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

THEORY OF DEMOCRACY 787
that lies at the root of the idealist theory of the State,
though, the truth is, as I have tried to show, distorted out
of all likeness to itself. The recognition of this truth requires
us to assign to the State a more positive sphere in the realm
of ethics than we have hitherto envisaged. For in providing
the individual with opportunities for the development of
virtue and the realization of happiness, the State is not
merely supplying the background of the good life;
it is
assisting to fill its foreground.
In conceding this much it is, however, important that
we should bear in mind that the State is not a unique
or final form of human organization, and that the functions
both negative and positive which have been claimed for
it in the preceding paragraphs could be discharged by
other forms of political organization. Indeed, there is
some reason to suppose that the development of moral
virtue and the realization of happiness in public work
will, in the twentieth century, be best promoted by service
to the international ideal. It is certainly the case that
the function of providing the background for the good
life in the guise in which it presents itself to the citizen
of the modern European or American State, can be
most adequately discharged by some form of international,
or, at any rate, of federal organization, which
will supersede the aggressive nationalism of existing
sovereign States. Patriotism, in fact, is not enough just
because the State is not the whole or, rather, because
there is a larger whole of which the whole, which is the
State, forms part. Once it is admitted that the individual
may fulfil his personality by serving ends other than* his
own, and feel interest in and make sacrifices for the welfare
of wholes of which he is a member, there seems to be no
logical reason for stopping short of the whole which is
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