in him to
be, only by intercourse with his fellows, by the realization
of social duties and the fulfilment of social obligations, that
he can develop his full self. In addition, therefore, to the
obvious benefits of security against violence and redress
against injustice
that the individual receives from the
State, he owes it a debt of gratitude for its bestowal upon
him of his own individuality in all its richness and with
all its potentialities. Society, the idealists would agree
with Aristotle, exists for the sake of the noble life, and
that which makes the noble life possible must, it is implied,
itself be noble.
The view that society is in some sense a moral entity
is implicit in the whole of Plato's political thought. For
example, the definition of justice reached in the Republic 3'
identifies the principle with the whole moral and political
duty of man. The definition entails that the whole duty
of man can be discharged only in a community, and can
be most fully discharged in the best community in which
each member faithfully performs the functions appropriate
to his status and performs only those functions. But if there
is a set of duties appropriate to my position in society
which it is right for me to discharge, and in the discharge
1 See Chapter I, pp. 34, 35, for an account of this view.
See Chapter II, p. 57 and Chapter III, pp. 69, 70.