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

762 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE MODERNS
bounds of possibility that they may come to deflect, however
slightly, the course of events, and mould the world nearer
to their heart's desire. Pursuing these ideals, they participate
in public life, rub shoulders with their fellows, learn when
to compromise, when to insist, plan 'and scheme to frustrate
the wills of others, and to further their own, and experience
the delights of cooperation with their fellows in a common
task. The more numerous the avenues through which
their personalities are expressed, the more varied the
demands upon their faculties, the richer is the life of the
State, and the richer the lives of the individuals who
compose it. -It is for this reason among others that selfgovernment
is a good, since the effort of a community
to govern itself enlarges the capacity and develops the
personalities of those who are engaged in it. Hence, too,
which calls its members to the exercise of their
democracy,
capacities in a hundred organizations in churches and in
guilds, in Trade Unions and in clubs, in local affairs as in
national possesses an advantage over other forms of
government, just because the citizens who, in a democracy,
both govern and are governed, are more developed as
human beings than the citizens of authoritarian States
who are deprived of this opportunity for the development
of their public capacities. J. S. Mill has finely described
the enrichment of the individual's personality that is con-
ferred by the active participation of the citizen in the affairs
of the State, concluding that "the free development of
individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being
... it is not only a coordinate element with all that is
designated by the terms civilization, instruction, education,
culture, but is itself a necessary part and condition of all
those things". Such free development, he continues, is
only poible in a society where men are entitled to a voice
in the conduct of affairs and given their chance of participation.
Now the development of human nature through
active participation in public affain requires, as its necessary
condition, that the individual should be both a member of
a society and a member of a free society.