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

CRITICISM OF IDEALIST THEORY 759
(VII) That the Analogy Between the Body Politic and
the Human Body is False.
The idealist theory of the State derives much of its
plausibility from the analogy which it invokes between the
State and the living organism, and more particularly,
between the body politic and the human body. The various
organs of the human body have no rights apart from the
body, no ends apart from die body, and no function except
to contribute to the welfare of the body. Moreover, they
stand to it in the relation of parts to a whole which both
transcends and pervades them, so that, as parts, they are
different from what they would have been, had they
existed in isolation. 1 Therefore, it is argued by analogy,
the individual members of the body politic have no rights,
ends or functions save such rights as are derived from the
State, such ends as are proper to the State, and such
functions as arise out of their relation to the State and in
pursuance of their duty to the State. The State, moreover,
determines their natures, pervading their beings with its
own, so that they are literally different, when regarded
as incorporated members of the State, from what they
would have been had they existed in isolation. This analogy,
it will be remembered, was frequently resorted to by Plato*
although he did not use it to justify the extreme conclusions
of the idealist theory of the State. The analogy is partly
valid, partly invalid, and it is important to distinguish
those parts of it which may be accepted from those which
are T
How FAR THE ANALOGY is VALID. What is valid
is, firs^ that a society is more like a living organism than
it is like a mechanism; it resembles a human body more
than it resembles a machine. It comes into existence
wherever there are human beings, and it springs naturally
and inevitably from their association. It is not, therefore,
1 See Chapter II, pp. 511-54, for a discussion of the relation between
wholes and parts*
See Chapter I, p. 95.