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

THEORY OJF COMMUNISM 7x3
himself; it lies in die strength of his own uncontrolled passions
and appetites. Your new-won power over nature has
not tamed these; on the contrary it has rendered them
more violent because it has given them greater oppor-
tunities for gratification. Thus the appetite for aggression,
which could formerly be indulged without disaster,
now threatens to bring your civilization to ruin. Increase
of power without increased wisdom to direct the use of
power is not a good but an evil.
'Now the ordinary man is and always will be incapable
of philosophy. Having no acquaintance with "the Good"
and "the Just", he has no bridle to tame his passions and
no light to guide his steps. He must, then, be assisted to
govern himself. By- means of legislation framed by the wise
and the good, he can be enabled to escape the consequences
of his folly and stupidity. But even the best of legislators
cannot improve his nature. They can only prevent him from
destroying himself, and it is at the prevention of destruction
that the wise statesman will aim. Statesmanship, in a word,
unlike philosophy, is the art of the second best. Its object
is to prevent deterioration, not to introduce betterment;
to hold off disaster, not to bring to birth the millennium.
To use statesmanship for millennial purposes as you communists
are doing, is to pursue a will-o'-the-wisp, in quest
of which you are in danger of losing, through the effects
of disillusion and disappointment, such poor goods, stability
and security, albeit enjoyed at a low level, as mankind
has hitherto been able to achieve/
III. CRITICISM
To embark upon a detailed criticism of the theories
outlined in this chapter would take me beyond the
scope of this present book. The most that I can hope to
do is to offer a few comments of a critical nature upon
some of the outstanding doctrines. A criticism of the communist
view of die relation between the individual and
the State is contained by implication in the arguments
Zi