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

596
POLITICS
effect a crystallization of the stuff of Social Righteousness
on its objective side. True freedom, then, cannot be
realized apart from the laws and institutions of the State
through which Social Righteousness expresses itself* True
freedom thus comes to be conceived of as an externaliza-
tion or objectification of all that is highest in the conception
of freedom in the individual's heart, a conception for
which society is responsible, since it expresses the moral
will of society, and which, but for society, would remain
unrealized. In the State, to use Hegel's language, man
has " fully raised his outward self to the level of his inward
self of thought ". This true freedom which is made possible
by and is a product of society is active and developing.
True freedom, then, develops as Social Righteousness
develops, the development of the latter involving a fuller
realization of the former. The State thus makes possible
for man a freedom to which he would otherwise be un-
able to attain. In Hegel's words, " nothing short of the
State is the actualization of freedom."
(2) Over-riding Rights of the State
Secondly, the welfare and personality of the State arc
more important than those of any of the individuals who
compose it, and its rights over-ride individual rights.
Reasons for this corollary are to be found both in the
conception of the higher morality of the State the State,
it will be remembered, or rather the State's will, is more
disinterested than that of any individual and in its
inclusive character. Since its being gathers up and com-
prises within itself all that is best in the natures of those
who are its members, in any apparent conflict between
die rights of the State and the rights of the individual,
the rights of State have greater weight and should be
preferred to the so-called rights of the individual ;
for the in-
dividual can have no red rights which conflict with those of
the State. This conclusion follows from an acceptance
of the ideological view of rights. 1 The real rights of the
t See Chapter XIV, pp. 550, 551.