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

594
POLITICS
fellow men and since, as we have just seen, these relations
are determined for us by the State of which we and they
are members, we may say that a man's morality is bestowed
upon him by the State and consists in the due observance
of social relations, the punctual performance of social
duties, and the willing rendering of State service.
These conclusions are succinctly stated in the following
three propositions which I take from Ernest Barker's book,
Political Thought in Englandfrom Herbert Spencer to the Present
Day.
(i)
(ii)
The State lives and has a soul.
This soul is conscious in its citizens.
(iii) "To each citizen this living soul assigns his field
of accomplishment".
III. SOME COROLLARIES OF THE
THEORY
(i) That Individual Freedom is Achieved Only in
Service to the State
Since the State gathers up into itself the wills of all the
individuals who compose it, in so far as these wills are
common or general, and since it is itself the source and
inspiration of the common elements in the individual
wills which it gathers up and transcends, it follows that to
perform his duties to the State and to will its interests is,
for the individual, to be free. This conception of freedom
is one which has already appeared in a slightly less developed
form in the philosophy of T. H. Green. 1 Green, it will
be remembered, conceives the State as an organization
whose purpose is to enable the individual to realize
moral or ideal ends. This purpose it fulfils by removing
all hindrances to the living of such a life as will lead to the
realization of, these ends. Thus, in obeying the State
and in helping it to function, he is furthering his own
development as a moral being. Hegel's philosophy includes
this conception and goes beyond it. The State is, for Hegel,
* See Chapter XIV, pp. 554, 555-