Unsettled

problems

theory

like a physical organism, the whole as a whole and not a mere aggregation of parts has no objective existence but lives only in the consciousness of those who are united in sharing the common ideal. That the ideal is as real as anything that leads to human action is demonstrated by the fact that men willingly die for their country. Patriotism is no less real than hunger or thirst. The state, regarded as a moral organism, is no less real than food, clothing, or shelter.

Many subsequent writers have tried to explain this in political idealistic theory of the state and of justice. Some of them have put it in a form more readily comprehended than that which we owe to Kant. But nothing essential has been added to the substance of the theory. The important subjects of later inquiry have been these: (1) How shall existing political institutions be altered, in order to attain more nearly the harmony with the principles of right for which men strive? (2) What shall men do when such harmony is lacking and the resulting discord seems intolerable?

Kant's Kant's answers to these questions were hardly more theory of government satisfactory than those of Rousseau. Kant, as has been shown, like Rousseau, merged the problem of justice into that of government. The principles of right, with which, he believed, the constitution of the state must harmonize, prove upon analysis to be republican principles. He understood republican principles in much the same sense as those French Revolutionists who, inspired like himself to a degree by the ideas of Rousseau, then acting so powerfully upon the minds of men, were proceeding with their experiments in the reduction of ideals to practice before his very eyes. Kant would not have approved the governmental methods of the Revolutionary Convention except as a temporary expedient. His theory of government is more accurately represented by the Constitution of the

Year One, adopted by the Convention while its more idealistic and sanguine members were still untouched by the guillotine. This constitution was never put into effect, and certainly could not have been worked successfully by the men of the Revolution. Kant prepared his own version of the Revolutionary slogan, liberty, equality, and fraternity. His version was, philosophically at least, an improvement on the original. But in effect he concluded. by subscribing, much as Rousseau had done, to the dogmas of universal suffrage and unlimited majority rule. His answer to the first of the two questions stated above left the theory of government, therefore, no further advanced than before. His answer to the second, like that of Rousseau, must be deferred for consideration in connection with the problem of liberty.

of the later

With the lapse of time and the evident frustration of Perversion much that the French Revolutionists sought to accomplish, German the German idealists who succeeded Kant, notably Fichte idealism and above all, Heger, gave to his ideas new and strange shape. They accepted his theory of justice and his doctrine of sovereignty, but rejected his faith in the absolutism of popular majorities. They believed that the general will could be more safely interpreted by the classes than by the masses, by Junkers and bureaucrats than by peasants and artisans. With one eye, indeed, upon the eternal verities but with the other upon the King of Prussia, they espoused the cause of the status quo, when the reaction against the principles of the Revolution was running strong, and gave to the idealistic political philosophy a conservative cast which, culminating in the writings of men like Treitzschke, satellites of warriors rather than teachers of statesmen, produced the apotheosis of the Hohenzollern dynasty and the ruin of Germany. The idealistic political philosophy has run a happier 1 Cf. Eternal Peace, World Peace Foundation edition, pp. 31, 137.

Political idealism

in England and America

course in the English-speaking countries. In England a line of liberal-minded thinkers, notably T. H. Green, repudiating the mysticism and reactionary character of the later German idealism, purified and fortified the idealistic way of thinking by reviving the influence of the original masters of idealistic philosophy, Plato and Aristotle1 Thus they have been able to enter powerful pleas for the recognition in the state of the supremacy of the interests of the whole over those of any part. But it is in America that the idealistic political philosophy has exercised its greatest influence. Since 1776 Americans have recognized that it is not enough to justify the authority which makes the law. It is necessary also to justify the end which the law is designed to serve. The individual, as we say, does not exist for the state, but the state for the individual. Here the later German idealists went astray. Eventually the consequences of their error proved most lamentable. Americans, on the contrary, have always insisted that the welfare of the state must be reconciled with the rights of man. That means that the government of the state must not only establish justice, but also secure the blessings of liberty. The nature of liberty will be examined in the following chapters, which will incidentally shed some further light on the nature of justice also. Meanwhile, it must be confessed, justice, as conceived by the political idealists, seems somewhat nebulous and unreal. Το establish that kind of justice means essentially to adjust the various conflicts of interest existing within a state in such manner as might be sustained by a sound and enlightened public opinion. But opinions, even public opinions, differ. It is evident, therefore, that there must be many different kinds of adjustments which might be so sustained. In other words, idealistic as well as realistic theories of

1 Thomas H. Green's, "The Principles of Political Obligation" (18791880), is published in his Works, Vol. 11, pp. 335-553.

justice will have different meanings in different kinds of

states.

Yet certain general conclusions concerning the nature of Summary of idealistic political justice may be summarily stated. According to theory of the political idealists, justice is such an adjustment of the justice conflicting interests within the body politic as most to promote or least to injure the best interests of the whole body of people. In the ideal commonwealth that would be such an adjustment as most to promote the virtue, or to use a homely word instead of the classical expression, the manliness, of the community as a whole. This proposition is as old as Plato's Republic and, after all is said, little has been added to it since that immortal work was composed. In the militarist commmonwealth it means such adjustments as best promote the strength of the community. In the capitalist commonwealth it means such adjustments as best promote the wealth and prosperity of the community. In the proletarian commonwealth it means such adjustments as best promote equality, at least of opportunity, in the community. But justice in the militarist commonwealth must be distinguished from that policy which deliberately prefers the interests of the strong to those of other members of the community. Such a policy is not justice, but injustice. A state in which such a policy prevails is no true commonwealth. Likewise, justice in capitalist and proletarian commonwealths must be distinguished from policies of deliberate preference for the interests of the capitalist and proletarian classes, respectively, over those of the rest of the community. Such policies are highly oppressive and tyrannical. Justice, as the political idealists understand it, may differ in different types of commonwealths, but the fundamental idea remains the same, the subordination of the interests of each part of the people to those of the people as a whole. Otherwise injustice must prevail.

NOTES ON BOOKS

1. See the Modern Legal Philosophy Series, edited by a Committee of the Association of American Law Schools, and especially Vol. 2, F. Berolzheimer's The World's Legal Philosophies (translated by R. S. Jastrow, 1912).

2. The principal books are cited in the text of this chapter and the notes appended to preceding chapters, especially Chapter II. In general realistic theories of justice follow logically from realistic theories of the state, and idealistic theories of justice from idealistic theories of state. The standard work on the type of realistic thought that has had most influence in English-speaking countries in recent times is L. Stephen, The English Utilitarians (2d ed., 3 vols., 1900). An ingenious modern instance of an ancient method of political speculation is furnished by G. L. Dickinson's Justice and Liberty, a Political Dialogue (1908). An interesting account of the more imaginative theories of justice, including some that are merely fanciful and others that are fantastic, is contained in L. Mumford's The Story of Utopias (1922.) See also J. O. Hertzler's History of Utopian Thought (1923). Notable among recent specimens of idealistic Utopian thought are H. G. Wells's A Modern Utopia (1907), and New Worlds for Old (1908).

3. There are several good editions of Rousseau's Social Contract. The best is that of C. E. Vaughan (1917), which contains an illuminating and sympathetic introduction. The edition in the Everyman's Library is also noteworthy because of the instructive introduction by G. D. H. Cole. An unsympathetic view of Rousseau may be found in Dunning's History of Political Theories, vol. iii. See also the penetrating review of Vaughan's edition by H. J. Laski in The New Republic (July 16, 1919), which reveals the fatal defect of Rousseau's exposition of the idealistic theory. But Mr. Laski is mistaken, I think, in believing that the theory itself is incurably defective. Kant's writings on political philosophy have been published by the World Peace Foundation in a convenient volume, entitled Eternal Peace and other International Essays (translated by W. Hastie, 1914). Hegel's Introduction to the Philosophy of History, and his Philosophy of Law have been published, with instructive introductions, in The German Classics (ed. by K. Francke, vol. vii, 1914). T. H. Green's etc., see p. 250. In addition to the books noted at the close of Chapter II, mention should also be made of W. W. Willoughby's Social Justice (1900), the most satisfactory volume of its kind by an American writer.