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

THB IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE 6oi
.the policies of all States in the past, the student of history
will regretfully testify. What is distinctive of the post-war
twentieth century is that the policies of States in the past
and the practice of States in the present are now justified
by a r political theory which claims for the State a morality,
if morality it may be called, which is precisely the reverse
of that which is commonly enjoined upon the individual.
For while in the relations of individuals morality is dis-
tinguished from expediency,
in the relations of States
morality is identified with expediency.
4
Tor the external relations of States Christian and
Social ethics do not apply."
' *
Anymeans, howeverimmoral, can legitimatelybe resorted
to for the seizure and preservation of sovereign authority/*
The two quotations, taken from the utterances of con*
temporary continental statesmen, admirably express the
conclusions of idealist theory, but the clearest and most
succinct statement of the doctrine is perhaps contained
in the utterance of a Minister of State in Nazi Germany
who, in 1936, informed the German people that "that
which benefits Germany is right, that which does not is
wrong".
(7) Divine Attributes of the State
The reader will now be in the appropriate state of mind
to follow Hegel in his attribution of quasMivine charac-
teristics to the State. He will be prepared to be told that
"the existence of the State is the movement of God in
the world. It is the absolute power on earth; it is its own
end and object," and to see in the State a manifestation
of God Hegel refers to it as "this actual God". If we
discount these somewhat extravagant utterances the upshot
of the theory is sufficiently clear.
The State is the natural, necessary and final form of
human organization. In its perfect development it is both
omnipotent and absolute, and all existing States are only
States in so far as they approximate to the State in its
perfect development. The respects in which they fall short
of the perfectly omnipotent and absolute State are to be