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

CRITICISM OF IDEALIST THEORY 729
it were an isolated entity existing in a vacuum, ''the
guardian", as Dr. Bosanquet puts it, "of our whole
moral world, and not a factor within our organized moral
world." It is this view ofthe State which is largely responsible
for the corollary that the State is exempt from moral
obligations in its relations with other States. That the State
often acts as if it knew no morality but that of expediency
is true, but it is difficult to discover on what basis of fact
or theory the claim that it alone among organizations is
entitled so to act, rests. That the State is not identical
with the whole sum of human society, that it exists in a
world of many States, and that it has important relations
to these othtr States which negotiate with it upon a
footing of equality, are obvious facts. When idealist theory
recognizes these facts, as from time to time it cannot
help but do, it assumes that the normal relation of States
to one another is a relation of 1
hostility: This assumption
is one of the reasons for the insistence upon the value and
necessity of war which is so marked a feature both of
idealist theory and fascist doctrine. In war, it will be re-
membered, the State enhances its being, and it is the
condition of war which exhibits its "omnipotence . . .
in its individuality". In order that the State may make
war there must, it is dear, be other States to fill the r61e
of enemies and victims. Hence the hostile relation between
States is the only one which the theories under consideration
take into account, for the reason that this relation plays
an integral part in the development and glorification
of the State, and enhances its being in ways of which
they approve.
So long as emphasis is placed upon the hostile relations
of sovereign States, the kind of development envisaged in
(A) above, a development which entails the existence
and growth of peaceful
relations between States whose
absolute sovereignty has been superseded, becomes impossible.
The effect of idealist
practical theory in its
bearing upon the relations between States is, therefore,
* See Chapter XV, pp. 5&* *