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

590
POLITICS
determined expressions of something which is realizing
itself in and through them. To take one more example,
the whole which is the pattern of a jigsaw puzzle
determines the nature of the design which will appear
on each separate piece of the puzzle. 'Seen in isolation,
seen apart from the puzzle as a whole, the design on teach
piece is meaningless. It is only in its relation to the whole,
that it assumes meaning and significance. But the whole
preceded the pieces in two senses, first, as a conception in
the mind of the compiler of the puzzle, secondly, as a
painted pattern on a block of wood, which is subsequently
cut up into a number of separate pieces to be presented
to the solver as the parts of the puzzle. Though, however,
the movement of the sonata precedes its development, the
body its actions and gestures, the government policy its
realization in legislative acts, the jigsaw puzzle its separation
into pieces, nevertheless, all these are truly parts of
the wholes which inform them, so that if it were not for
the parts, there would be no wholes. There is, then, a
double relationship between wholes and parts. On the one
hand, wholes precede and determine the parts in which
they express themselves; on the other, the parts taken
together make up wholes, even though the whole may be
more than the sum of the parts which make it up. It is
this two-fold relation which Hegel postulates between
State and individual. Individual* constitute the State;
but the State informs and pervades the consciousness of
the individuals through and in which it realizes itself.
(4) The State as an Organism
It follows that the State must, on Hegel's view, be
generically conceived after the model of an organism, since
the consciousness which belongs to the State informs and
the consciousness of the individuals who are
pervades
parts of the State. It is, moreover, a moral organism in
the sense that it can be viewed ideologically by reference
to the purpose which it seeks to realize, and by its success
in the realization of which its worth may be assessed.