CHAPTER II.

IT

FALSE VIEWS OF THE END OF THE STATE,

is to main

T has often been asserted in theory, and still more often 1. That it in practice, that the real end of the State is the rule of tain the the supreme power, especially of princes over their subjects.

If the maintenance of this rule were the end of the State, the logical conclusion must be that the ideal State should be as absolute and as extensive as possible, so that the final aim of political effort would be absolute universal monarchy, or rather universal despotism. This would make it impossible to reconcile national freedom with the development of human powers.

ruling power.

The whole conception has its origin, not in human nature, nor in the social impulses which nature has implanted in mankind, but in the ambition of rulers and their haughty. desire to exalt themselves.

Aristotle long ago condemned this opinion in the famous dictum 1, All constitutions which regard only the private good of the rulers are corruptions or perversions of the normal constitutions.' It is forgotten that a nation exists within the State; that the subjects are men like their rulers, and possess the same human capacities, feelings and powers; that it is therefore preposterous to regard the one class as the sole possessors of political rights, and the others as simple objects of their rule, as things. All the arguments against slavery are equally valid against this sort of despotism.

1 Politics, iii. 6. 1279 a, 19.

2. That it

out the

Rule is unquestionably an attribute of the power of the State, but it is not the end of the State; on the contrary it is a means to realise the end of the State. It is rather a duty towards the nation than a right to be enjoyed by the ruler.

Rule therefore requires to be limited and defined by the constitution. The ideal of a State which approaches as nearly as possible to perfection does not consist in absolute, but in constitutional, i. e. relative rule. It often happens that some form of government, originally founded with good intentions, ceases in time to suit the altered conditions of a nation. In such a case it cannot be the duty of a healthy policy to leave this system unaltered just as it was inherited from previous generations: on the contrary, one's aim should be to improve the now useless system, and to restore harmony with the other conditions of the national life.

says:

According to the theocratic theory, the end of the State is to carry is the realisation of God's kingdom upon earth. Stahl2 divine will. The duty of the State depends upon the service of God. It should establish the rule of God, and maintain justice, discipline, and morality, which are God's commands for social life.' In the middle ages this conception was generally believed both by Christians and Mohammedans. But the modern world, while granting the religious importance of this view, and fully comprehending how the whole machinery of the world was revealed to the pious spirit by the light of the divine administration, utterly rejects the erroneous and fatal way in which divine rule was applied to direct the conduct of human affairs.

The comparison on which the idea of theocracy rests, that the prince rules over a nation as God rules over the world, is obviously false. God's rule over the world is the rule of an absolute over relative beings, of the creator over his creatures: we cannot discover its origin, nor can we define its methods or its objects. The rule of a prince over a nation is the rule of a man over men, i. e. similar beings; the prince's life is

2 Rechtsphilosophie, ii. 2.

guided and his qualities limited just as those of his subjects, and the latter are fully capable of criticising him from a human standpoint.

The comparison of a prince with God is therefore false from every point of view, and, as it leads to pride and excessive self-esteem, it is also harmful. The end of the State must be recognisable by men, it must be determined by human nature, and it must be at any rate nearly attainable by human effort.

It is altogether erroneous to place the end of the State 3. That it outside the people and country which form it, so that it becomes merely a means to secure external objects.

The clerical party has been accustomed to prove the necessity of the States of the Church by pointing out that the independence and authority of the Roman Catholic Church require a Pope who shall be at the same time sovereign ruler in Rome. They fail to perceive that this argument clearly tells against the temporal power. For by it they deny the independence of the Papal States, and with it their character as a State, because no State can exist as the slave, wanting both will and legal rights, of some external power, even though this latter be the Roman Catholic Church. They presume that the Roman people who compose this State have submitted to a political serfdom in the interests of a religious and non-political community, a presumption which is equally opposed to the character of the people and to the religious nature of the Church.

History has declared its judgment upon this enormity. Rome now belongs, not to Catholic Christendom, which is divided into many States, but to the Roman, or rather to the Italian, nation, of which the Romans are members.

But even in the present day there are several examples of the same error. The principality of Lichtenstein obviously does not exist for the sake of the small village of Lichtenstein and its scanty population. It serves only for an external object, viz. to support the rank and dignity of the princely dynasty which lives outside the country at the imperial court of Austria. This is obviously a State which has not its end in itself.

has to secure some external

object.

CHAPTER III.

I. That its end is to secure the rights of person and property.

INSUFFICIENT OR EXAGGERATED VIEWS OF THE
END OF THE STATE.

A

FTER Kant and Fichte the opinion long prevailed in Germany that the true end of the State was merely the assurance of rights, and especially those of person and property.

6

Kant (Rechtslehre, §§ 47-49) expressly declared that the safety (i. e. the end) of the State does not consist in the welfare. or happiness of the citizens, but in the agreement of the constitution with the principles of law.' Fichte (Naturrecht, in his Works, iii. 152) maintains that 'the assurance of the rights of all men is the only general will' (i. e. the will of the State). Starting from this view of Kant, Wilhelm von Humboldt assigns very narrow limits to the activity of the State, and defines its end as 'the maintenance of security against both external enemies and internal dissensions". Even in our own century, when the idea of nationality is so strong, Eötvös (Moderne Ideen, ii. 91) maintains that the end of the State is the security of the individual.'

This opinion arose in the latter half of the eighteenth century. In those days men sought to find some fundamental

a [Humboldt's Sphere and Duties of Government supplies the motto to Mill's Liberty. For Mill's views cp. also his Pol. Econ. Book V. In practice however Mill allows the State very extensive functions. Much more extreme is the view of H. Spencer, The Man v. the State]

[It is as old as the Greek sophists. Cp. Arist. Pol. iii. 9 § 8, 1280 h, 10, where Lycophron the Sophist is said to have held that ‘Law (¿ vóμos) is only concerned with the securing of mutual rights and is not able to make the

limitation to the over-government of that enlightened despotism which, benevolent as it was, proved oppressive and destructive of personal freedom, and which was accustomed to justify every interference with family life, with the free choice of a career, and with the administration of private revenues, by a professed regard for the general welfare. The definition of the end of the State as the maintenance of legal security seemed to offer a convenient weapon for opposing this overgovernment successfully, and the State thus limited was termed a Rechtstat (Legal State), in opposition to the detested Polizeistat (Police State).

This narrowing of public life by restricting the end of the State failed to satisfy either the instincts or the necessities of modern nations. No one doubted that the maintenance of legal security is one of the duties of the State, but no modern nation or government could allow its political activity to be limited to so narrow a domain. Even the champions of the opinion were compelled by their personal experience to break through these limits, and to direct their policy to higher ends. Fichte began by asserting that the 'protection of property' was the chief end of the State, but in the great struggle against the universal despotism of Napoleon, which was willing enough to protect property, he rose to the conception of a national State, which should serve as the organ of the national spirit. As a Prussian minister, Wilhelm von Humboldt strove to effect the intellectual advancement of the Prussian nation by means of State-schools, though in his theory he had condemned them, and to extend the power of the Prussian State, though it was already amply sufficient to enforce civil and criminal law.

In fact this formula about legal security does not exhaust Defects of the end of the State, and especially of the civilised State of this view.

citizen good and just (ἐγγυητὴς ἀλλήλοις τῶν δικαίων, ἀλλ ̓ οὐχ οἷος ποιεῖν ȧyaboùs kai dikalovs тoùs toλíras).' See Oncken, Staatslehre des Aristoteles, i. p. 217. Locke, Treatise on Government, Book II. ch. ix, holds that the end of political society and government, or, as he expresses it, the reason why men enter into society, is that every one may the better preserve himself, his liberty, and property.]

[See above, Book I. ch. vii. p. 65.]