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

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CRITICISM OP IDEALIST THEORY 74!
class was created and social strata sub-
scribing to new codes of thought and conduct cropped up
everywhere on the surface of society. People's lives rested
less on habit and custom than was formerly the case, and
no general way of life could be taken for granted. As a
consequence, those of the individual's interests and that
part of his behaviour which were common to him and to
other inhabitants of the same State, but not common to
him and to the inhabitants of other States the interests
derived from common custom, the part of behaviour which
was dependent upon habit decreased both in importance
and extent. As they decreased, so did the influence of the
State.
On the positive side, new modes of conduct came to
take the place of the habitual behaviour which had been
based on custom and tradition. As a result of the in-
dividualist thinking of the nineteenth century, aided by the
rapid changes in material circumstances referred to above,
the Greek notion that one kind of good life could be
prescribed for all individuals in the State, a good life,
which it was the business of the statesmen to define and
by means of the laws to promote, came to be abandoned.
For Plato, as we have seen, there was a contrast between
the life of the statesman and that of the ordinary citizen;
the former set the moral standard; the latter followed it.
Christianity taught that insight into moral goodness may
come from any member of society, that there is no one good
life applicable to all individuals, and that it is vital to leave
to the individual the power of determining within limits for
himself the kind of good life that he will lead. Thus it is no
longer possible to formulate a single all-embracing theory,
comparable to the theory of Natural Rights or the Social
Contract theory, which will define and govern the relations
of the members of a modern democratic state to the State.
GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS. The
liberty which individualist and democratic modes of thought
have claimed for the individual to choose his own way of