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

73B ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE MODERNS
Maitland whose Political Theories of the Middle Age was
published at the beginning of this century, and J. N.
Figgis, whose Churches in the Modern State claims for
ecclesiastical groups the independent being or personality
which Maitland had attributed to political and legal
groups. The theory is primarily a legal one. Let us suppose
that a group of human beings is more or less permanently
associated in pursuance of some permanently desired end.
The question is then raised, whether it is necessary that
this group of human beings should obtain the approval
of the State and the sanction of the law before it can
possess rights and exact the performance of duties. The
answer suggested by the theory of groups is that it is not
necessary. The argument is as follows: The group
constitutes a "person" with a being and will of its own.
Since this "person" was not created by the State and
does not come into being at the behest of the State, it does
not derive from the State its status as an entity entitled to
claim rights and to exact duties. Moreover, to the group
so conceived the various doctrines associated with the
idealist theory of the State can be applied. Like the State,
the group is a whole which is more than the sum of its
parts. No more than the State is a group artificially created
from without; equally with a State it grows from within
as the expression of the purpose which its members have
in common.
The existence and nature of the group's alleged personality
can be most clearly realized in relation to law. The
group not any one of its members, nor their mere arithmetical
sum can own land, sue in court and be sued.
Since it is not dependent for its existence upon creation
by the State, it is not necessary that the group
should be
formally recognized by law in order that it may be subject
to legal obligations. It is enough that it should be socially
recognized by society as something which does in fact exist
This was the gist of the famous Taff-Vale Judgment
which in 1904 made Trade Unions responsible for the
collective acts of their members. Thus, whatever view we