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

THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE 597
individual are not those which he has brought with him
from some hypothetical, pre-social state of society, but the
rights to pursue and attain to certain ideal ends which
his fully-developed nature sets before him. But it is only
a fully-developed nature that sets before itself ideal ends,
and this nature he owes to society. Thus society is not only
responsible for the ends which the individual desires to
pursue; it confers the right to pursue them. Since,
then, the individual receives his rights from the State, he
can have no rights which conflict with those of the State.
(3) That the State Cannot Act Unrcprescntatively
That a man can be forced to be free, forced, that is to
say, to realize the ideal ends in which true freedom consists,
we have already learnt from T. H. Green. 1 The
Hegelian theory carries this paradox further. The relations
which bind the individual not only to every other individual
in the community, but also to the State as a whole, form
an integral part of the individual's personality. He would
not be what he is without them, and he only is what he
is because of them. It follows that he cannot act as an
isolated individual; he acts as an integral part of the
State. Similarly he cannot will with a purely individual
will; he wills with a part of the State's will. Thus, according
to Dr. Bosanquet, even in rebelling against the State the
individual rebels with a will which he has obtained from
the State, which is, indeed, continuous with the State's
will; the State, in short, in times of rebellion,
is divided
against itself. Paradoxical conclusions follow from this
doctrine. For example, the State can never act otherwise
than in accordance with the wills of its individual
members. Thus the policeman who arrests the burglar, and
the magistrate who locks him up, are really expressing the
burglar's real will to be arrested and locked up, the
policeman and magistrate being the executive officials
of a State which necessarily represents and expresses the
real will of the burglar who is a member of it. Furthermore,
* See Chapter XIV, pp. 554. 555-