identified. And we have seen that its special form of good life, being a moral consciousness, is not merely a self-contained habit of conduct in the members of a group, but is an attitude and moral outlook which, though existing in them, has for its object the whole world, and is determined by the view and spirit which the group has evolved for itself, implying its conception of the best thing for the world. Devotion to humanity as a best, as a supreme quality, is, unless and until the organism of mankind becomes actual, better represented by the moral world of the highest communities than by anything common to the whole multitude of mankind.* 7. After these explanations, I hope it may be hardly necessary to refute the charge of immorality+ brought against the thesis that a state simply cannot do all immoral acts which a single human being can. We have seen that morality is relative to the special obligation of the particular moral being, and it is obviously also relative to his capacity for action. Now a community simply cannot express its will directly, as a man or woman can, in a bodily act. To act is to make a will pass into fact, and how a community can do this is an old question and not an easy one. Rousseau held that nothing but a law, a decision dealing with something of general interest, could be an act of the sovereign power, and, in the main, I believe he was right. It is plain surely that even a mere aggregate of men cannot commit a single bodily act as one man can. It may be answered, "they may be accomplices before or after the fact." But we should consider what would have to be proved to bring in a nation as accomplices in a breach of the Decalogue. An act of attainder is, I should think, the nearest thing to murder by a state, and such an act, like all privilegia, is, I believe, now considered abhorrent to the spirit of law. Surely *See pp. 47-48, below. + Mr. Delisle Burns, p. 293. Cf. the decision of the Athenian assembly to put the Mityleneans to death, and its recall. it is better and even more impressive to recognise obvious distinctions and call things by their right names. The fundamental point is in the defective individuality of human beings. If a man could be inspired by the whole living system of the communal mind, then the community as active-the statemight be fully responsible for what he does. And in practice we make a great distinction, which nothing else can account for, between the degrees of its responsibility for the sayings and doings of its different agents. A Cabinet minister acts for the state in a different degree from a police constable. For, as any man or woman's mind is always but a fragment of the general mind and will, it is plain that the community which acts through them can only answer for as much of their act as represents the degree of its will which it can fairly be said to have succeeded in communicating to them; that is, in practice, for their appointment and dismissal, their instructions, and the general system under which they work. And the recognition of this is enough, and more effective in practice than an attempt to impute something more, which would always fail. "Power can be delegated, but not will." You may order special acts to be done by another, but you cannot transfer to him the general exercise of your will. I admit that recent events have done something to show that the responsibility of a community for single wicked actions of men may be more intimate than I had thought possible. But I still think that all this will look very different when the conditions of such action come to be criticised in cold blood. And in any case I have rightly stated the hypothetical conditions of such responsibility.* If agents thought of their duty more in terms of a community's obligations and less in terms of private conscience much evil would be avoided. It has been the private conscience that has been responsible, very largely at least, for religious persecution and active intolerance of all kinds, which have been Phil. Theory of State, p. 324. not an advantage, but a distinct obstruction to the community in its function. 8. I will pass on to the question of a wider loyalty, or a larger political unit than those which centre in the nation state. It is natural to infer from the social organism to an organism of humanity, and to look for the supreme authority or object of devotion in this as the inclusive unit. But here, again, is a difficulty in the facts-a double difficulty, which our theory is framed to meet, and which its critics seem not to have heeded. The first thing that strikes us is that, in fact, at present there is no organism of humanity. For such an organism, consciousness of connection is necessary. Mere causal connection exists in the mere physical world. And putting aside the question of past and future human beings, will anyone say that the existing multitude of humanity possesses any connected communal consciousness whatever? But if not, there is at present no community, outside those which speak through the state, which can at all pretend to be a moral purpose or to be endowed with a conscience. And secondly, considering as an aggregate all the human beings on the earth's surface, we can find in them no common character in which the values to which we are devoted as the qualitative essence of humanity are adequately represented. I do not say that something of humanity in the highest sense is not present wherever there are human beings. But it is plain that neither the main values which govern our aspirations to the best life, nor the valuation of them, are possessions common to mankind. It is not to the multitudes of all mankind that we go for "love and beauty and delight." At their best they are possessions of particular communities, and form elements in the diverse moral worlds which states exist to guard. Thus, to put it bluntly, a duty to realise the best life cannot be shown to coincide with a duty to the multitude of mankind. Our primary loyalty is to a quality, not to a crowd. If you see the two as one, it is by faith only, and at any given moment they may conflict. This makes the moral alternative between, say, the self-defence of a highly civilised state and submission in the interests of the whole. world's peace, a really tragic crisis, and entitles us to say that there is nothing in the interstate world to guide its units in moral choices. It is not unnecessary to guard ourselves, as we are doing, against the assumption that humanity is a real corporate being, an object of devotion and a guide to moral duty. This formed the central doctrine of Comtism, and seeming to correspond to a natural expansion of our interest tends to make us fancy that we apprehend an ultimate visible community to which our devotion is due, and with which we can have a will in common. It is conceivable, of course, that such a community may one day come into being. But there are suggestions which point elsewhere. M. Romain Rolland has spoken of our only dwelling-places being our earthly fatherland and the City of God. I do not know whether by the second phrase he understands a visible community. The antithesis seems to suggest a different idea, and the truly complete community, which religion, for instance, assumes as ultimate, cannot possibly be that with which the Comtist confused it, the multitude of human beings either alive at any given moment, or including all that have been and that will be. However this may be, whatever may prove to be the extent of the effective unity which at any time may be realised among mankind, the condition of its realisation, if our theory is sound, admits of no dispute. The body which is to be in sole or supreme command of force for the common good must possess a true general will, and for that reason must be a genuine community sharing a common sentiment and animated by a common tradition. With less than this * See The War and Democracy, p. 13. The the supreme authority must become an administration of general rules, external to the needs and consciences of the communities which it is meant to unite, and incapable therefore of appreciating the more serious problems which will confront them, or those needs of their lives which demand a certain social structure. This is why I view with apprehension the tendency to minimise the function of the state which is current to-day, owing, as I believe, to a too special explanation of causes which led to the present conflict. first thing needed is the better adjustment and maintenance of rights within the communities which form states at the present moment. That is to say, the more complete discharge of their functions by existing states, and, if need be, the formation of new ones, adapted to similar tasks. More of the state, that is, and not less, is required within communities. And so, too, without. If larger units are needed and can be realised, they too must fulfil the conditions of states. Here, also, more of the state is needed, and not less. Leagues, alliances, united states, which have not the spirit of true communities, carry the germs of disruption within them, and the probability, as Hegel explained, of antagonism without. External antagonism, and not a deep-seated general will, is, as a rule, their binding force. Here I am thoroughly at one with Mr. Russell as to the improbability of an international authority being created as an outcome of the present war. I confess that I see something of the same danger in the unit which has been spoken of as the commonwealth-say, the British Empire in its present stage of development. For it is its essence, as I understand the doctrine, that its constituent members are to be on an unequal footing, unified only by a reign of external law which leaves their national consciousnesses untouched and unreconciled.* I cannot believe * Lord Acton, Freedom and other Essays, p. 290; see The War and Democracy, p. 370. Lord Acton does not use the term Commonwealth in the sense referred to by the latter writer. It is discussed, of course, in Mr. Curtis' works. D |