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

628 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE MODERNS
Will, and the will of those who are in power cornea, there-
fore, to be regarded as at once the source and the prescriber
of morality. That "Justice and Hitler's Will are one and
the same thing" we have already noted, while Hen-
Wagner, the Bavarian Minister of the Interior, has laid
it down that "what Hitler decides is right and will remain
eternally right". I do not know whether Herr Wagner
has read Machiavclli and learned that "a Prince should
take the surest courses he can to maintain his life and
the State; the result will always be thought honourable".
He could not have found an apter and more succinct
expression of his doctrine.
(4) There is a denial that the development of individual
is
personality the true end of the State. Thus Mussolini
asserts that "the principle that society exists solely through
the well-being and the personal liberty of all the individuals
of which it is composed does not appear to be conformable
to the plans of nature".
(5) If the development of individuality is not the end
of the State, the foundation of Mill's case for individual
freedom, which demands for the individual as a right
complete freedom of thought, of speech and of writing,
disappears. The fascist view is that only so much liberty shall
be allowed to the individual as is compatible with the
convenience of the State. The individual in the fascist
State is, according to Mussolini, "deprived of all useless
and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential;
the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual,
but the State alone". ITiis attitude to liberty is char-
acteristic of Fascism in all its forms.
As in Plato's theory, the State concedes to the people
only those liberties which they are deemed to be capable
of using and enjoying without harm to themselves. The
fascist State, in fact, is like a school in this, that the
better behaved the pupils, the more liberty they are
allowed. To quote Major Barnes "concrete liberties may
be conceded by the State, generally speaking, in proportion
to the efficacy of the moral law reigning in the hearts