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

CHAPTER XVIII: CRITICISM OF
THE IDEALIST THEORY OF
THE STATE AND BY IMPLI-
CATION OF FASCISM AND
SOME PARTS OF COMMUNISM
Introductory Plan of Remainder of Book. The last
three chapters have been devoted to the exposition of
views which, directly or indirectly, are hostile to democracy.
The idealist theory of the State and the doctrines ofFascism
and Q^H^m11"""1" all repudiate, either explicitly or implicitly,
the views of the individual, of the State, and of
the relation of the State to the individual which were
popularized in the nineteenth century by such men as
J. S. MiU and Herbert Spencer, who, together with Locke, 1
laid the foundations of the modern theory of democracy.
All these views would, that is to say, repudiate the democratic
view that the State is in essence no more than a
contrivance whose raison d'foe is to make the good life
possible for its citizens, and that its success in doing so is
the sole criterion of its merit In this chapter and the next
I propose to examine what can be said on the other side.
Though democracy and individualism are in the modern
world on their defence, it must not be supposed that they
are without a lenders, and my account of modern political
theory would tot be complete, unless it concluded with a
survey of what might be popularly entitled the twentieth^
century case |k democracy. This concluding section of
the book fell;* tierdbre, into two parts. There is, first, a
criticism of ttedbctrines which are embodied in the idealist
theory of tje State and have inspired the practice of
'See Chapter XIII, p. 492-