volume

5/3

spring 1976

page

247

hilail

gildin

revolution and
political

the formation

of

society

in

the

social

contract

266
288

peter stern

marx's critique of

philosophy

kirk

emmert

winston churchill on empire and

the limits

of politics

309

laurence berns

political

philosophy

and

the

right

to rebellion

martinus

nijhoff, the hague

edited at

queens college of new

york

of

the city university

interpretation
a

journal
5

of political

philosophy issue 3

volume

editors

seth g.

benardete

hilail

gildin

robert

horwitz

howard b.

white (1912-

1974)
consulting
editors

John hallowell

wilhelm
-

hennis
strauss

erich

hula

arnaldo momigliano

michael oakeshott

leo

(1899-1973)

kenneth

w.

thompson

executive editor

managing

editor

hilail

gildin

ann mcardle

interpretation is it its
a

journal devoted to the study

a year.

of political

philosophy.

appears

three times

editors welcome contributions

serious

from

all

those

who

take
of

interest in

political

philosophy

regardless

their orientation.

all manuscripts and editorial correspondence

should

be

addressed to

the executive

editor

interpretation

building

glOl

queens college

flushing,

n.y.

11367

u.s.a.

subscription price

for institutions

and

forwarding
therewith

expenses

libraries Guilders 42. for individuals Guilders 33.50. Guilders 9. one guilder $ 0.385
=

subscription and correspondence should

in

connection

be

sent

to the publisher

martinus nijhoff

9-1 1 lange

voorhout

p.o.b.

269

the hague

netherlands.

247 REVOLUTION AND THE FORMATION OF POLITICAL SOCIETY IN THE SOCIAL

CONTRACT*

Hilail Gildin

Great minds are invariably understood by fewer people than they influence. The fate that befell Rousseau's teaching (if fate is the appro priate expression here) furnishes a continuing, though melancholy, confirmation of this truth. More than any other major political philos opher, Rousseau helped win acceptance for the view that democracy is the only legitimate form of government. Since Rousseau was convinced that only a tiny minority of the regimes existing in the world at any one time would ever be democratic, his view implied that the over whelming majority of political orders are, and will continue to be, illegitimate. However, this conclusion did not have the revolutionary implications for him that it would have for many of our contemporaries because he thought that only a tiny minority of regimes ever can be democratic or legitimate and he saw no point in encouraging revolu tions whose only result, after much suffering, would be the replacement of one illegitimate regime by another. In a word, Rousseau did not believe in Progress. He did
more
was an attack on not

think that the

rule.

world was

becoming ever
him famous
the diffusion

hospitable to democratic
the
view

The

work which made

that intellectual progress,

and

of

its results, tends to be

accompanied

by moral and social progress. The

revolutionary doctrine that is sometimes associated with his name resulted from combining his views regarding the democratic character
government with a belief in Progress that is incom his philosophy. That combination was more explosive than either of its ingredients had been. Rousseau's belief that freedom is not that it is, in fact, the fruit of very few cli the first of all climates was either abandoned or vanished from sight. It was replaced mates of all patible with

legitimate

by the revolutionary conviction that, thanks to the progress of the human race, there was less and less excuse for enduring the evils inflicted on men by their illegitimate rulers merely because one was too squeamish and cowardly to do the ruthless things that would rid men
of
at

their

rule.

times become

The revolutionary tradition based on this conviction has so powerful that Rousseau's non-adherence to its views

regarding revolutionary change has seemed to be a strange aberration for which explanations have been given that are no less strange.

Rousseau did

not

think that

a sound political order would come

into

being

through the

workings of

Progress. It is hard to tell from the Social

* The author thanks the Relm Foundation for providing financial support for part of the research for this paper. A version of this paper was presented at the 1976 Annual Meeting of the APSA.

248

Interpretation
take

Contract how it

would

place

because

of a curious vacillation
while

in his

remarks on this point. In Book I (Chapter 6), setting forth the speaks as if no more were content of the social contract, Rousseau needed to form a legitimate social order than for men at the dawn of

society to gather together and agree on reasonable con ditions for living together.1 He even suggests that this is how political In Book II (Chapter 6), however, Rousseau orders everywhere
pohtical
arose.2

declares that the task

of

determining those conditions is utterly beyond

the capacity of any such gathering of men, and that their incapacity indispensable.3 makes the intervention of a supremely wise legislator

Before
one

one can understand

restore
which

the

conflict

must

them to the

argument

between these two accounts, of the book of the Social

Contract in famous
the tions
next

words:

they appear. The argument of Book I opens with the As "Man is born free and everywhere he is in paragraph makes clear, the chains in question are the obliga
society imposes on previously free and autonomous it binds them to one another. No one who lives in a political

chains

which political

men when

society is free to act exactly as he pleases, least of all the despot, who thinks of all of his subjects as slaves. Rousseau affirms that he does not know how the transition from freedom to the
took place,
which should chains of political

life

be

remembered nor

when

remarks about

that

transition,4

does he

promise

reading his later to show men how

to

restore

deprivation
made

to determine is how the freedom required by every political society can be legitimate : this is the announced theme of this book from its
claim

their freedom. What he does

of

opening Rousseau's discussion

chapter.5

of

that theme
once

continues

in the

next chapter.

There
nature

we are

told why

another, but we are also told under what conditions men may properly alienate this natural freedom of theirs.6 Self-preservation provides the key to under
of

free

any

obligation

man, to obey the

he has

attained

maturity, is

by

commands of

standing both
men,
we

natural

freedom
each

and

its

ahenation.

Nature has
possible

so made stake

are

told, that

one

has the

greatest

in

1 Citations from the Social Contract are by book, chapter, and paragraph. Parenthetical references in the notes following such citations are to the Pleiade edition of Rousseau's Oeuvres Completes, sometimes cited here as O.C. The quotations from the Social Contract are based upon the translations by Frederick Watkins (London, 1953), Maurice Cranston (Harmondsworth, 1968), and G. D. Ff. Cole (Everyman).
2

(HI,

p. 360).

(p. 380). For what is hypothetical and what is not in the Discours sur I'origine et les fondements de I'inigaliti, see Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago, discussion of Rousseau's own I953) P- 367, n. 32. Compare the natural goodness and of the difference between that goodness and the virtue that revelation, as distinguished from the "law of nature, or at least its makes possible, in Dialogues, II (O.C, I, pp. 820ft.). 5 See Strauss, Natural Right and History, p. 255. 6 3 (P- 352).
10 4
"hypothetical"

voice,"

Political

Society

in the Social Contract

249

preserving himself. Therefore, each man must be allowed to be the j udge of what the best means for self-preservation are ; i e each must be allowed to be his own master. However, conditions can arise under
.
.

which one

the best means, and justified natural freedom in the first place, now justifies alienating it. Rousseau gives the ex ample of children who have attained maturity, and are no longer under any obligation to continue living with their father and obeying him but who may find it advantageous to do so, in which case they will "alienate their freedom for their He expresses no disapproval of this alienation: he assumes that such children find in the love and the of their father recompense for the freedom that they forgo in order to live with him. He even displays a momentary willingness to consider a family of this kind as a paradigm for pohtical society. The parallelism between the two proves to be untenable, however, because the passion animating rulers the pleasure of commanding does not with it the guarantees of beneficence that the father's love carry

finds

living

under another's command which

so

the

concern with

self-preservation,

utility."

...

"means"

affords his freedom is

children.

not a sensible

In the absence of such guarantees, renouncing act, according to Rousseau.

one's

explicit argument of the Social Contract freedom is treated exclusively in terms of self-preservation, however inadequate a basis this may seem to furnish for understanding all that political free

In the

almost

dom

meant

for

Rousseau.7

An

appeal

to the

requirements

of

self-

preservation similar

justifies the

assertion

that

men are

by

nature

free. A

justifies the replacement of natural freedom by con ventional freedom through the enactment of the social contract. Since Rousseau will later claim that it is very much to one's advantage to exchange natural freedom for conventional freedom,8 one might wonder why the first chapter of the work opens with the contrast between freedom and chains, which presents the loss of natural freedom as a misfortune (of course it would not cease to be one just because the chains were legitimate and the loss irreparable). To understand
appeal

this,

one must

remember

that for Rousseau

natural

merely

a means of self-preservation.

It is

also a condition

freedom is not for and an in

for natural freedom can be found is in many respects superior to what it replaces as a means of self-preservation. But there appears to be no substitute, according to Rousseau, for natural freedom as an ingredient of happiness.9 It is perfectly possible, therefore, for him both to deplore and to congratulate man on the transition from the state of nature to
gredient of substitute
conventional

happiness. A
freedom

which

7
ity"

II, 5,
and

"riches,"

(p. 376) ; III, 9, 4 (pp. 419-20; for the difference between "prosper
see

O.C, III,

pp.

924,

1004-5).

8 9

II,

4, 10

(p.

375).

See his

advice

In
we

limiting our discussion to what

to the ichthyophagous people in II, 11, 3 (pp. Rousseau makes central in the Social
well as

392-93).

and

hence to self-preservation and freedom, as do not mean to minimize the importance

to

Contract, happiness and freedom,

relation of

of

understanding the

250

Interpretation
society, particularly since, according to
of men who

political

majority longer

have

reached

the

point of

him, the overwhelming human development at

incompatible freedom
are no makes

which self-preservation and natural

freedom

are

capable of

the kind

of

happiness that

natural

possible and cannot even

be

said

to desire that

happiness.10 considerations of paused

self-

Having
the tion
view

tried to show, chiefly

man

by

appealing to

preservation, why

is

by

nature

free,

and

having

to

refute

that

naked

force

can

give

rise

to legitimate government,
agreement

Rousseau turns to
of

convention or

voluntary

for

an explana
can

how ruling legitimate origin (I

rise

and

being

ruled

in

political

society

have

4).

Here he

speaks

only

of agreements which give

in

part

to slavery or to its political counterpart, depotism. This is surely the result of his abhorrence of slavery or despotism and his

freedom to goodness and to virtue in Rousseau. Nor do we mean to suggest that Rousseau attained full clarity about that relation. In his Discourse on Inequality Rousseau describes, in different but adjacent paragraphs, two different but adjacent peaks in the human condition, peaks attained during the state of nature and never equaled since (O.C, III, pp. 170-71). The first peak is a peak in goodness. It occurs during the primitive state of nature, prior to the advent of fixed dwellings and of family life, which usher in the following period. In the primitive state of nature, man is said to have been good and compassionate as a consequence of being "placed by nature at an equal distance from the stupidity of brutes and the baneful enlightenment of civil The second peak, a peak in happiness, occurs during the second period. The developments of the second period give rise to amour-propre. Men become, for the first time, vengeful and cruel. Yet the war of all against all does not break out as yet. Dependence on other men for self-preservation, a consequence of the division of labor, is necessary to produce that result. Rather than being the scene of the greatest misery, the second period in the state of nature, by "maintaining a just mean between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our Confronted by a propre, must have been the happiest and the most choice between a peak in goodness and a peak in happiness, Rousseau unhesitat ingly chooses happiness. This parallels the advice he gives the ichthyophagous people in the Social Contract: he counsels them to prefer the condition in which they are certain to be happier, and to remain savage. See also n. 10 below. 10 Discourse on Inequality, II, III, pp. 174-5, 193. See Strauss, Natural Right and History, pp. 254-55, 278-79, 290, and n. 61. The inclusion of a reference to Social Contract, I, 8, 1 (p. 364) in n. 61 was explained by Strauss in an oral communication as follows: the counterfactual character of that paragraph is usually overlooked ; if one becomes aware of it, it supports the contention in the text. Rousseau's account of the development of the human race in the Discourse on Inequality abstracts from the genesis of religion. He thereby keeps his promise to "set aside all the recorded in the writings of Moses. As a result, the Discourse on Inequality does not shed light on his suggestion in the Social Contract (IV, 8, 1 [p. 460]) that the first organized societies were theocratic. Furthermore, his argument against the belief in the beneficent moral and political consequences of the intellectual progress of the human race would be all the more powerful if that argument could be made while taking into account only the influence of human reason on human affairs. Finally, he repudiates all developments beyond the second period in the state of nature, a state men left only "through some baneful accident which for the common advantage should never have (Discourse on Inequality, II [III, p. 171]), even though he is aware, as he makes clear in his note to this passage, that Christianity is one of these later developments (see n. XVI, first and last paragraphs [III, pp. 22021]). Rousseau could not have expressed his preferences as boldy as he did had he dealt explicitly with the religion of the savages.
man."

amour-

durable."

facts"

occurred"

Political

Society

in the Social Contract

251

desire to demolish the agreements used to defend them. But he then to declare that every agreement to alienate one's freedom must be invalid.
goes on

Up

to this point, Rousseau has

a

more

tion that

requirement

of

political

freedom
to have than

by

bonds

or

the

alienation of

than once voiced the assump society is the replacement of freedom. He claims, moreover,

shown

that there is

no possible origin

for these bonds

other all

convention or

agreement.

Now, however, he declares that

freedom
are null and void :

such agreements

to

alienate one's

freedom is to renounce one's quality as a man, the rights, and humanity. There can be no possible compensation for anyone who renounces everything. Such a renunciation is incompatible with the nature of man, and to deprive one's will of all freedom is to deprive one's actions of all
renounce one's even

To

the

duties,

of

morality.

Finally
one

a convention which stipulates absolute

hand
clear right

and unlimited obedience on

that

is

under no

authority on the one the other, is vain and contradictory. Is it not obligation whatever to a person from whom one has the

to demand everything and does not this condition alone, without equiva lence or exchange, entail the nullity of the act ? For what right can my slave have against me, when everything he has belongs to me, and his right being
mine, this
right

I have

against myself

is

a meaningless

phrase?11

Let

us

limit
to

ourselves

to the last the very

part of

the

argument

in this

passage.

implies that, to take the simplest case, each party incurs an obligation to benefit the other in some way, and each party acquires a right to the benefit the other has agreed to confer. In other words, a contract is possible only between individuals each of whom is capable of having rights over the other and obligations to the other. Now a master, by definition, cannot have any obligations to his slave, nor can the slave, by definition, have
notion of a contract

According

Rousseau,

any rights over his master. Therefore the very notion of a master-slave relationship contradicts the notion of a contract. Would matters be at all improved if one substituted a somewhat less strict master-slave relationship for this one ? Rousseau explores the

possibility in the summary of the Social Contract which appears in Book V of Emile and rejects it less in itself than as a model for the kind of agreement through which a sovereign is created. To understand why, it is also important to see why he devotes so much time to discussing slavery agreements. He has already conceded that political society requires the alienation of freedom and his argument claims to show
that voluntary
alienation can ment
agreement

take

place.

through

which one

is the only legitimate way in which such Now the most obvious example of an agree alienates one's freedom is an agreement by
Rousseau's
objections

which one

becomes

a slave.

to

such agreements

have just been noted, but his objection to mitigated slavery is slightly different: "If there is any reservation, any restriction in the deed of
11

I,

4, 6 (p. 356).

252

Interpretation
then discuss

slavery, we contract,
respect

shall

whether

this deed does

not

become

true

in

which each of common

the two contracting parties,

having

in this

no

conditions competent

judge regarding the the contract, and is therefore to that extent free and of to break it [maitres de le rompre] as soon as it regards itself
superior, remains

its

own

as

wronged?"12

To the note: "If

would

words

"common

superior"

Rousseau

appends

the

following

they [the contracting parties] had one, this common superior be none other than the sovereign, and then the right of slavery,
on

founded

the

right of

sovereignty, would not

eignty, not slavery, is thus the true theme of

Sover be its Rousseau's discussion of

source."

slavery here. An agreement giving rise to mitigated slavery, unlike the ones just discussed, can be legitimate. However, such an agreement, taken by itself, is obviously too unrehable to be the basis for sovereignty. At the

beginning of the
a rule mate

Social Contract, Rousseau

states

that he

for the
and
appear

management of public affairs

that

would

reliable."13

Satisfying

both

requirements

wishes to find be both "legiti did not, at that

difficulties. In the present context, time, any however, any agreement to alienate one's freedom which is rehable proves illegitimate, while any agreement to do so which is legitimate proves unreliable. The reader who has followed the thread of Rousseau's
to
present

notable

reflections on

the

surrender of natural

freedom is

now

faced

with an a

impasse

which calls

into

question

the possibility

of ever

establishing
to

legitimate
one's

political order.

Rousseau

sums can

freedom

up his reasons for denying that be valid, as follows :

a contract

alienate

Thus,
not

whichever way one regards things, the right of slavery is null and void, only because it is illegitimate, but because it is absurd and meaningless. These words, slavery and right, are contradictory; they mutually exclude each other. Whether addressed by a man to a man, or by a man to a people, this speech will always be equally senseless: "I make a convention with you entirely at your expense and entirely to my profit, which I will honor as long as it

pleases

me,

and which you will

honor

as

long

as

it

pleases

me."14

It is noteworthy that Rousseau omits one possibility in ridiculing this speech. He does not say that the speech would be nonsensical if it were

This possibility will provide him with his analysis thus far has led. In the next chapter he argues that the way in which a people acquires authority over its individual members must be examined, and the chapter in which he sets forth his answer to this question is the chapter
addressed
an escape

by

a people

to

a man.

from the impasse to

which

which contains

his

exposition of

the

social contract.

12 13 14

Emile, V (IV,

p. 839, par. I, opening par. (p. 351). I, 4, 14 (p. 358).

4; cf.

840,

par.

5,

841,

par. 1).

Political

Society

in the Social Contract

253

When discussing the family earlier in the book as we noted above, Rousseau had indicated that the alienation of freedom was permissible in cases where it was more conductive to self-preservation than the
of freedom would be. The difficulty was how to find in life any guarantee like that afforded by a father's affection for his children. Rousseau returns to this difficulty here, and assumes that human development has reached the point at which natural freedom and self-preservation are no longer compatible. Self-preser
retention political

vation,

whose

requirements

justified

man's

natural

freedom,

now

dictates the

surrender of

that

freedom.15

Yet

since

the

surrender
which

made with a view

to self-preservation, the
guarantee

agreement

through

is it

is

made

must

somehow

self-preservation.16

agreements repudiated earlier provided no such guarantee

The slavery precisely

alienate

because
one's

they involved
will claim

the

surrender

of

freedom. Now, however,

Rousseau
tion

that there is

one

way, but only one, to

freedom

which will enhance

the

prospects of one's self-preserva

the way set out by the social contract. The heart of the social contract is said to be "the total alienation of each individual with all his rights to the entire community": it demands the alienation of natural freedom no less than did the agree ments Rousseau earlier rejected. In contrast to those agreements, how ever, in the present case the surrender is made to no individual, and no individual is spared having to make the surrender; i.e., the social
contract makes men sought men.

to

authorize

politically equal, where the slavery agreements the most profound political inequality between

Under the

social contract all men acquire rights over each other

and all seau

incur

obligations
part of

holds to be

the

social contract

to each other, in conformity with what Rous the very notion of a thus although requires that natural freedom be alienated (if it
contract;17

it does not violate the very notion (if it did, it would not be legitimate). It is the contract that is both legitimate and reliable, and its presence makes it possible for other legitimate and reliable contracts to be The preceding remarks are intended less to shed hght on the con did not, it
would not

be

reliable),18

"first"

of a contract

enacted.19

tent

of

the

social contract as expounded point out

known,

than to
can

authority
prescribed

by

by Rousseau, which is well he came to believe that no political why be legitimate unless it has the origin and the character the social contract. By this standard, very few, if any,
and

governments of

their subjects,

his time could justify their claims to the obedience of in an earlier version of the Social Contract Rousseau
this fact:

openly
is is 17 !8 1

admitted

I, 6, 1 (p. 360). I, 6, 1, 3, 4 (p. 360). I, 6, 6, 8 (pp. 360-61). I, 6, 7 (p. 361) ; cf. Emile, V (IV, I, 2, 2 (p. 352); I, 9, I (p. 365).

pp.

841,

par. 2).

254
There
are a

Interpretation

thousand

ways of

them. That is why I give in this

political

assembling men, but there is only one way to unite work only one method for the formation of
multitude of

societies, although in the

perhaps no

aggregations which same

go

by that name,
in
a

two

were

formed in the But I

manner, and not one

presently in

accordance with

the

manner

establish.

seek right and reason and am not

engaged

dispute

about

facts.20

This

disappears from the definitive version of the Social Contract, however, and in its place we find a passage which, as it were, extends the benefit of the doubt to every existing regime :
passage

The

clauses of

this

contract are so

determined
them

by

the

nature of

the act, that the

slightest modification would make

vain and

ineffective ;

so

that,

although

they perhaps never been formally set forth, they are everywhere the same, every where tacitly admitted and recognized ; until, on the violation of the social pact, each regains his original right and recovers his natural freedom, while losing the
conventional

freedom is favor

of which

he

renounced

it.21

to explain away the conflict between these two observing that, for Rousseau, every government which pretends to be not only a government of the people but also a govern ment for the people tacitly pays homage to the principles of political justice expounded in the Social Contract. While there are other passages the one just in Rousseau which must be understood in this

One

might attempt

passages

by

way,22

quoted

does

not

lend itself to
and a

such an

interpretation. Here he distin

the
social contract was

guishes

between
at

an earlier period

during which
in

everywhere

in force least in
not

later

period

which

it

seems

to have been

violated,

some places.

Why

does the

man who announced

that he did
ascribe a

know how

political rule and subjection

had

arisen now

legitimate origin to pohtical orders everywhere ? The manner in which Rousseau describes the enactment of the
is
more

social

favorable to the possibility that most existing regimes legitimate than are the views he expresses later in the work. As we are shall see, he goes on to point out just how difficult it is for a legitimate social order to come into being and, as a consequence, how rare such
contract societies are.

This is only

one of a number of cases

in the Social Contract

in

which

Rousseau

appears more

political practices

of men

favorably disposed to the common than his strict doctrine would require or,
one will

indeed,
though

would all

permit: of

for example,

find him speaking

as

forms

government,

including hereditary
students of

monarchy, are

capable of

being

legitimate.23

Careful

the Social Contract

have seen, however, that the chapter devoted to monarchy in Rousseau's discussion
of various

forms

of

government24

is

not

intended to show how

2 M 22

I,
1

5,

(III,

p.

297).

,6,

5 (p.

360).

23 24 n. 2

Emile, V, IV, (p. 858). C.S., II, 6, 6 (p. 379).

See Robert Derath6's note to the chapter to 408) as well as his article on the subject,
on
cited

monarchy (III, in that note.

pp.

1479-80,

Political

Society

in the Social Contract

255

hereditary monarchy can be made legitimate but rather why this cannot
be done. When one has followed to the end Rousseau's discussion in Book III of the danger that sovereignty will be usurped by government
and of

the

measures

that

must

be taken to his

protect

the

sovereign against

that

danger,
first

one sees

clearly that the

scope of governmental arrange

ments which are compatible with

might at
expect.25

principles

is far

narrower

than

one

to Rousseau's

strict

Moreover, there can be no doubt that, according doctrine, if the people are kept from exercising

social contract is violated and the individual freedom. Yet Rousseau fails to clearly apply this principle to the subjects of large monarchic states: on the contrary, speaking of Rome, he dates the usurpation of sovereignty not from Caesar or Augustus, whom he calls but from Tiberius, whom he calls a Those readers who would prefer to call Caesar or Augustus as Rousseau himself does in his other

their sovereignty, the

regains

his

natural

"monarchs,"

"despot."

"tyrants,"

writings, find themselves

who

confronted with a

distinction between tyrants,

usurp
and

governmental
"lawless"

"law,"

authority but govern in accordance with despots.26 From Rousseau's strict doctrine of

(in an aside), that "if one examined things find that very few nations have laws."27 Never carefuUy theless, he frequently chooses to speak of law in a much looser and more common sense of the term, and as a consequence, the line separ ating legitimate from illegitimate government is far vaguer than it need be, given his doctrines. An eminent thinker has noted that the only writing traditionally attributed to Aristotle in which there are oaths in the text is the Politics, and he argues persuasively for the view that this peculiarity
as
remarks one would of

law it follows,

he

the Politics is
work.

altogether

appropriate, notable,

given

the

subject matter of

the

It is

all

the

more

therefore,
and
soon as

that Rousseau's Social

work

Contract
the

should

be his least

eloquent

impassioned

dealing

with moral and political matters. reputation of

As

being

a most abstract and

never

it appeared, it acquired difficult work. Rousseau

would

fully

expected

this. He

thought that it

enjoy the

popular

success of

Emile and Julie. Its abstract character, he tells us

him to treat
to incite
off
political

elsewhere,28

permitted restraint

issues boldly. I

would suggest

that the

Rousseau

exhibits men

in the Social Contract is

under

caused

by
a

his just

reluctance men

living

illegitimate

rulers

that

is,

most

to throw
of

their

chains.

If the
as

conditions conducive

to

society are,

necessity, rare,

he says, illegitimate

regimes are a

necessary
cause

evil

the

incompatibility
men

for the overwhelming majority of men necessary be between natural freedom and self-preserva
to form
political societies even

tion forces
25 2(5 27
28

when

the

conditions

III, 17 (pp. 433-34). especially the final paragraph, and III, 18 (pp. 434-36). III, 10, 3 n 9-10; cf. O.C, III, pp. 23, 88, 190, 269, 880. III, 15, 8. The passage continues with the words, "However this may be. Lettres Sorites de la montagne, VI, III (p. 812).

256

Interpretation

favorable to legitimate
wishes

government

are

absent.29

Rousseau clearly
men who are lawnot

the

management of public affairs entrusted

to

abiding in his where only illegitimate

strict sense of rule

illegitimate rulers who are "law"-abiding in the usual sense of the term, if not in his own sense, to rulers who are utterly lawless and arbitrary. He thinks that
prefers

term, but is possible, he

the

where

this is

feasible,

revolutions against

"law"-abiding
and

whole, to

replace such rulers with others are

but illegitimate rulers tend, on the who, in addition to being

a change which

illegitimate,
regard as an subjects
contract

"law"-less

despotic,

he does
cannot
of

not

improvement. Rousseau, given his teaching, the right to remove their rulers when the terms

deny
social

the

had

not

is

always wise of

been observed, but he obviously did not think that it for men to exercise this right, and he did not wish to be
men

guilty

inciting
for his

to

acts

which

he

regarded

as

unwise.

This

accounts

relative

tolerance

of certain political practices which

he saw no way to avoid. At the same time, he is careful to warn societies fortunate enough to be law-abiding, in the strict sense of the term, against the dangers stemming from those whom they could not avoid employing to carry out their decisions. Accordingly, his analysis of government is as much concerned with how to protect the sovereign against the usurpation of its authority by those who govern as it is
with

determining

what

kinds

of government are compatible with

the

sovereignty of the people, to use these words in his sense. He makes his preference for small and free republics clear in the Social Contract but does
not
wish

to

encourage

men

whose

societies
which

cannot

be

of

this

character

to

overthrow

the

societies

in

they

do live merely

they are not small and free. In the opening paragraph of the Social Contract, Rousseau announces his desire to see whether a way to regulate the management of public
because
affairs

that is both legitimate

course of

and reliable can

be found. One realizes,

"legitimate"

in the
the

"reliable"

and studying Book I, that the words foreshadow the impasse created by the opposition between

requirements of

legitimacy

and

the

requirements of

reliability in
the
social

the

establishment of political

authority, an

impasse to

which

contract

offers
an

leading
narrow

to the

the only solution. The same pattern an analysis impasse the only solution to which proves to greatly

range of what

ceptable created

reappears

in Books II

by the

confhct

to regard as politically ac III. In Book II, the impasse is between the thesis that a sovereign people is the
prepared

he is

and

Rousseau was accused of contradicting himself in the Discourse on Inequal the grounds that the denunciation of political life in the body of the Dis course was incompatible with the praise of Geneva contained in its Epistle Dedicatory. Rousseau replied that in the Epistle Dedicatory he had congratulated his fatherland for having one of the best governments that can exist, while in the Discourse he found that there could be very few good governments ; he denied that this was an inconsistency requiring an explanation (III, pp. 1385, 235, 186).

29

ity

on

Political
only legitimate
that these laws
source of

Society

in the Social Contract

under which

257
and

the laws

it lives

the thesis

no people possesses until after

the ability to discern the most important of it has lived under them. By the most important

laws Rousseau has in mind, to begin with, what we would today call the constitution of a society. As he presents this confhct, it is an im portant manifestation of the potential opposition between interest and justice, to the prevention of which he also refers in the opening
paragraph of

the Social Contract.

Book III
sovereign

shows

to carry

why the institution of a body distinct from the out the sovereign's decisions is unavoidable, and

why it would be destructive of sovereignty to attempt to carry out its own decisions. The same book shows why this distinct body sooner or later
usurps sovereign authority. as

To

protect

the

sovereign against
which

this

danger for
a small

long

as

possible, Rousseau requires measures

put

only

society

can

hope to

into practice,

fact

which

he

frankly

acknowledges

here.

the first three books does not, as far as I in Book IV, but something akin to it emerges when one considers the relation of the book as a whole to the conclusion of the preceding book. At the end of Book III, Rousseau proposes periodic assemblies of a certain kind as a remedy to the threat to the
analytic pattern of
reappear
can

The

see,

sovereign

posed

by
be

the
asked

government.

During

these

assemblies

the

sovereign would
political

to

pronounce on whether

the fundamental

arrangements
suggestion

effect.

This

our sense of as

the

term)

of the society shall continue to remain in has the effect of making every constitution (in or the fundamental laws of every society, as well

every government, that he devotes the

constitution of

provisional. next

It is

not

surprising,

book to

suggestions

then, to find for reinforcing the

the

state.

Further,
sharply
upon

each of

the first three books

of

ends with a chapter which

exposes

the limitations
chapter

the

chief subject under an

that book. The last

in Book I discloses
to its

discussion in important limitation

enactment of

the justice that is brought into

being by
territory

the

the

social contract : a people's claim

cannot

be

established

by the
perfect

social

contract, and may

well

be disputed

by

other peoples with

justice,
any

unless conditions are met which one cannot

expect

people

to

meet.30

The

second

book,

which

reasonably is devoted to

30 Apart from all other conditions, a people would have to be not the present, but the first, occupant of the territory it inhabits, and even this could not oblige another people to respect its claim if the self-preservation of that other people were at stake. Elsewhere in the chapter, Rousseau speaks openly of the "usurpation" or fact that a people's possession of its territory results from ' 'seizure. "The note with which the chapter ends brings out a further limitation of the social contract : the contract will fail to be feff ective unless the parties to it and which are politically equal, which Rousseau thought they could not be if there were perhaps they could not be in the kind of small city he had in mind great inequalities in wealth between them.

258

Interpretation
the
the
general as well as

law

as

central act of

will,

to

what

the legis

lator

must

do to

general

will,

ends

being bring by describing as

into

society in which law is the act of the a kind of law "most important of
all"

which never comes

which

is

never submitted

up for discussion in the assembly of the people and to the people for its ratification, but "which
himself
of
with

the

great of

legislator

occupies

in

secret."

Rousseau is
of

speak

opinio

ing

"manners

and

morals,

customs,

and above

all,

He

is referring to the spirit and character of a people and to the seemingly indifferent regulations from which they arise. The most important kind term.31 of law is thus not even a law in the Rousseauean sense of the the book devoted to government makes clear that, The chapter ending

Although, as strictly speaking, every government is noted above, the fourth book does not seem to exhibit this pattern, its last substantive chapter brings out clearly just how much the right
provisional.32

of men

to

manage

their

own

affairs,

which

is

presupposed successful

in Rousseau's
exercise,
upon

account of political

authority,

depends, for its

the

convictions or upon

of men

regarding the divine

management of

human

affairs,

religion.33

31 32

II, 12, 6 (p. 394). III, 18, 7-9 (pp. 435-3)

The
well-known
Jesus'

clash (upon which Rousseau lays stress) between the the Savoyard Vicar and Rousseau's civil religion has a curious counter part. The Savoyard Vicar's declaration of superiority to Socrates parallels Rousseau's declaration of Cato's superiority to Socrates (O.C, IV, p. 626; III, p. 255). In both declarations, the humanity of Socrates is contrasted to the divini ty of those declared superior to him : "The virtue of Socrates is that of the wisest of men: but between Caesar and Pompey, Cato appears a god among In the corresponding passage about Jesus, the Savoyard Vicar says that "if the life and death of Socrates are those of a wise man [d'une sage], the life and death of Jesus are those of a A third individual whose divinity Rousseau affirms is himself qua man, i.e., qua Solitary Walker. His ecstatic sentiment of existence, while it lasts, is said to make him as self-sufficient as God (O.C, I, p. 1047). Are religion of
God."

33

morta

described in the fifth Revery (the ecstasy is an experience of one's own and in the seventh Revery (the ecstasy is an experience of unity with nature as a whole) different, or are they complementary descriptions of the same experience ? If the latter, then the Solitary Walker's sentiment of existence has an expansive component lacking in that of the savage. The source of that expansive component is said, at the beginning of Book III of mile, to be the excess of facul ties over needs. If a civilized man could keep his nature intact, at least in essence, if he could benefit from the enlargement of his powers made possible by the intel lectual progress of the human race without being enslaved by the by-products of that progress, he would be "a man of nature enlightened by (O.C, I, pp. 8o8ff), and his soul would be as expansive as is humanly possible. (Emile, by con trast, is "natural man living in society.") Cf. Pierre Burgelin, La philosophie de V'existence de J -J'. Rousseau (Paris, 1952), pp. 149-90; Georges Poulet, "Expan sion et concentration chez Les Temps Modernes, February- June 1961, pp. 949ft. For the "force of an expansive as the ultimate root of compassion orpity, seeEmile, IV (O.C, IV, p. 523m). Lack of intelligence, though frequently undeserved and always a misfortune, nevertheless often inspires laughter rather than pity. That is why some of those exhibiting this lack not only excellent sub jects of comedy but even may be said to help make comedy e.g., Euthydemus possible. For an explanation of why Euthydemus is funny rather than the Tragic Hero he appears to wish he were, see Leo Strauss, "On the Inter pretation, 1 (1970): 1-20.
the
peaks

existence)

reason"

Rousseau,"

soul"

Euthydemus,"

Political

Society

in the Social Contract

259

In Book II of the Social Contract Rousseau expounds his doctrine of law by presenting it as a consequence of the principles established in Book I. At the very beginning of this exposition (Chapter 2), the theme
of

interest

and

justice
the

makes

its

appearance.

The

conflict of private

interests

society necessary. The interests makes a political order founded on the common interest possible. If sovereignty is declared inalienable, this is, in the final analysis, because, as we learn in this chapter, "the
makes
establishment of political agreement of private private will

tends, by its

nature, to preferences, and the

general will

equality."

to

In the
rance

next chapter a curious

the theme

of

interest-justice
those

makes

its

appea

in

form,
the

in the tension between the true

private advantage of and

principles of

political

justice

and

who write about

those

principles :

"If these writers [Grotius

consistent

Barbeyrac]

had

adopted

true principles,

all

difficulties would have been removed

and

they would

have

always

been
the

truth and only

paid court people

; but they would have told the melancholy to the people. Now truth does not lead to
not give

fortune,
sions."34

and

do

ambassadorships,

chairs or pen

Rousseau turns
can err.

next

to the

question

of whether

the

general will

This

question

is

all-important

because the

general will arises

from "the total attempting to

private

alienation of each

individual

with all

his

rights."

In

answer

interest
and

of all

in Chapter 3, he discusses how the individuals can be transformed into the common
this
question
conditions
such

interest

under

what

transformation

can

be
of of

depended
what

on

to

occur. means

Rousseau

Without entering into the difficult questions when he speaks of ehminating from the sum

private wills

those

which

have

cancelled each other

out,

or of

how the
under

difference between the

stood, one
can of

general will and

the

will of all

is to be
on

summarize

his

conditions

for relying

the trans

formation
people

the

private will

into the

general will as

follows: 1) the

engaging in deliberation of the issue must be "sufficiently informed"; 2) the result of the deliberation must not be distorted by factional
should
would

intrigue; factions should be completely absent or, if this prove impossible, there should be so many of them that none
able

be

to distort the

assembly's

decisions.

However,
sound
exist must

decisions

assembly can be relied on to reach these conditions, the fact that the conditions be accounted for. It is noteworthy that Rousseau, in this
even

if the

popular

under

chapter,

ascribes

the

absence of

factional influence

on public
such as

delibera

tion to the

artful contrivances of unusual

individuals

Lycurgus,

Solon, Numa,
(Rousseau does
as well as

and

Servius,

not explain

than to any popular assembly. here what it is that moves these individuals,
rather

those

without whose advice

the

public would not

be

"suffici-

34

II,

2, 5 (pp.

370-71)-

260

Interpretation
informed,"

ently
private

to transcend their
not

private

interest
public

at

time

when
will

interest has

been transformed into

interest : he

question in the sequel.) In Chapter 4 Rousseau pursues the question of what guarantees the individual has that there will be no abuse of the sovereign authority at whose mercy he has placed himself. He offers the security afforded by

discuss this

his

requirement

that every

act of

the

general will must

be

general

in its

effect,

and of

by

the fact that

each

member

that effect before deciding "proves that the equality of right and the notion of justice that it produces derives from each man's preference for himself and con sequently from the nature of In the next chapter, Rousseau examines how it can be in anyone's interest to put his life at the mercy of an authority which has the right to deprive him of it when it thinks proper. Finally, in Chapter 6, he

thinking

the assembly will be how to cast his vote. This

of

man."35

derives from the preceding discussion a new doctrine of law from which it follows that every act of the general will must be a law and that every law must be an act of the general will. When he turns, in this
chapter,
enact

from law

as

law to the definite laws

working
of whether

which

a people must

if

they

are

to

establish a

political order

the

problems can err

left

unsolved

in the discussion

the

general will

suddenly

reappear.

Laws, properly
subject

speaking, are only the conditions of civil association. The People

should

be their author; only those associating should regulate the society : but how will they regulate them ? Will it be by common agreement, by a sudden inspiration? Does the body politic have an organ to declare its will ? Who will give it the foresight necessary to formulate and publish its acts in advance, and how will it announce them in the hour of need ? How will a blind multitude which often does not know what it wants [veut], because it rarely knows what is good for it, execute for itself so great and difficult an enterprise as a system of legislation ? Of itself the people always wants [veut] the good, but of itself it does not always see it. The general will is always right, but the judgement that guides it is not always enlightened. It [the people]
to laws
conditions of must

be

made

to

see objects as

they

it, [it

must

be]

shown

the

good road

of private

wills, times and places

evils.

are, sometimes as they should appear to that it seeks, protected from the seduction must be brought close to its eyes and the

balanced by the danger of distant Private individuals see the good that they reject: the public wants [veut] the good that it does not see. All stand equally in need of guidance : the former must be obliged to bring their wills into conformity with their reason ; the latter must be taught to know what it wants [veut] Then from public
attractions of present and sensible advantages

and

hidden

enlightenment
.
. .

the

union of

This is

what makes a

understanding and will in the Legislator necessary.36

social

body will

result.

If

all

the benefits

men sought

from

political were

society

were such

that
no

they
35

could not

be

enjoyed unless

they

shared, there

would

be

36

IF 4. 5 (P- 373)II, 6, 10 (p. 380).

Political
1
need

Society
the

in the Social Contract

261

for Rousseau to
of

raise

question of

tion

the

more able members of

although some of as political

society,
are

how to secure the coopera as he does in the passage

political

quoted.

Yet,

the benefits that

society

can

confer, such

freedom,
shared,

enjoyed unless

they

are

not

manifestly incapable of being all its benefits are of this kind.

The pleasure in Chapter 2

of
as

commanding, for example, which Rousseau mentioned the compensation which those who rule receive from

their exertions, is lessened by being shared, and the more it is shared, the more it is lessened.37 Political freedom, according to Rousseau,
requires

the

greatest possible

denial

of

that

pleasure

because it

requires

ruling to be shared to the greatest possible degree. The question which he now raises is why the abler members of society, whose advice is
needed

for the deliberations

than
themselves.38

of

interest to favor less

able

a political order which

the assembly, would find it in their treats them as equal to those

not be more likely to act for Barbeyrac allegedly did? It is im portant to bear in mind that Rousseau is not asking how a free society can secure the allegiance of its abler members once it is in being. Rather, he asks what will induce men of superior ability, without whose guidance such a society cannot come into being, to help bring it into When society is first forming, "private being in the first

Will

they

private advantage as

Grotius

and

place.39

individuals
the

see

the

[public]

good which
not

they

reject; the

public wants

[pubhc]

good which

it does

see."

Rousseau has quietly led the reader back to the question of how pohtical societies were first formed, with the difference that what
seemed so

easy in Book I
the

now appears

to be extraordinarily difficult.
an

To

surmount

difficulty, he

turns to

ability, the legislator. As

one might expect should

he first
public

asks

why the legislator

extraordinary has gone before, have any interest in serving the

from
what

individual

of

good.40

is as follows: what prompts the legislator to serve the is the fact that his ambition is too vast to be satisfied with honors paid only by his own people and only during his lifetime. He de sires a glory that will reach beyond his people and his time. The legis lator is so far above the desire for mere pohtical ascendency that for the sake of the glory he seeks he will abdicate a throne, as Rousseau claims Lycurgus did, or will exile himself and starve himself to death, as Plutarch says Lycurgus did after he made the Spartans promise that
His
answer

public good

they

would make no changes

in his laws
over whom

until

his

return.

The glory
wisdom

sought

by

the legislator

will come

from the

recognition of

the

he has no ascendency except by the ascendency implied in that recognition. It is because his end tranembodied

in his

work

those

37

38 39 40

I, 2, 3 (p. 352). See Strauss, Natural Right II, 7, 2 (p. 381). II, 7, 1 and n. (p. 381).

and

History,

pp. 286-87.

262

Interpretation

scends

the

ends pursued
affairs

in the
his

political arena

that he is

capable of

setting its
political

in

order. and

The legislator
possible
common

somehow

foreshadows the
life.41

philosopher

effect

on are

political

The

legislator's interest

and

the

interest

not

cannot be attained cording to Rousseau, but the one question of how Rousseau understands the This discussion raises the relation between wisdom and consent in political life and how his under

the same, ac without the other.

standing differs from that of the and there is space here for only
reconcile

classics.

The

question

few

comments.

is a large one, Rousseau tries to

his belief that the his

people alone can enact

laws

binding

on

its

members with

recognition of

the

need

for

wise

guidance, particu

larly when the political order is being founded :

to
secure

he

requires

the legislator this

law.42

the free

consent of which

the

people

to his proposals,
proposals

and makes

consent

itself that

transforms these
on

into

Ob
the

viously,

then,
a

much

depends

the

people

for

whom

the legislator is
chapter on

devising

code, and, it is

legislator followed

by

surprising to find the three chapters on the people.

not
will

In these

chapters

Rousseau

discuss

what makes a people suited

to accept sound laws. First, however, he disposes of one possibility: he denies that any people at the dawn of political society can possess enough political understanding to make proper use of its right of consent :

"In

order

for

a nascent

people

to be

able

to

appreciate

the

sound

maxims of politics and

to follow the fundamental

rules of reason of

State, it would be necessary for the effect to be capable of becoming the

cause, [it
work of

would

be necessary] for the

to
preside over prior men

social spirit which must

be the
would as a

the

founding

the

founding itself,
what

and

[it

be necessary] for

to be

to laws

they

must

become

result of them."43

The legislator at the dawn of society must first create a people before that people can do what Rousseau requires of it, and this creation cannot take place in compliance with his principles of political
sought to win "fathers of acceptance for the codes they had devised by making those for whom they were intended believe that the laws were divinely revealed and represented the will of the gods. The amazing durability of the laws of right.

The legislators

whom

he

nations"

calls

Moses

and

Mohammed, Rousseau declares, "still bear[s]

dictated
them."44

witness

to the

great men who

Rousseau's
to

analysis of

the

means

win acceptance

for their

suggestions amounts

that early legislators must employ to a withdrawal of his

41 In the chapter on the legislator, Plato is referred to as a political philosopher. In the following chapter, he is referred to as a legislator (II, 8, 1 [p. 385]). 42 II, 7, 7 (p. 383). 43 II, 7, 9 (p. 384). 44 II, 7, 11 (p. 384). See Strauss, Natural Right and History, pp. 287-89; these pages will be misunderstood if one overlooks the fact that in them Strauss is speaking of the early legislator.

Political
assumption

Society

in the Social Contract

263

had legitimate beginnings, for in the have been born in conformity with beginning Rousseau's principles: "At first men had no other kings than the gods, nor Political societies in any government other than the which men as men rule, and hence legitimate political societies in When Rousseau speaks of particular, belong to a later legislators other than fathers of nations, he assumes as a matter of course that they will be drawing up codes for a people that is already in
that
all regimes
no such regime could
theocratic."

period;45

existence.

Rousseau defects
which

now

turns to the description

advises

of a people suited

to

receive a
of

sound code of

laws. He
people

the legislator to those

seek a people

free

the

of an ancient people and of

peculiar

to

a people

in its
old

childhood.

in its

infancy
too

still

lacks the
in its

social spirit without

society.46

the legislator
on

cannot establish a good political

An

people,

the

other

hand, is
must

set

ways

to be

capable of

accepting
curious: ness

or

desiring

a new code of laws.47

Rousseau's

prescription

is

the legislator

find

a people

that "combines the the

cohesiveone."48

[consistance]

of an old people with

docility

of a new

How this
except

combination can

be found is

by

no means

clear,

however,

in one extraordinary case, mentioned below. The difficulty is not lessened by the fact that while Rousseau mentions examples of peoples
avoided,49 he gives no example of a suffering from the defects to be people that fulfills his requirements apart, again, from the exception

from Corsica, which will also prove to be a member The other members of that class form a rather impressive list. are Sparta, Rome, Holland and Switzerland. They
noted of

below,

and

the extraordinary

class.50

The extraordinary class makes its appearance while Rousseau is dis cussing the reasons why a legislator should avoid attempting to frame laws for an old people. In the course of this discussion, he draws the reader's attention to the fact that there is a strange exception to this rule, a people which is exceptional because it has the unusual attribute
of

being at one and the same time as

in its youth,

docile

as a people

as vigorous as a people old age :

and as cohesive as a people

in its childhood, in its

This does not mean that, just as certain diseases throw men's heads into con fusion and destroy the memory of the past, violent epochs are not sometimes found in the lifetime of States in which revolutions do to peoples what certain crises do to individuals, in which horror of the past replaces loss of memory, and
in
which

the

State,
the

set aflame

by civil

and recovers

vigor of youth

wars, is reborn so to speak from its ashes in emerging from the arms of death. Such was

46 47 43 "9
50

IV, 8, 1 (p. 460). II, 8, 5 (p. 386). II, 8, 1-2 (pp. 384-85)II, 10, 5 (p. 391). II, 8, 1, 5 (pp. 385-86). II, 10, 6 (p. 391).

264

Interpretation

Sparta in the time among

us were

of

Lycurgus,
and

such was

Rome
the

after

the

Tarquins,
the

and such

Holland

Switzerland

after

expulsion of

tyrants.51

Rousseau declares the kind

quoted passage

of revolutionary crisis described in the to be extremely infrequent. It can only occur once in

the hfetime
yet grown

of a

people,

and

only

occur

law. Even
of

completely under these conditions, in the crisis, it must be followed by a

and
or

accustomed

to

among a people which has not fully developed code of pohtical for anything
calm give

order

good

to

come

period of calm

during which men

way to
a storm

peace."

enjoy "abundance
provoked

Should that

by war,

famine,

sedition, the opportunity for establishing a

sound political

hfe

vanishes.

In

a paragraph

that, curiously
just

enough,
and

begins
that

with

the very

words of

the

paragraph quoted

before,

ends with almost

not mean

the

same

word, Rousseau declares :

have
not

This does

that many

governments

been

established

during

these storms; but then it is these governments which destroy the State. Usurpers always bring about or choose these times of trouble to get destructive laws
passed,
calm
under

the

cover of public

fear,
the

which

the

people would never adopt when surest of

[de

sangfroid].

The

choice of

moment
work

marks

by

which one can

distinguish the

for legislation is one of the of the Legislator from that

the

Tyrant.52

Given the
others

mentioned not

difficulty of meeting all of these conditions, as well as by Rousseau, a rejuvenating revolutionary crisis
a model

is obviously
that every
admired of

political order which

for imitation. However, he did believe deeply interested him and which he
such a crisis :

has

passed

through

the importance

of

Rome

and
and

Sparta,

as

described Holland

by Plutarch,
were

is generally recognized,
the

Switzerland

and

for him

modern examples of

success

ful resistance to tyranny on the part of simple, hard-working, and frugal men. (Switzerland and Holland also showed how much can be accomphshed in constructing confederations of free states.53) As for

Corsica,

at

the

end of

his discussion
people

the Corsicans

as

the only

of the people, Rousseau mentions in Europe fit for legislation. Corsica's

rebelhon against ample

Genoese rule served as the chief contemporary ex in the Enlightenment of a successful struggle for political free dom prior to the American Revolution.54 Even the Poland represented
the Confederation of Bar, the Poland to which Rousseau addressed his Considerations, was said by him to have passed through the kind of crisis described in the passage quoted Thus the supreme im portance for Rousseau of the exceptional class of peoples we have been

by

above.55

discussing
51 52

cannot

be seriously doubted.

II, 8, 3 (p. 385). II, 10, 4 (p. 390). 53 III, 16, 6 (p. 427). 54 Sven Stelling Michaud, Introduction, Projet de constitution pour la Corse, O.C, III, p. cxcix. 55 Considi'rations sur le gouvernement de Pologne (O.C, III, pp. 961, 969-70).

Political
We may
on earth.

Society

in the Social Contract

more

265

now

understand

somewhat

clearly why Rousseau

thought that free

political societies would always remain an exception

would

However, what did Rousseau think the prospects for freedom be in those places, such as Europe, where it could flourish and where it had flourished once? His conclusions would surely be influ enced by the fact that he saw a general age of revolutions approaching
in Europe
recognition

and

by

the fact that he

expected

his

teaching

to

receive

from

posterity.56

ever, there is no

reason

Beyond such general expectations, how to believe that Rousseau thought he could

discern the
nor could

political

he rely

on

future of mankind any more than we think we can, the faith in Progress to show him the things that
no

he

could not see.

Now that the behef in Progress is

longer

axiomatic

in the West,

in the East, it is at least an open question whether Rousseau's understanding of freedom and of revolu tion is not more subtle, powerful and adequate than is that of some of his friendly, though condescending, progressivist critics. Rousseau's belief in the democratic character of all legitimate govern ment has enjoyed great success. Thus we find the most diverse regimes describing themselves as democracies on the one hand and being
and perhaps not even
critized

for

failing

to be

"genuinely
views of

democratic"

on

the

other.

distinguishes Rousseau's
one often encounters
were not vague.

"genuine"

democracy

What from those

that his beliefs regarding such a demo He presented a clear, incisive, and sober account cracy of what it would mean for men to live in a "genuine and of the conditions under which one would be likely to find such a regime

today is

democracy"

estabhshed.

If Rousseau's
ask

results appear

too

narrow

to

accommodate

the

possibilities of

compelled counted

to

relatively decent constitutional rule, one may be whether decent government may not be better ac

for

tradition
force.57

by the political philosophy of the premodern Western than by the modern principles which Rousseau inherited and
and which

radicalized

he

articulated

with

unsurpassed

clarity

and

56

57

See Strauss, Natural Right and History, pp. 259-60. Rousseau," Social See Leo Strauss, "On the Intention of
485-87-

Research, 14

(1947) :

266

MARX'S CRITIQUE OF PHILOSOPHY

Peter Stern

for Jean

For Marx, philosophy is both an expression of and a cause of man's It is an expression of alienation because it is necessarily based on the empirical divorce of man's productive hfe from his spiritual hfe. Philosophy reflects this divorce as it arbitrarily posits a
alienation.

spiritual world

that is

totally distinct from

the real,

empirical world of

men, thus giving

without
world

an ontological significance

to

man's social

hmitations

realizing that that is what it is doing. Having projected a pure of spirit, philosophy then evaluates man from its self-generated
standpoint,

spiritual

ignoring,

minimizing,

and even

deprecating man's
is
a

real,

productivity For Marx, however, the philosopher's

a product of

material

and all

the

relations

that derive from it.

spiritual world

fantasy. It is
power and

the

philosopher's need

to

overestimate

the

importance
thought

of

thought. Thus the

philosopher's

entire

procedure

is
of

grounded on

his

mistaken assumption
which

that there is

a pure

domain

against

everything that actually

exists

empirically is

measured and

found

wanting.

that Marx's argument is directed exclusively idealist philosophy and that what he is aiming at is a simple return to materialism. This impression, however, is only partially correct.

This

critique suggests

against

a recognition of the truth of materialism, he its limitations. Materialism is insufficient for two reasons: first, it ignores the active side of man's productive powers ; and second, it tends to exempt itself from its own materialist premise. Thus Marx's critique is directed against both materialism and idealism from an entirely new standpoint, which Marx calls naturalism. while

For

Marx demands
to
point out

is

also quick

Marx's

naturalist

doctrine is

meant

to

combine
which

the

partial

truth

of

both idealism
position

materialism, a truth is taken to the exclusion of the

and

is

obscured when either

naturahsm

other.

Thus Marx's

incorporates

idealism's

emphasis

on

man's

free spontaneity

and

the primacy of the material conditions of life. By preserving the truth of both idealism and materialism, Marx claims not only to overcome the onesidedness of each, but also to
materiahsm's emphasis on overcome represents

the limitations

of all

philosophy
and

as such.
real

It is this

aim which

the underlying

ground

the

driving force

of

all

Marx's critical endeavors. For Marx, the philosophical standpoint itself is deficient and must, therefore, be transcended. Yet this tran scendence is no simple abolition or annihilation ; rather, it incorporates

Marx's Critique of
and

Philosophy

267

hence preserves the positive achievements of philosophy by reahzing them in the actual behavior of men and the organization of their societies. Still, however complicated and subtle Marx's conception
this transcendence may be, the really important point striking fact is that Marx believes that philosophy as such
of

and must

the

be

abandoned.

Having
ridicule

grasped
a

the limitations
of

of

philosophical with

thought, Marx
contempt

launches into
that
parison.

critique

even

philosophy so filled Nietzsche's attacks sometimes

and com

seem mild

by

This hostility derives not only from Marx's belief that he has discovered the root errors of philosophy but also from his annoyance with what he takes to be the philosopher's typically haughty and
of worldly affairs, that is, the Marx relentlessly attacks the phil osopher's condescending stance, and tries to make him appear com pletely ridiculous. Marx's own tone, which unfailingly conveys the sense that philosophy is ridiculous and absurd, is as telling as his actual pompous attitude of realm realm

toward the

the

non-philosophers.

arguments
contempt

and

themselves. Thus in the last analysis, what provokes Marx's is his exasperation with the professional knower's arrogant inflated assertions that he possesses superior knowledge, for the

philosopher, the man who makes the greatest claims to

know,
and

remains

fundamentally ignorant concerning himself, his activity, ditions which make his activity possible.
The
philosopher's of

the

con

ignorance is
and

rooted

importance
men's

history

production.

in his misunderstanding of the The philosopher never pays

of

sufficient attention

to the fact that the development

society

and

ideas

ment of

society depends, above all, upon the level of develop the productive forces. It is the productive forces which, it is
about expand

important to note, [necessarily establish the horizon in which

cause

as

history develops,
acting
men

which

thinking
of

and

are possible

be

they
to

provide
aware of other

the

concrete

and

become

the degree
and

relation

men

whereby their freedom and power, both in in relation to nature. Thus because the

means

experience

world of history and production, he fails to see how he is inextricably a product of both. Moreover, it is only because philosophers have minimized the importance of these two factors that they feel free to turn away from the realm of human affairs toward a world of pure reason, which is taken to be both independent philosopher abstracts of empirical

from the

this ideal
think

world

reality and the true source of meaning and guidance. Yet is not autonomous. Rather, it is a product of men who only
within a specific set of of

and act
upon

historical
the

conditions which

forces and Thus it is the autonomy of the productive forces which ultimately accounts for the limitations of philosophical thought, for regardless of how philosophers interpret the world, it continues to evolve in its own way according to its own set of depend
of productive
which evolve

the level

development

independent

of men's will.

268

Interpretation

laws.
pure

Thus, interestingly
an autonomous

enough,

like the philosopher, Marx

not

also

believes in

world, but for Marx it is

the

world of

ideas but the world of man's material production. Seen in this respect, the philosopher's work is no different from any other kind of work, for the "production of ideas, of conceptions of is

consciousness

directly interwoven with

of
men.

the

material

material

relationships

Having

activity and the discovered the true

significance of

of

production, Marx claims to overcome the central illusion philosophy, namely, that thought can be divorced from its social,
and

economic,
corrects

historical

context.

Marx's

new

interpretation

of

thought

this mistake, for it is based on the assumption that thinking, and the intellectual relationships of men appear
result of

"conceiving,
as

the direct

their

material

behavior."2

This is

so

because
within about

man

is in

extricably embedded, in all essential respects, conditions of life ; thus his ideas are always ideas
the
conditions which will

the

material

satisfy his

needs.

Because

man

his needs and is essentially a

creature of

need, thought

remains circumscribed

by the reality of needs

satisfying them. The relationship between man's thought and his empirical conditions is summarized most succinctly in the following formulation in the
and possibilities of
not determine life but life deter The difference between these two conceptions is as follows: "In the first view, the starting point is consciousness taken as the living individual ; in the second, it is the real individuals themselves as they exist in real life, and consciousness is considered

the

German Ideology: "Consciousness does

consciousness."3

mines

only as their This somewhat

consciousness."4

awkward passage

is

again meant

to

stress

the im

for its importance is given: man is a being whose primary concern is hfe; hence the reality of life possesses a significance which can never be
portance of man's needs.
a more general reason

Here, however,

surpassed.
nition

Only

after

this elementary fact is

given

its

proper

recog

does the

significance of another aspect of man's existence arise,

Consciousness is thus basic condition is life. Conscious ness, therefore, is never wholly free; it is always "burdened"5 with the prior necessity of maintaining life. Thus, to say that consciousness determines life requires, in effect, a total abstraction from life, for consciousness then becomes the sole defining characteristic of man. The true recognition of the reality of life necessarily implies that life is
man also possesses consciousness.

namely, that

but

one aspect of a

being whose most

Karl Marx,
and

Philosophy
N.Y.,
2
3 4

"The German Society, ed. Loyd D. Easton

Ideology,"

and

1967),

p. 414.

Writings of the Young Marx on Kurt H. Guddat (Garden City

Ibid.

Ibid.,
Ibid.

p. 415.

Ibid.,

p. 421.

Marx's Critique of

Philosophy
man's condition.

269
Thus what limitation is hfe,

the overriding reality that determines

controls
consciousness and reveals
as

its

ontological

the "actual life

process of

men"6

this

process.

This
to

recognition

then

they produce together to sustain becomes, in turn, the true found

ation

for

philosophy.

According
arises

sciousness and

Marx, the immediate cause of the split between con life is the division of labor. In fact, the division of labor

only as the separation between mental and material labor becomes definitive. Once this division has been established, conscious ness divorces itself from its roots in material reality and comes to interpret itself as being independent of all empirical factors. In doing this, it unconsciously inverts the true relations between thought and
reality: pure

becomes the
sciousness of

world of mere appearances. can

thought becomes the true world, and the real With the division of

world

labor,
con

"consciousness

really boast
real."7

of

being

something

other

than

existing practice, of really representing something without representing something Because of philosophy's tendency to abstract from empirical reality, Marx equates philosophy with religion. For both posit an ideal realm
which

is the

source of
which are

Since this realm is under stood to be beyond man's control, it becomes an object of worship which necessarily degrades man, for he is forced to construe the results of his own activity as a product of a higher being who is both unknown and autonomous. Thus man becomes enslaved by his own
those things
man. activity: he attributes everything of value to thought or to God and nothing to himself. In the section of the Holy Family called "The Mystery of Speculative Marx parodies the rehgious way in which philosophy interprets everyday life. To illustrate his point, he constructs inevitably what he takes to be a typically philosophical analysis of a familiar
Construction,"

everything that actually done by

appears

empirically,

including

daily experience, in this case, a piece of fruit. fruit" This philosopher begins his analysis by forming the idea "the from the variety of fruits that he habitually comes in contact with. For the philosopher, the essential thing about these different fruits is that they are all regarded as being merely the phenomenal forms of the
object of

idea "the

fruit,"

which, in

contrast

to the

idea, have

no real reality.

says Marx, "are taken to be only apparent fruits "The actual 'the fruit.'"8 true essence is the whose the philosopher then After having constructed the idea "the
'Substance,'

fruits,"

fruit,"

tries to

explain

of a single abstract

how the variety of actual fruits can appear as idea. The philosopher solves this dilemma

products

by inter-

7 8

Ibid., Ibid.,
"The

p. 415. p. 423.
Family,"

Holy

in ibid.,

p. 370.

270

Interpretation

preting the Idea

generates particular

"self-differentiated, dynamic"9 movement from itself, as an inner process, the full diversity
as a

which

of

all

fruits. Thus the ideal fruit is fruits. To

make
regard

conceived as

containing the
plausible, it
process of

totality
helps if

of all actual
we

this

process more

the idea

"incarnation"10

in

each

undergoing individual fruit. A miracle is thus

and

as

continual

created: all appear as

fruit.'

real, actual, naturally produced,

the

product of

"an

unreal creature of

naturally existing fruits the understanding, 'the

fruit'

"^

Each fruit
apple";12

itself only as '"the consequently, "in the apple, 'the existence, in the pear, a peary
manifests

posits
fruit'

itself

as pear as an

gives

itself

appley

existence."13

The
point of

upshot

of

this

speculative

that Marx
empirical

means world

to

make

here, is

the

as

being

the really serious regarding the whole essentially products of the Idea,
procedure,
and

that

by

philosophy endows man's actually existing world ity because he is forced to "construe as absolutely necessary and uni all that is merely accidental and transient, thereby producing
versal"14

with a mystical qual

"the In
that

most unreasonable and unnatural subservience

to the

object."15

other

words, the ironic

consequence of

the

philosopher's method

is
of

although

he

starts with

the

premise ends

that thought is independent

speculation

empirical

reality, he necessarily

his

totally dependent

on an

this reality because he is forced to explain everything empirical as inevitable result of the Idea, with the consequence that he is
of

incapable
the
as

imagining
helps
of

that the

world could

be
;

otherwise.

In this way,
world

philosopher

preserve

the

status quo

by

explaining the

a product

thought, he becomes its

unconscious apologist and

spokesman.

Nevertheless, despite the philosopher's fundamental errors and decep

tions, he
pression

still of

may

serve

a useful

function, for,

as

an

alienated

ex

world, he unconsciously reflects certain truths about the world, albeit in a confused and misleading way, since he grounds his insights not on man's activity but on the activity of a

the

real

divine,
taken

transcendental

subject.

Thus, if

the

philosopher's

work

is

out of

its

abstract

form

and

translated back into the language

interests, his insights can be salvaged. Marx Hegel, for instance, that he "very often given an actual pres entation, a presentation of the matter itself, within his speculative
of man's real material

says of

presentation."16

Marx

goes on

to say that Hegel is

cause

the

reader

takes the

speculative account

so mystifying be for the true account:

Ibid.,
Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.
.

PP-

370.
371-

i
11 12 13 14

P- 372.
P-

371-

P- 374-

15
is

P-

373-

Marx's Critique of
that

Philosophy
real

271

is, he

attributes

abstract

Subject

and

the quality of regards the

being

to Hegel's speculative,
as

actual

subject, namely, man,

something unreal. Philosophical problems can be resolved, therefore, simply by discarding the philosopher's initial speculative assumptions which assert the primacy of some ideal subj ect, thus obscuring thought's
true
origin and

referent,
error

empirical reality.

is at the same time from philosophy to science. In knowledge, the German Ideology, Marx describes this transition: "Where specula tion ends, namely in actual life, there real positive science begins as the
speculation

This transition from

to

empiricism

the transition from

to

representation

activity and practical process of the Phrases about consciousness cease and real knowledge takes their place. With the description of reality, inde
of practical

the

development

of

men.

pendent

philosophy loses its

goes on

medium of

existence."17

Marx
problem

to

offer

several

examples

of

how

philosophical of

is

resolved

by turning

to

empirical reality.

In his discussion

the controversy
of

over whether

harmony

or

discord,

the relationship of man to nature is one he says that this theoretical problem "collapses

when we understand

existed
greater

the celebrated unity of man and nature has always in varying forms in every epoch according to the lesser or of man with development of industry just like the
'struggle'

nature

right

corresponding
tithesis
man

up to the development of his productive forces on a basis."18 Yet philosophy mistakenly speaks "of the an if these
a were

of man and nature as not always

. .

two

'things'

separate

and

did

have before him

of

historical

nature and a natural

history.
to

Another instance

how

theoretical
one of

social practice occurs

in

can be easily solved simply by abolishing private property, for since the institution of private property is the primary cause of man's alienation, once private property is

Ideology of the problem of theoreticians,"20 baffling to German

problem is resolved by looking Marx's discussions in the German alienation. This problem, which is "so

abolished,
cease

alienation will

disappear. In

other

words,

alienation

will

to baffle German

philosophers

for the

simple reason

that

men

will no

longer be
an

alienated. man's

Thus for Marx basis

the
of essential

theoretical

perplexities

arise

only
realize

on

the

empirical

situation

which

fails to

fully

man's
reflect

being. The

philosopher's

theoretical

problems
solution

merely
as

non-philosopher's practical problems.

to the

practical

problem

necessarily

resolves

the theoretical

problem

well.

The

crucial premise which

is

not

forms the basis for Marx's empiricism, therefore, only that philosophy is abstract, but also that all man's
Ideology,"

17 18 i 2

"The German

p. 415.

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

p. 436p. 437. p. 426.

272

Interpretation

can be solved. It is important to underscore this for the significance of this premise and the justification for point, Marx's turn to empiricism is very revealing and is generally over that all man's practical problems can be solved is looked. His point in its simplicity, and its radicalness, no doubt, is what accounts startling overall import of for its generally ignored. Yet its role in the
practical problems

being

Marx's thought is decisive, for it highlights the Promethean spirit that animates all Marx's work, and it indicates, as well, the general limita tions of his thr ought. For the idea that man can perfectly control his altogether fantastic, it is also not at all worldly environment is not only for the validity of this thesis can never be established from empirical, observation. It can only emerge on the basis of speculation, which Marx has already thoroughly discredited. In any event, for Marx, the discovery of the leads to the
comes abolition of philosophy. root errors of

philosophy

According

to

Marx, philosophy

own self-created world of

reasons: first, because it deals only with its illusion ; second, because on the other hand, as a purely theoretical study of man, philosophy has achieved its goal of absolute knowledge; and third, because once having gained this

to

an end

for three

knowledge, philosophy finds its true realization in practice. Philosophy comes to an end, therefore, for three contradictory
reasons.

On the
the

one

hand, Marx

emphasizes

an end

because it is
other

fundamentally
grasped yet

incapable

that philosophy comes to of arriving at the truth,

comes

and,

on

hand, he
it has

emphasizes

that philosophy

to

an end never

because, indeed,
really
resolved
assertion

the truth. This

contradiction

is

by Marx,
of

that

all problems

it is of great importance, for, like his can be solved, it again underscores the
critique. can

inherent limitations

Marx's

The
arrive

problem at

is

always

that
one

in

order

to

deny

that philosophy

absolute

truth,

first full

needs an absolute scope of of

philosophy that

can prove such a

truth

this problem emerges only when what is at any one philosophy but the truth of philosophy as such. What distinguishes Marx's critique in this regard from other such radical

denial. The issue is not the

challenges

truth,

and yet claims

is precisely that he denies that philosophy can gain the that he is himself in possession of that truth.
attempt at

Marx does
cal

least

a partial resolution of

this dilemma
not

by

arguing that the true

and

realization of

philosophy is found

in theoreti
success

knowledge but in
yet,
at

social practice.

By

acknowledging the

the

same

time, the limits

of pure

theory,

and, conversely,

by

recognizing the importance of man's practical activities and the true extent of his species powers, philosophy can be incorporated into prac tice and can become reconciled with itself and the world. Still, despite this resolution, which in part preserves the importance of philosophy,
the
crucial point remains :

philosophy

as

traditionally

understood must

be

abohshed.

Thus the

main

thrust

of

Marx's

critique never changes :

philosophy is

Marx's Critique of

Philosophy

273

limited because it deals with knowledge divorced from its roots in prac tice. The most a philosopher can do, therefore, is to try to produce a
correct awareness of

existing
theorist

conditions as

; he

can never

actually
of

change

them.
out and

This,

says

Marx, "goes
a

far

as a

theorist possibly

can go with

ceasing to be

and

philosopher."21

Because be

the
own

scope

centrahty which is the raison d'etre

aim.

of man's productive
of

powers, knowledge for its

can never

sake,

philosophy,

man's ultimate

The final
man gains

reason

that knowledge

cannot

why philosophy comes to an end, therefore, is be the ultimate goal of man, for the knowledge
must

in

theory
about

What

underlies what we

the full truth

world with

be used to change the world in practice. have called Marx's empiricism is his belief that man must become completely manifest in the real
man's essence

of

everyday life. Because

will

his existence, for speculation: it

speculation exists

what man's essence

is
to

will no all.

ultimately longer be

coincides

a matter
need

become
as

clear

A legitimate

for

only

long

as man's nature

known. It
man's

was

the

earher absence of empirical

is is not empirically fulfillment that provoked

communist

wonder

and

desire to know. Thus in the final

true

society,
omenal sence

where man's

being

will

for the first time

mode

make

its

phen

appearance,
revealed.

practice

becomes the

by which man's true es

is

not a state of affairs still

will

Marx says, for example, that "communism is for us to be established, not an ideal to which reality We
call communism
affairs."22

have to
the

adjust.

the

real movement

which

abolishes

present state of

This is
tion
of

spelled out

further in the Economic

that "It

and

Philosophic Manu

scripts where

it is

stated

of

the

antagonism

(communism) is the genuine resolu between man and man ; it is the true resolution
existence and

the

conflict

between

essence,

objectification and

self-

affirmation, freedom and necessity, individual and species.

riddle of

It is the

history solved and knows itself as

this

solution."23

Feuerbach: "The
various original of
paradox

All this lies behind Marx's famous last thesis in his Theses on philosophers have only interpreted the world in
ways; the
point

is to

change it."24

of

Marx's
upon

critique of

And yet, the irony of the philosophy and his resolution

empiricism

the

spht

between

theory and practice remains, for Marx's

the
prior philosophical correspond

necessarily depends
man's
existence will

assumption

that
of

to his essence,

since

the

realm

immediate

experience

does

not

lieved that the

empirical empirical

errors of abstraction could

which

automatically be overcome
and

reveal

this. Marx be

by turning

to

reality, that

truly

reality does
p. 436p. 426.

not

immediately

unambiguously is. But since disclose its own meaning, man

21 22 32

Ibid., Ibid.,

"Economic and Philosophic

Feuerbach,"

Manuscripts
p. 401.

(1844),"

in ibid.,

p. 304.

24

"Theses

on

in ibid.,

274
needs
other

Interpretation
theoretical
assumptions

theory
words,

or

a simple return

to

empiricism

to grasp this meaning. In is impossible. Marx himself

and

admits as much

in the first

manuscript of

the Economic
that

Philosophic

Manuscripts. There he

grasp the theory inner development of reality because this development is not true immediately given. But having made this admission, he then minimizes or dismisses its significance because he is certain that he is in possession
makes

the

point

must

of

the true

philosophical method.

It

was on

the basis

of

this

belief,

and,

moreover,

on

the basis

of

the belief that

about man

empirical

itself,
his
to his

disclose the full truth

that he

said

reality would, by that he had settled

accounts with

his

philosophical conscience and

had therefore turned

scientific

study

of capitalism.

II
Marx developed this
the
critique of

Young Hegelians, Feuerbach,

and

philosophy in his study of the bourgeois political

Hegel,
econo

mists.

His thought, in part, is meant to be a synthesis of all of them, through their limitations and preserving their positive contribu seeing tions. This aim highlights one of the striking facts about Marx's work namely, that although he remained fundamentally opposed to
these
which

thinkers, he
he
more or

nevertheless gained

important insights from them

freely acknowledged. It has been said that Marx's achievement lies more in his capacity to bring together ideas that were already current than in any discovery of wholly new ideas. While it is
less
difficult to
of

make a
which

final judgment

on

this

matter

since

the

principle

important thing, does seem to synthesis, be entirely new it is certainly clear that Marx was deeply indebted to the thinkers he opposed, and this is particularly true in the field of
most philosophy.

is doubtless the

There,
Hegel
their

the two
and

most

important influences
and we will now

on

Marx's
on

thinking

were

Feuerbach,
which

turn to Marx's
their

critique of

thought,
which also

concentrates,

by definition,

limitations, but
well.

brings

out certain positive contributions as

to Marx, all the mistakes of Hegelian philosophy are in the fact that Hegel begins his philosophy with an abstrac tion and thus can only end or conclude with a greater one. By defining

According

rooted

man

in terms

of

spirit, Hegel
and

abstracts

from the importance

the
objective

of man's

practical

activity

his in

natural

environment,

thereby misinterpreting
world,
and

man, his

essential

activity, the

nature of

the

affirmation man gains

relation

to this

world.

Hegel's initial error, then, is that he conceives man primarily as The only self which Hegel recognizes, therefore, is an abstract self totally divorced from all real determinate aspects of actual life, and the only activity that he recognizes is the activity of
self-consciousness.

Marx's Critique of

Philosophy
act

275
that
consciousness

thinking, for thinking is

performs since

the

most

important

certainty of reality through the possibility of acquiring absolute knowledge: "The way in which consciousness is and the way in which something is for it is knowing.
establishes

it

the

greatest

Knowing is its
ness

only

act.

in

so

far

as consciousness

Hence something comes to knows that

man

exist

for

conscious

something."25

But
other

although

Hegel mistakenly defines elevating

still remains

in terms

of

self-con over

sciousness,

thereby falsely
of

speculative

thought

all

forms
that

experience, he

illuminating, for he

under

stands

man

is

through
of

a process of ahenation. most

the three

that he can develop himself only The insight that man is alienated is one important ideas that Marx acknowledges as having
alienated and
other

learned from Hegel (the

two

being the
and

notion of

negation,
revises

which
self-

in

part accounts

for

man's

alienation,
.

the

concept of man's

development through

history)

Yet Marx

fundamentally
man

Hegel's
all

understanding
man's actual

of alienation.

For Hegel,

is

alienated

because

concrete, sensual relations are opposed to thought. All contradictions that Hegel perceives revolve around the "contradiction

between
the

abstract

thinking
man ought

and sensuous

actuality."26

point

is

not

that

is

ahenated

in his

actual relations

Thus for Hegel, because

the

they

are not as

they
of

to be ; rather,
exists

man's alienation arises as opposition of

whole cause never

domain Hegel
sees

actuality itself
ahenation

in
of

to thought. Be

understands man

only in terms
out

self-consciousness, he
contradictions
within

that

arises

the

actuahty itself. Thus although Hegel is profound in recognizing that man is alienated, he errs in his understanding of what that alienation

ultimately consists of. Hegel not only misunderstands

the
nature of
world

what man

the
as

external world

in

which man

is ; he also misunderstands lives. Hegel interprets

emphasizes

the

only

it is

an object

for thought. Marx

misinterprets

that,

in

one

sense, Hegel continually

it only as it is incorporated within is that in analyzing different objects, thought neces abstracts from the object its most important characteristic, sarily namely, its sensuous actuality. Once within thought, the object is no
recognizes

because he thought. The defect of

the
world

this

procedure

longer the
as a

object

"out

there"

; that

is,

the

object

is

no

longer

regarded

concrete, sensuous,
entity."27

external

thing.

Instead, it becomes

an

idea,

One consequence of this denial of the sensuousness of the object is that in reflecting on the world Hegel attributes reality not to the world or to man's actual feelings and experiences in relation
"thought
to the world, but only to those experiences as they are absorbed within thought. True experience therefore must always be mediated through

25
26

"Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts

(1844),"

p. 32S

27

Ibid., Ibid.,

p. 320. p. 321.

276

Interpretation
never

reflection; it is

inherent in the
and

actual experience

itself. In

famous
says

passage

in the Economic Hegel's in

existence

Philosophic

Manuscripts, Marx
authentic religious

that the

upshot of

method

is that

"my

philosophy of religion, my authentic is my existence in philosophy of law, my authentic natural existence is my existence in phliosophy of nature, my authentic aesthetic existence is my existence in philosophy of art, and my authen tic human existence is my existence in The main point that Marx makes against Hegel, however, is not
existence pohtical existence
philosophy."28

is my

that Hegel

sees

the

objective world

only
what

as

it is

an object

for thought,

but that Hegel

product

understands and

the

sensuous world as

being

of thought,
or

that hence

it really

is,

essentially a in its essence, is

thought

For

Hegel,

spirit, something that is non-natural and non-objective. the real, material, sensuous external world is actually

thought estabhshing itself "as object."29 Thus, the sensuous objectivity of the world is "not to be understood here as self-externalizing sensu
ousness open

to the light

and

to the sensibihty
conceived as
object."31

of sensuous as

man."30

On the contrary,

sensuous

reahty is

"objectified

self-

consciousness, self-consciousness

In
ment

one

sense, this account clearly contradicts Marx's earlier state that Hegel sees the world only as it is reflected in thought, for
significance of
aspect

world's material
other

here he imphes that indeed Hegel does grasp the aspect, since he recognizes that this
than thought. The thrust
of

the

is something

this

part of

Marx's criticism, then,

is directed

Hegelian failing. It is not so much that thought fails to recognize materiality as that, when it does, it denies it by interpreting it as a "product of abstract spirit and hence phases of In other words, thought ultimately interprets the
against another characteristic
mind."32

itself. The motive behind what is in effect Hegel's interpretation of nature is the need or desire for unity or reconcihation. For since thought regards everything other than itself
world as an aspect of spiritual

something alien, the overcoming of its alienation requires that it everything that is other than itself. Because Hegel views nature exclusively from the standpoint of thought, he can understand it only as "externahzation, error, a defect which ought not to be."33 For Hegel, nature as nature is necessarily something deficient: "Hegel
as

deny

makes

the externality
which

as much as nature

Something
28
29

of nature, its contrast to thought, its defect. And is distinct from abstraction it is something defective. is defective not only for me in my eyes but also in
which

itself has something

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.
P- 33.

it

lacks."34

P- 323. P- 336.
PP332.

30 31
32

320.

33
34

P- 336-

Marx's Critique of

Philosophy
nature
of

277
the
object
of

Because Hegel
nature of
ation and

misunderstands

the

and

the
ob

the subject, he also misunderstands the process transcendence by the subject. The transcendence the
object

affirm

of

the

ject

arises when

is

seen as an externalization of

thought.

Thus the affirmation of the object depends upon a negation of the ob ject as object: what is affirmed in the object is not its objectivity but its spirituality. Thus, says Marx, the object appears to conscious
ness as

something "vanishes," fact that it

because it
reveals own otherness. on of

"vanishing."35

The

annihilation of

the object, the

consciousness

represents

an

affirmation
object

of

to consciousness that the

of

is actually itself in its

Thus the transcendence

the

object

depends,

above

all,

denied as a sensuous, external thing that is independent consciousness. Consciousness interprets the negation of the object
its

being

positively, for it can then claim that

it "knows the

non-existence of

the distinction between the

object and itself."36

Thus Hegel's
never affirms affirm

speculative affirmation

the real,
as
which

empirical world as

is abstract and unreal, for it it actually is. Hegel can only

a
and

the

world

he denies it: denial

and

"transcendence, therefore, has

special role

in

preservation, denial

affirmation,

are

bound

together."37

object

comes

at

the

expense

In this respect, Hegel's transcendence of the of both the object and the commonexperience of

sense, everyday, first-hand

the

object.
respect

Marx draws he

out

this

consequence

in these

words:

"In this

[Hegel]

thus
un-

opposes

philosophical

both the actual nature of the object and the immediate knowledge the unphilosophical concepts of that
contradicts conventional
concepts."36

na

ture. He therefore

Yet there is another aspect of Hegel's notion of transcendence that Marx finds even more disturbing; namely, that Hegel affirms the un reasonable world of the status quo. Although Marx had previously argued that Hegel's affirmation of the world is entirely spurious be cause it is based on thought's negation of the object, Marx concedes
that looked
actual effect

world;

this

from another point of view Hegel does, indeed, affirm the however, it is a world which is irrational. Hegel is able to affirmation because, having recognized the world as the
at

externahzation of

thought, he believes that

whatever exists represents

legitimate
of

mation

in the development of mind. This process of legiti affirmation takes place in two steps; first, consciousness
phase

"claims to be
life."39

immediately
claims

the

Consciousness
mode; hence

other of itself, sensibility, actuality, to have transcended actuality and life,

of

for it

recognizes

that the

essence

both is
alien

consciousness

itself in
step,

another

neither can

be

to it. In the

second

35
se

37
38 39

Ibid., ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

p. 324. p. 328. p. 329p. 33ip. 328.

278

Interpretation

transcended actuality and life in this manner, consciousness then claims that it "reabsorbs this externalization and objectivity

having
and

thus is

at one with

itself in its

other

being

as

such."40

In

other

words,

consciousness negates and

having transcended it, thereby affirming it as it

process of affirmation

thus transcends the object, and then, "re-establishes"41 the consciousness object,
empirical

actually is in its

form. The Hegelian

that the
world

ends,

therefore,
must

with

the

assertion

is

as

it

ought

to be. Thus Hegel's

we

concept of

transcendence leads to the

world
without

strange

doctrine that
as

accept

the

change,

exactly Marx
still

it is.
this
notion man of

because it legitimates a status quo which his freedom. Contained in Hegel's concept of transcendence is "the root of Hegel's false positivism or of his merely For although Hegel claims to have transcended apparent
attacks

deprives

criticism."42

man's

argues that the very opposite is the case : Hegel transcend man's alienation, he actually confirms it. not only fails to By asserting that the world is the embodiment of the idea, Hegel says,

alienation, Marx

in effect, that the

world

by

claiming that the

that
serve as

world

has become completely rational. Moreover, is a product of thought, he blurs the

and

distinction between the

standards

actual

the

ideal,

thus

the basis for worldly

spirit

criticism.

destroying the In discovering

that the

world which

is really
turns

otherness,
man's still

out

to

be,

in its otherness, Hegel justifies this when translated into the language of

be

worldly relations, overcome. This

a condition of ahenation and consequence of

injustice that

can

Hegel's thought is

inevitable,

by presenting the process of transcendence as a process of thought, Hegel discourages all activity that would lead to real political change.
since

Thus Hegel's
of

thought's

transcendence is entirely abstract : it consists transcendence, not of the world, which would be im
concept of of

possible

anyway, but

itself in its
with

various

Arguing
Hegel
aspect

along these himself

lines, Marx
his

reveals

interpretations of the the hidden way in

world. which

reconciles

own conflict-ridden world.

From this

of Hegel's thought, all conventional concepts receive their "ultimate justification."43 Although Marx had argued earlier that Hegel contradicted commonsense opinion, since he elevated philoso phical cludes reflection of immediate experience, he con Hegel's philosophy is to confirm com opinion. Thus Marx ends this part of his analysis with the words: "There can thus no longer be any question about at

the

expense
of

that the

real effect

monsense

following

Hegel's accommodation in lie is the lie of his

40
41 42 43 44

regard

to religion, the state, etc.,

since

this

principle."44

Ibid. Ibid.

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

P- 329. P- 33iP- 329-

Marx's Critique of

Philosophy
begins
and ends

279
in
an abstrac con

Having
tion
which
cludes

shown

that Hegel's
serves

method

actually

to

confirm man's real

alienation, Marx

Hegel's concept of intuition. Intuition becomes all-important for Hegel because at the culmination of his system he comes to realize that the absolute idea is merely pure thought divorced from any real content. It is thus a pure abstraction and hence a "nothing."45 In order to give the idea substantiality, Hegel turns to nature, for it alone has real, determinate reality. This
reflections with a critique of

his

intuition,

Hegel's transition from abstract thinking to is in effect his turn from The Logic to his Philosophy of Nature. Having become aware of his own abstractness, Hegel must
turn to
nature explains
which "abandon"46 speculation and "decide"47 on a new method of

inquiry,

namely, intuition. Yet this turn to intuition is not only based on thought's awareness of its own limitation; it is also motivated by a

kind
a

of mystical sense which of

feehng

boredom. "The

from

abstract

thinking

is really nothing more than feeling which drives a philosopher to intuition is boredom, the longing for a
says
mystical

Marx

content."48

Yet the
satisfied

abstract philosopher's

desire for
nature

concreteness can never

be

through

intuition, for
only
that
as an

the

he intuits is
of

still abstract

because it is

conceived as

being

isolated from man,

sensuous

and

because it
with

is

still

understood

externalization

thought

the

difference, however,
recognition.

quahty is incomplete, for nature's sensuous qualities are understood only as they repeat, albeit in a different mode, the movement of thought. Thus the philosopher's turn to intuition But this
recognition

now

the

of nature

is

given

only

confirms

his
the

original

abstraction; it is merely "his

conscious

re-

enactment of

process of

Marx, Hegel is

unable

to break

producing his out of his

abstraction."49

According to
Even

world of abstraction.

his turn to intuition fails: rather than grasping the externality of nature in its own right, he understands it only in relation to thought. Hence it remains a "nothing, a nothing proving itself to be Marx calls the true philosophy, the one which resolves Hegel's
nothing."50

speculative mysteries and obfuscations, naturalism.

Marx draws three

important
man

conclusions

from his

naturalist

has active, natural,

things

objective capacities

or produces needs.

which are essential

The first is that which he creates to him because they satisfy his
premise.

through

As such, they

are not

simply

another part of

the

objective

world;

both their

establishment

and

their

being

serve as objective confirm

ations of man.

Thus Marx argues,

against

Hegel,

that

man's natural

45

Ibid.,
ibid.

p. 333-

46 47
48

Ibid.,
Ibid.

p. 334-

49 5

Ibid., Ibid.,

p. 335p. 336-

280

Interpretation

productivity is wholly in keeping with, and actually is an affirmation of, his essential being. In fact, his affirmation comes only through
production which

satisfies

his

needs.
man

Marx

makes

this

clear

in the

following
objective

passage:

"The fact that

natural

is

corporeal, actual, sentient,

being
objects

with

capacities

means

that he has actual,

or

sensuous,

for his

nature as objects of
,

his life expression,

objects."51

that

he can only express his life in actual sensuous Man affirms himself through production because he is a being lives essentially within the world of nature. Because Marx is
misguided

who not

by false speculative assumptions, he claims that he can and does remain faithful to the significance of nature and to man's pro ductivity in relation to it. The mistake that Hegel makes is that he understands the relation between man and nature only in terms of op
position.

Thus in

order

to

resolve

this opposition, he is

compelled

to

deny
this the
act

the importance both

of nature and of man's productivity.

When

assumption of an opposition

which

is

a relation of

harmony

is removed, however, the true relation is revealed, and the significance of

productivity is restored. Concerning the Marx says, for example, that "the establishing production, (of objects) is not the subject but the subjectivity of objective capaci
natural world and man's

of

ties

whose action must

therefore

also

be

objective."52

The
nature

second

important is recognized both

domain
which

consequence

of

as an object which

Marx's naturalism is that is independent of man

and as a

What Marx

wants

to

emphasize

is necessary for the satisfaction of man's needs. here is that the independence of nature

does it is

not

detract from

retains an
still

man's essential freedom and dignity because he important relation with nature, since despite its independence necessary for the satisfaction of his needs. To the extent

that it

is,

man's relation

to it

remains positive.

Thus

what establishes

nature's affirmative significance

between

man and nature

for man, whatever other differences there may be, is the fact that man needs na

does, his relation to nature is always affirmative. The last important consequence that follows from Marx's naturalist doctrine is his assertion that nature establishes the possibility of
relations

ture. Because he

between

men since what

they essentially have in

common

is

to satisfy their natural wants. Moreover, these wants are not merely directed to the satisfaction of immediate biological necessities ; they go beyond this domain to include a genuine need for others.
need

the

Nature is thus the ultimate basis of man's sociality. The full meaning of Marx's naturalist premise, however, is
exhausted
reflection

not

by

the

enumeration

of

the

above

three points,

for

on

it becomes clearer that the final significance of Marx's naturalism is actually the very opposite of what it appears to be at
51 52

Ibid.,
Ibid.

p. 325.

Marx's Critique of
first
glance.

Philosophy
reverses

281

What becomes
or

evident

is that, in fact, Marx

point

the

priority is a part

of nature and man :

the really decisive

nature

is

not

that

man
con
need

of nature

that

sciousness, but that

establishes

man needs nature and

of nature.

is essentially different from that the reality of his

man's

the true meaning

The fundamental fact is that

because
stood as

nature can

being
his

that

man

needs, it must be under essentially created for him. Thus Marx's final point is transcends nature as it becomes the means through which he
made

be

to satisfy

satisfies

needs. maintains

Although Marx fore

affirms

that

man

is
to

a part of nature and

there
man's yet

himself through his

relation

relation

it, he also

asserts and

that

immediate

to

nature

is

not

affirmative not

thus
act

not

human. This is because

man's needs.

nature

does

immediately

to satisfy

being

is a part of nature because he is a sensuous is necessary for the satisfaction of his needs, this is not the final ground on which Marx's affirmation of man's relation to nature rests. For since nature does not immediately satisfy While
man and

because

nature

man's

needs, in

order

to nature, he

must

satisfy his
which,

needs.

affirm himself through his relation his initial relation to it so that it will Thus the true relation to nature is a negative one,

for

man

to

first

overcome

however, becomes

positive

increases. Man's
the fact that he

affirmation of nature

overcomes nature

man's overcoming of nature is actually based, therefore, on through his labor. as

Marx
nature

calls

the

totahty
is

of activities

through

which man overcomes

act"53

history.

History

all other natural

"genetic processes, is "known and hence

man's natural of

which,

unlike

self-transcending."54

The

essential

meaning

history, therefore, is
as

that

man

has the

ca

it comes to satisfy more of man's needs on an ever-increasing scale. Through history, man has visible proof that nature exists essentially for the satisfaction of his needs. Moreover, according to Marx, the overcoming of nature can be brought to the point where nature will eventually satisfy all man's basic needs. At that
pacity to transcend nature
point, history comes to an end. Thus the affirmation that man achieves in relation to nature is not a function of his being a part of nature, but of his being outside of nature in such a way that through produc tion he can ultimately transcend nature completely. Through this

transcendence, the truth concerning nature, man, to nature becomes manifest, for nature is revealed
for man,
and man

and man's relation

is

revealed as

being

being essentially essentially for himself and is

as
end of

thus the highest

affirmation

being

that is. At the

history,

man's

self-

is complete, for he has

naturalist
criticized

finally

become absolutely free.

the
seeds of could

Contained in Marx's

premise are as

the very
under-

thing
53 54

that he

in Hegel. For just

Hegel

only

Ibid.,
Ibid.

p. 327.

282

Interpretation
nature as spirit

stand

externahzed,
man. man

so

Marx

can

only

understand

nature as an object

for

Neither

sees nature as an

domain

which

includes

instead,

both

assert

encompassing that man essentially

The parallels here between Hegel and Marx are striking. What is for Hegel the product of spirit is for Marx the product of labor. What in Hegel is a process of development, in which spirit
transcends
nature.
externalizes

itself in its

other

being

as

self-loss, in Marx is the

process

selfwhereby labor externalizes itself in its other being, property, as loss. And finally, just as for Hegel the transcendence of alienation is

achieved

through thought's

recognition of

itself in its is
achieved

other

being,

so

for Marx the transcendence

recognition
or an object of

of alienation

through

man's

that everything that is is

either a product of

his activity,

his activity

and need.

In

so

far

as

Marx

posits man as

the
of

being who essentially transcends nature, the defect or limitation Marx's doctrine appears, ironically, to be the same limitation that
revealed

Marx himself
understood

in his

analysis of

Hegel : namely, that

nature

is

merely as a phase in the development of something higher; consequently, as Marx said of Hegel, nature is finally conceived as a

"nothing,

nothing proving itself to be

nothing."55

Ill

According
to

discover the

discovery

was the first philosopher after Hegel importance of nature. As a consequence of his he became the first thinker to seriously undermine Hegel's

to

Marx, Feuerbach

Marx credits Feuerbach for having gained three crucial insights concerning the Hegelian method : first, he showed that philo sophy was essentially an expression of man's ahenation; second, he recognized the primacy of man's social relations ; and third, he under stood the defect of Hegel's concept of the negation of the negation, and hence the error inherent in his dialectical method as such. But
great system.

its virtues, Feuerbach's naturalism is deficient because, like abstracts from the real meaning of both nature and society. Although Feuerbach recognizes the primacy of man's social re lations, he fails to appreciate that these relations are not ones of
whatever

Hegel, he

harmony
that

but

of conflict.

Since Feuerbach begins

with

the

assumption social con

man's social relations are

fundamentally harmonious,
reverse:
all

flict
of

always appears
matter

to him

as an aberration or accident. man's

social

Yet the truth

relations are

the

is exactly the
on violent

necessarily based
only through

underlying

social conflicts which can

be

resolved

revolution.

Because Feuerbach

overlooks

the

pervasiveness of social

conflict, he

inevitably

romanticizes all man's

55

Ibid.,

p. 336.

Marx's Critique of
actual relations:
man'

Philosophy
'of

283
man

"he knows

no other

'human

relationships'

to

than love

and

friendship,

and

these

idealized."56

But Feuerbach is abstract not only in his treatment of man's social relations; he is also abstract in his treatment of nature. This is because he fails to take into account the most important fact concerning
man transforms it through his labor. Feuerbach's is inadequate because he analyzes it independent of man and his productive adivity. When Feuerbach deals with natural objects he forgets that the decisive fact about them is not that they are part of nature, or in part produced by nature, but that they are worked

nature, namely, that

discussion

of nature

upon and

thus transformed
without argues

by man.

what nature upon

is it. Marx
out

man, but

what

What is primary, therefore, is not it becomes when man works

static
view of nature

against

Feuerbach's
the

by

pointing

that "even the

objects of

simplest

'sensuous

certa

are given

to him

[Feuerbach]

dustry,
the
sense

and commercial

relationships."57

only through social development, in The important thing about

that man perceives it through his naturally given but rather that man creates the world which he then apparatus, perceives. The act of perception presupposes the act of producing.
world

is

not

not

Production therefore is the necessary precondition for perception, and the other way around. In a revealing passage in the German
says

Ideology, Marx
was as we ular

that "The cherry

our zone

tree, like

almost all

fruit trees,
ago,
a partic

transplanted into

by

commerce

only

few

centuries

only by this action time has it become 'sensuous

know,

and

of a particular

society in

over, he

points of

importance
tinuous
the

for Feuerbach."58 More out sarcastically that Feuerbach's abstraction from the production leads him to forget how completely he is
on production:

certainty'

himself dependent
sensuous

working

and

is this activity, the con this production, the basis of creating,

much

"So

whole sensuous world as

only
and

year, Feuerbach

would

it now exists, that, were it interrupted for find not only a tremendous change in the
even
existence."59

find missing the entire world of men his own According to Marx, Feuerbach is correct in his understanding that man is part of nature and that, going beyond other materialists, man is himself a "sensuous Nevertheless, Feuerbach fundament
natural world

but

also would soon

his

own perceptual

faculty,

object."60

of man's sensuous nature be is both a sensuous object and a historic cause for himself man decisive ally productive subject, and that in producing changes himself, and at the same time changes nature as well. Marx's ly crucial premise here is that nature is a realm whose essence as man

ally

misunderstands

the

significance

he fails to

see

that

man

56 57 5S 59
eo

"The German

Ideology,"

p. 419.

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

ibid.

p. 4l8p. 417.

p. 418.

284

Interpretation
own needs.

transforms it according to his

In this sense,
man's

nature

is itself

historical, for it
Since Feuerbach
nature

remains

subordinate

to

productive

capacity. model of

abstracts

from this historical dimension, his

that
existed prior

is

always

the
as

nature

to

man's productive

relation

to it.

But,

Marx
of

points

out, as man

continues

to

produce and

his production, the natural world in its pre extend the It remains, he says, only "on a few human state is steadily Thus Feuerbach's doctrine Australian coral islands of recent of nature stands refuted by the reality of history. What he never
network
shrinking.61 origin."62

understands

is that

nature and man's relation activity. as

to

nature

change critique

through

man's

Accordingly, Marx
with

concludes

necessarily his
not a materi
. .

by

saying:

deal

with

history,

and as and

"As far far

Feuerbach is

a materialist

he does

as

alist.

Materiahsm

history

is not completely diverge with him.

he deals

history he

IV

To sum up: Marx's critique of philosophy is based on his insight into the inherent limitations of philosophy. Yet, paradoxically, it is also based on his behef that philosophy reveals certain important

finally, the truth concerning man. Marx's own philosophy incorporates these truths: the truth of idealism, that man is his own creator; the truth of materiahsm, that man is a natural being and
truths and,
therefore
a part of nature.

transcendence

of all previous

Thus Marx's thought is a synthesis and philosophy but one which, however, finally
also

abolishes philosophy.

For Marx

believes that
reahzation

philosophy's

final

insight is its because

truth. The

recognition
can

that its true

is found in
of
with

practice

practice

incorporate the full meaning

philosophical

abolition of

plete actualization of man. abolition of essence and

the com philosophy coincides, therefore, Thus the abohtion of philosophy signals the the hitherto seemingly eternal divergence between man's

actual, between
61

his existence, between his potential and the empirically theory and practice, between freedom and necessity,

In this passage, it is important to realize that Marx is explicitly asserting belief that nature will be completely absorbed into the historical process. Most interpreters of Marx ignore the significance of this fact and thus get bogged down in a contradiction which is revealed in its simplicity in chapter n (p. 183) of Robert Tucker's book Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx. In his discussion there of the relation of nature to history, Tucker rightly emphasizes that in Marx's view nature is included within the historical domain; yet he then goes on to say that the historical process is actually restricted to "man-made and not to nature simply. Tucker makes a similar mistake on p. 196, where he interprets statement that man will become the "conscious Lord of to mean only that man will come to master his statement has technology. In other words, according to Tucker, nothing to do with man's control of external nature itself. 62 "The German p. 418. his
ultimate
nature"

Engels'

Nature"

Engels'

Ideology,"

63

Ibid.,

p. 419.

Marx's Critique of

Philosophy

285

between the individual and society. In short, the abolition of philosophy becomes the precondition for the solution to all human problems, "and
knows itself
as

this

solution."64

According
tal
mistake:

to

Marx, philosophy is
posits

characterized

by

one

fundamen

it

thought

ultimately seeks to explain all its delusion. In Nietzschean terms, philosophy is a tyrannical pression of a blind will to power. In Marxian language, it is an alien alienating activity

the only true reality. Philosophy phenomena in terms of reason. This is

as

ex and

because, by making reason the sole reality, philos ophy overlooks the overwhelming importance of man's material con dition. Yet it is this condition which establishes the real meaning and
foundation
of a productive

human life, for man is a needy being on the one hand, and being on the other. Moreover, by claiming that only reason

is real, philosophy remains uncritical or unphilosophical concerning its own activity. Thus it contradicts itself because it fails to reflect with sufficient seriousness upon its own foundations. Instead, it takes itself for granted and hence remains unaware of itself in two respects. First, it is unaware of its own arbitrary beginnings ; second, it is unaware that in starting in an abstraction its conclusion must also be abstract; at this point, however, it is an abstraction not only from man's empirical reahty but from his essential reality, the future communist society. To put it in terms of Marx's positive discoveries, philosophy is de fective because it
misunderstands

the importance

of

productivity,

his

tory,

and nature. sought

of all

Having
sophy but
on

to

explain

the defect
as

not

of

one particular philo

radical assault

philosophy Marx's attack marks the first

which

philosophy ends in the

such, Marx begins the

call

for its

wholesale

destruction.
neces

serious

defeat for philosophy, for it

sarily begins to crumble only when philosophers themselves come to question it not in order to correct its past mistakes but to eliminate it altogether. Ironically, as in all such challenges, Marx's attack is based
the very standards that philosophy has itself developed and made important, the standards of reason and truth. Thus the destruction of
on

philosophy is necessary, according to Marx, because its fundamental claim to seek the truth has been refuted. Philosophers are not disin terested, impartial seekers of the truth; rather they are products of their society, unavoidably entangled in forces and interests which they
remain unaware of and over which

they have no control. Yet

and all

there is

an

important difference between Marx

of philosophy:

later

philosophical critics

according to

Marx, philosophy is

abolished not

only

because

of

the

its is

ultimate

discovery of its inherent limitations, but also because of success, for having gained absolute knowledge, philosophy
therefore
comes

complete and

to

final

and

fitting

end.

Like

all

philosophers, Marx begins

with certain

assumptions, but he

64

"The Economic

and

Philosophic Manuscripts

(1844),"

p. 304.

2S6

Interpretation

he is fully conscious of what his assumptions are. In the beginning of the German Ideology, he succinct ly states the initial insight which ist he basis of his entire philosophy. He savs there that "the first premise of all human existence, and
claims

that,

unlike other philosophers,

hence
order all

of all

history, (is)
'to

the

premise
"

that that
and

men must

be

able

to live in
above
. .

to be

history'

able

make

and

since
man}'

"hfe involves
other

drinking, shelter, clothing, eating first historical act thus is the production
and

things

the

of

the

means

to satisfy these

needs, the

production of material

hfe

itself."65

which

What Marx is sa\-ing, in effect, is that the premise or assumption he begins with is really not a premise or assumption at all; certainly it is not the kind of assumption with which other philosophers have begun, for it is transparent, commonsensical, and obvious to all: first be alive "in order to make history."66 Yet Marx is very misleading here, for what he means by hfe, production, and history is something which is not obvious, namely, that through production man creates his own hfe, and that history is the necessary process of this
self-creation.

man must

Marx believes that his

speculative

conclusions

must

inevitably
already the
means

follow from his

result

simple commonsense simple premises

premises.

What he
or are

fails to see, however, is that his

of, a
clear

already contain,
productive,

prior philosophical man

interpretation, for it is by no
he
creates estabhshes

that because

is materially
nature,
and

himself, completely
classless, laborless

overcomes

universal,

Contained within Marx's seemingly commonsense premises, therefore, is the germ of his own idealism, which sees in history the absolute emancipation of man and sees in man the absolute
society.

overcoming of nature. Marx's critique of philosophy is powerful covers and delineates philosophy's underlying
estimation problem of

and

telling
is

as

he dis
over-

assumptions.

The

thought in the

realm

of

human

affairs

a perennial

that the

philosopher must

always

face. Yet
when

an equal

danger
non-

hes in

an underestimation of

reason, especially

it

arises

through

a method of rational.

debunking

which seeks

to

explain

the

rational

by the

This is clearly the danger that Marx succumbs to. Yet he does this in a peculiarly complex and elusive way, for underneath his critique of reason hes a faith in reason as strong and pervasive as
the faith he
criticized

in the

other philosophers of whom

he

was so

for the fact that Marx be heved that history developed according to definite laws which would finally lead to the creation of a universal society where all men would be completely free ? What does the union of theory and practice mean, if not that reason should rule the world? Marx wanted to hberate man
contemptuous.

What

else could account

through

a critique of

philosophy which

would

sweep away

all

ideological

65 66

"The German Ibid.

Ideology,"

p. 419.

Marx's Critique of
obstacles

Philosophy

287

to

material

development, for
not

liberation
obstacles
aware.

was

to be found

in thought

the rationality necessary for or consciousness but in pure

overlooked

production.

But in his haste to liberate man, he

critique of
and

the

genuine

to liberation

of which earlier philosophers were more

fully

Marx's

this oversight,

philosophy remains incomplete because of because he failed to appreciate the extent to which
criticized and rejected.

he incorporated the tradition that he

288

WINSTON CHURCHILL ON EMPIRE AND

THE LIMITS OF POLITICS

Kirk Emmert

From the
called

beginning

of

his

pohtical career

Winston Churchill
to
what

was an

admirer and advocate of empire.

His

opposition

he

derisively

balanced, however, by his rejection of the views of "our unbridled Imperiahsts, who have no thought but to territory."2 pile up armaments, taxation, and Churchill, who con
"Little
Englandism"1 was

sidered

himself to be

"middle

thinker,"3

avocated a mean

between

an

isolationist, inward-looking
favored
pohcy
a
eye of

nation and

the expansive, told to

assertive nation

by

the imperialists. In
which

May, 1903 he

a crowd at

Hoxton be
a

that "the pohcy

of

the Unionist

Party
only

ought

pursue must

Imperialism, but

not of one-sided or

Imperialism. It
at

must not

be

pohcy which looks only abroad Lord Beaconsfield ranged

to

home.
the

The

farseeing
most

wideljr

across

waters

to the

distant
of

colonies and possessions of

the

Crown, but
mind

at

the

same

time he

was able

see

first

and

foremost in his
a moral

the

virtue and

prosperity

the

people of

Great

Britain."4

Churchill's desire to find

perial

foundation for
virtue of

a restrained people

im led

policy him to be a
the

which would support proponent of

the

the British

civilizing empire,

of empire as a means of
ruler and

promoting the
empire would moderate

moral and pohtical virtue of

both the imperial

even a

uncivilized ruled.

Ultimately, however, he saw that

a sense unhmited and
recognition

civihzing

be in

that the true

grounds of

empire

lie in the

that the
end.

cultivation of moral

and political virtue

is

not man's

highest

limited

empire reflected

his

awareness of

Churchill's advocacy of the limits of even the most

glorious pubhc

life.

The Causes of the River War Both those

who
were

who sought

simply to increase British

and philanthropic of

power and

those
were,

moved

by

religious

sentiments

Churchill thought, the

proponents

immoderate imperiahsm. The

Winston S.

Churchill, Great Contemporaries (New York: G. P. Putnam's

Sons,
2

1937). P- 5-

Quoted in Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, 2 vols. (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1966-67), 2:32. 3 Randolphs. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill: Companion Volume II (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1969), pt. 1, p. 105. 4 Quoted in Churchill, Churchill, 2 :56.

Churchill

on

Empire

and

Limits of Politics

289

imperialists were particularly influential in pro the reconquest of the Sudan described by Churchill in his book moting The River War. The death of General Charles Gordon, "at the hands of
was an earnest

latter, high-minded

infidel savages, transformed him into something like a martyr. There desire on the part of a pious nation to dissociate his name from This desire, under the impetus of the religious
failure."

fervor

excited

by

the death

of

"the Christian

hero,"

was

transformed

into

desire for
of

revenge :

The idea
The

revenge, ever attractive to the human

consecration of religion.

spirit of

heart, appeared to receive the What community is altogether free from fanaticism ? the Crusades stirred beneath the surface of scientific civilisation;
by,
there
continued
of

and as

the

years passed

in England

strong

undercurrent of

public opinion which ran

in the direction

"a

holy

war."5

Churchill disapproved
as

of

this "indulgence

of

the

sentiment

known

'the avenging of not "a dignified emotion for

of rehgious sentiments quate

Gordon'"

because he thought that

to
display"

revenge was

a great people

:6

the

tendency
an

to

encourage

fanaticism

made

them

inade
of

foundation for

empire.

Philanthropic
volume
State."

sentiments also

lead to

excess.

The

"misery

the

Dervish dominions
of

appealed,"

generous

Churchill observed, "to that great humanitarian feeling which sways our civilized
sentiments often give

Humanitarian
which

rise,

however,

to

moral

its very nature immoderate. Keenly aware of the great distance between himself and the lowly masses, and sanguine concerning the possibilities for their improvement, the humanitarian often becomes impatient with the intractability of their condition. As

indignation,

is

by

he becomes

aware of

their indifference to his

more and more of

selfless

ministrations, the

his mounting indignation at the very people he sought to benefit. Many of those who were at first The sentiment pitied in their misery are soon detested for being
philanthropist

directs

"vile."

for punishing "the savages, who, it seems, are

grows
and

wickednes

of

the

worst

of

these

"vile"

somehow responsible

for the degradation

hostility of the rest.

could not

Some of the excesses committed by the empire be traced, Churchill suggested, to the philanthropists who could

contemplate

military
.

operations

unless

they

[could]

cajole

themselves

into the belief that their enemy are utterly and hopelessly vile. To this end the have been loaded with every variety of abuse and charged with all Dervishes conceivable crimes. This may be very comfortable to philanthropic persons at home; but when an army in the field becomes imbued with the idea that the are vermin who cumber the earth, instances of barbarity may very easily
. .

enemy

Winston S.

of the
6

Churchill, The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest Soudan, 2 vols. (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899), 1:169. Ibid., 2:388, 393.

290

Interpretation
outcome.

be the

This

unmeasured condemnation

is

moreover as unjust as

it is

dangerous

and

unnecessary.7

Churchill distrusted

policies

rooted
. . .

in

righteous

indignation because
men

they have the

to
reactions. and

they carry Militarism degenerates into brutality.

common sycophancy.

"fault

that

too far

and

lead
and

Loyalty
sinks

promotes

tyranny
ism."8

Humanitarianism becomes

maudlin

ridiculous.

Patriotism

shades

into

cant.

Imperialism

into Jingo

The desire for power is probably the most common cause of expansive, jingoistic imperiahsm. Churchill observed: "all the vigorous nations of Modern European the earth have sought and are seeking to

conquer."

is "more powerful, more glorious, but no less than were those of Rome or Islam: it was the "impulse of conquest which hurried the French and the British to Canada and the
civilization
Indies."

aggr

The for

spirit of empire,
. . .

the

passion

that

moves
...

it forward, is "the desire

power

men must

a great fact which practical the desire to prevail, It was this desire for conquest that was often reckon
,
with."9

behind the

constant

struggle of our

for

empire

which

Churchill

called

the

"perpetual inheritance

race."

10

Man "has

never sought

tranquil

ity
or

alone.

His

nature

worse, are different from those

drives him forward to fortunes which, for better which it is in his power to pause and

enjoy."11

Rather than
the

inclining men to moderation,

seek

hmited aspirations,
predominance, and
of unbounded ex

and

contentment, nature tends to push man to

political

it

pushes

community in the direction

power

pansion. empire

The desire for

is, however,
unlimited

an

inadequate foundation for

and provides no

because it

encourages

expansion

basis for
or

distinguishing

between just
power

and

tyrannical

empire.

Although he did
the

not consider philanthropic or religious sentiments

unrestrained

desire for
support

justifiable

causes of

the River
argued

War, Churchill did

that the River War

the

reconquest of

the Sudan. He

was

the

advantage of

Great

fundamentally wise and right because it was to Britain. In defending his political approach to
own

the war, he

recorded

his

mild protest against

are regarded

the

vindictive and
...

implacable

spirit with which

the Dervishes

It is hypocritical to say that it [the war] was waged to chastise the wickedness of the Dervishes. It is wrong to declare that it was fought to avenge General Gordon. The quarrel was clear. Certain savage men had invaded the Egyptian territories, had killed their inhabitants and their
in
certain quarters.

7 8

Ibid.,

p. 394.

Quoted in Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill: Companion Volume I (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1967), pt. 2, p. 938. 9 Churchill, The River War, 1:19, 17, 19-20. 10 Winston S. Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1901), p. 14. 11 Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, 4 vols. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1956-58), 2:194.

Churchill
guardians,
and

on

Empire

and

Limits of Politics
the land. In due
and
course

291

had

possessed

themselves
expel

of

it became

convenient, as well as ritories. The Khedive

scattered.
rifle?12

desirable, to

these intruders

enjoys his own again by proxy. They lived by the sword. Why should they not perish by the magazine

reoccupy these ter The Dervishes are slain or

The

war strengthened

England's grasp

upon

Egypt,

a connection which

was, as was that

for Britain. Apart from any connection with Egypt, Churchill pointed out, Britain "gained a vast territory which, although it would be easy to exaggerate its value, is nevertheless coveted by every Great Power in
with

India,

a source of strength

Europe."

Moreover,
exchange

there England
the
of

might

develop

"a trade

which

shall

manufactures of

the Temperate Zone for the the Nile to bear

products of

the Tropic

Cancer

[using] the north wind to drive civilisation and

the
stream of
wealth and

prosperity to the commerce to the Increased

of a savage

south and
sea."13

economic

benefits for

victor and

vanguished, the expulsion

the checking of rival powers, and the strengthening of a civilizing empire were the political causes which, in Churchill's War.14 It was view, justified the River particularly significant to

invader,

Churchill that this war was fought to promote the cause of civilization : as a result of it, he noted, "a state of society which had long become an anachronism an insult as well as a danger to a state of society which, "even if it were tolerable to those whom it comprised, had been destroyed.15 The was an annoyance to civilised
nations,"

civilisa

highest interest
tion. Concern
maintenance of

of

Britain

was

the defense

and promotion of civiliza

with

prosperity, security,

British

for Britain's in

return

civilization, including the were, in his view, the legitimate reasons to the Sudan. To what extent, then, do these
and

honor,

concerns provide

the foundation for the limited

empire

physical extent and

in its

governance of

its

subjects

limited both which Chur

chill

desired for Britain ?

Wealth
Churchill
convinced

and

Security
economic

was

that the

health her

of

twentieth-

century Britain depended on the were to try to live by ourselves

most

maintenance of

empire.

If "we

alone."

frightful

crash and obliteration

. .
.

he argued, "there would be the of life which has ever darkened

human records.
at

Now that

we

have

this level

of economic
conditions.

society, it

and

pastoral

We

must

got this immense population here is too late to go back to primitive be a strong, successful, scientific,

12

13
14

15

Churchill, The River War, Ibid., pp. 390-92. Ibid., p. 144. Ibid., pp. 204, 396.

2:395-96.

292

Interpretation
or starve.
and

commercial empire

There is The
markets

no

half-way

house for Britain Britain

goods. with

between
access

greatness

ruin."16

empire

provided

to

raw materials and

to

for her finished

"From

these

vast and

Churchill

observed of

the British

possessions

West Africa, "will be drawn the raw materials of many of our most important industries; to them will flow a continuous and Economic needs can give im broadening train of British

in East

products."17

petus

served,

to imperial ambitions, but Churchill thought that they also or could be made to serve, as a brake upon those ambitions,
and economics clash as
Pohcy"

for "imperialism
interest."18

often

as

honesty

and

self-

on the Indian frontier was The British "Forward bad economics, he thought: "Regarded from an economic standpoint, the trade of the frontier valleys, will never pay a shilling in the pound on He called for the military expenditure necessary to preserve
order."19

because honoured principle, 'Pay as you following he knew that the Indian empire could not finance further expansion. There should be no thought of a pohcy, he observed,
the "old
and
"machiavellian"

go'"

until

the Indian

granaries

and

treasury
of

were our

full.20

Only

military
should

measures

"necessary

"stand

against

for the safety deficits. A bankrupt

not

possessions"21

insure its premises, but it is

them. "22

struggling business may justified in ostentatiously enlarging

and
certain particular

However
empire.

effective

it

might

be in
as

circumstances,

Churchill knew that

A few lands
areas

economics could not

are as

barren

adequately restrain modern the Indian frontier, but in many

expanded

the

hkely

prospect of

industrialization,
encourages

commerce, and
as

abundant

natural

resources

imperial

expansion

benefit to both
which

ruler and ruled.

And however hmited the

and essential parts of

resources of

the Indian empire,

modern

technology

industrialization, both

of

Churchill
the

considered

to be

expand

wealth of a great empire

the imperial project, to the point where it seems that

wars.

resources are always available

was

for brief expansionary

Because
of

Churchill
of

aware, moreover, that

restrain

economic concerns often encourage rather

than

imperial

expansion.

the ineffectiveness that

empire should

economic restraints on
understood

expansion, he

stressed

be

primarily

as

the

outgrowth of a concern

for security and,

at a

higher

level, for

civilization.

16

Winston S. Churchill, "Whither

Britain?"

The Listener, Jan. 17, 1934,

of
1908

p. 126.

Winston S. Churchill, My African Journey, rpt. from orig. ed. (London: The Holland Press, Neville Spearman Ltd., 1962), p. 143.

17

Churchill, Malakand, p. 220. Ibid., p. 309. 20 Winston S. Churchill, "The Ethics Magazine, 17 (1898): 508, 507. 21 Churchill, Malakand, p. 270. 22 Churchill, "The Ethics of Frontier
19

18

of

Frontier

Policy,"

United Service

Policy,"

p. 506.

Churchill

on

Empire

and

Limits of Politics

293

In Churchill's view, it was the need for security from powerful and France and Spain that led England in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to augment her fleet, which, in turn, encouraged English traders and colonists to establish themselves in foreign lands.
expansionist

Desire for

greater

security
to

and

prosperity
their the

often caused
over

these
the

colonists

and commercial men

expand

control more

adjacent

territory. The larger their

domain,

frequently
Britain.23

need

foreign for

military security

seemed

to dictate the
route

absorption of new

territory,

including key
sidered

points on

the trade

back to

Repeatedly,

to be more secure: Churchill con French intrigues in the Sudan one of the legitimate reasons for undertaking the River War.24 In The Story of the Malakand Field Force, he shows that the original attacks of the savage tribes on the imperial forces was a consequence of the British "For ward which, in turn, was aimed at thwarting the designs of Russia on Afghanistan.25 "I am inchned to he observed to his mother, "that the rulers of India, ten years ago or a hundred years ago,
expansion resulted

from

attempts

the

need

to

counter

Pohcy,"

think,"

were as much
.
. .

the

sport of circumstances as

their successors

are

to-day.

The force

of circumstances on

the Indian frontier is beyond human

control."26

Five

months after

he

published

his

account of

the Malakand Field

and

Force, Churchill predicted that necessity would soon impel, justify, British absorption of Afghanistan:
...

thereby

We can neither retire nor for ever stand still. The whole weight of expert evidence is massed. It is too late to turn back. The weary march of civilization and empire lies onward. We must follow it till the Afghan border is reached and thence beyond, until ultimately India is divided from Russia only by a line of painted sign-pots, and by the fact that to trangress that line is
war.27

"We
noted

are not a an

young

people with a

inheritance,"

in

Admiralty
traffic

memorandum

scanty in December,
other

1913:

Churchill "We have

were

engrossed

to ourselves, in times

when

powerful

nations

paralysed

by

barbarism
of

wealth and

internal war, an immense share of the the world. We have got all we want in territory,
or

and our claim

to be left in the

unmolested enjoyment

of vast and

splendid

By

possessions, often seems less reasonable to others than to us."28 the first decade of this century Britain would have been willing to

rule alone

in moderation, but

other great

powers envied and

feared

23
chs.

Churchill, English-Speaking Peoples,

16,
19.

vol.

2, chs. 7-10;

vol.

3,

ch.

15;

vol.

4,

24 See Winston S. Churchill, "The Fashoda 167 (1898): 73-4325

Incident,"

North American

Review,

Churchill, Malakand, Ibid., p. 310, quoted in Churchill, Companion Volume I, pt. 2, p. 807. p. 508. Churchill, "The Ethics of Frontier 28 Quoted in Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis, 4 vols. (London: Thornton Butterworth Ltd., 1923-29), 1:176.
p. 305. 26 27
Policy,"

294
the British
and

Interpretation

desired supremacy themselves.29 The Germans, in particular, he said, asked whether England was to "enjoy the domin whether Germany was to be ance of the world and of the The Germans said, "We are late, but we denied its "place in the are going to have our share. Lay a place at the table for the German
oceans," sun."

empire

...

or

...

we will

thrust

you

from

your seats and carve

the

joint

ourselves!"30

The empire, then,

not resist

could not rest and

the

encroachments of other of war and

the likelihood
watch

enjoy its plenitude. If it did Great Powers, thereby increasing further expansion, it could only sit back and

decline and, in time, lose its possessions. Because of the inevitable threats to its security, a defensive, satisfied empire

its

prestige

becomes practically indistinguishable from a deliberately expansive, aggressive empire. The compulsion of circumstances seems to impel
empire

to

a course of

unending
any
the

and unlimited expansion.

Churchill did
national

not see

acceptable

expansion

and

requirements

way to break the link between of military security. He

restraint could be found in a strict view of military but he was aware that this would at best retard, not pre vent, expansion. To attempt to find security by remaining small and

thought

some

necessity,31

weak, a
neuvers

situation which would require a

diplomacy
recoil,"32

of shifts and ma was not an option

from "which

pride and virtue alike

available to Britain. It was, in any case, undesirable, in Churchill's view, because it denied a vigorous people the possibihty of attaining that level of human excellence reached only by the exercise of de

manding
greatness

political
with

tasks. A
and

vigorous people predominance:

tend,
their

moreover, to
professed

equate

power

need

for

security
this

often masks a

strong desire for

nation needs a

power.33

In

order

to

resist

desire,

vigorous

higher

political

motivation.

Churchill argued that the promotion of higher and more moderate purpose. In his
thought he had found
a mean

civilization ought notion of

to be this

between jingoism

and

civilizing empire, he isolationism.

Civilizing
Churchill's defense
that
potentials of

Empire is
grounded on

civilizing

empire

his

assumption

all men are under a sovereign obligation

to

realize not

for

moral

and

political

virtue.

He did

their varying think it was

29
30

Churchill, English-Speaking Peoples, 4:386, 373. Churchill, Great Contemporaries, pp. 22-23.
"One force only can the force of

31

justify

the Indian Government in

unproductive ex

necessity"

penditure:

(Churchill, "The Ethics

and

of

Frontier
2 vols.

Policy,"

P- 55)32 Winston

S. Churchill, Marlborough: His Life George Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1958), 1:72. 33 See Churchill, The River War, 1:19-20.

Times,

(London:

Churchill
sufficient
enough

on

Empire

and

Limits of Politics

295

to do

well or

to be

satisfied with results which are good

to

justify

the

means used

to

attain

them: perfection, he be
living,"

heved,

must remain asked

the human
strive

ideal.34

"What is the
? How

use of

Churchill
ourselves

his

audience

during

a speech at
.
. .

Kinnaird in October,
else can we put

1908, "if it be

not

to

for

noble causes

in harmonious relation with the great verities and consola tions of the infinite and the eternal?"35 If the reader of The River War should inquire "to what end the negroes should labour that they may

improve; why they should not remain contended if degraded; and wherefore they should be made to toil to better things up so painful a I confess I cannot answer him. If, however, he proves that there road,
is
no such obhgation
suicide."36

he

will

have

made out a

very

good case

for

uni

versal

But why do the

to fulfill their
civilization cannot

uncivilized need

the

external assistance of empire recognized

"obligation"

to improve? Churchill
or

that

be simply

directly
out of

bestowed

by

one people on

another.

Men

must

some peoples can

toil up a raise themselves

their

"painful"

road,

and with

time

and

luck

barbarism, but
for

the ignorance

of

the

uncivilized and

natural preference

unrestrained

freedom
on

over

the rigors

of self-improvement often prevents

them from

becoming
the
of

civilized

through their
arrest

own

efforts.37

Churchill found that

the
people and

Indian frontier "the

central control under

war-hke nature of

their hatred

the further

progress of development."38

Even

auspicious circumstances in the Sudan, guidance imperial power was necessary to assure the improvement of the uncivilized: "The Arabs of the Soudan were not wholly irreclaimable, and they may under happier circumstances and with tolerant guidance develop into a vigorous and law-abiding community."39 Churchill did not exclude the possibihty that "in the passage of years the Arabs

the relatively

from

an

might of

indeed have

worked out

their

own

salvation,

as

have the

nations
. . .

Europe. The army, become effete,

polity.

would wither and

disappear.

wise ruler might arise who should establish a more equitable and

progressive
true."40

The

natural

course

of

development is long, but

neces

However,

the time

required and

the likelihood that the

favorable circumstances would not come about, or would be interrupted if it did, led him to reject it as a viable alternative
sary
conjunction of

to imperial

rule.

lize himself

requires

The overriding importance of man's obligation to civi that he submit, when it is available, to the more

rapid and assured

agency

of

imperial

rule.

34 35

Ibid.,

2:189.
and

Quoted in Winston S. Churchill, Liberalism Hodder and Stoughton, 1909), p. 210. 86 Churchill, The River War, 2:398-99.
37 88 39 40

the Social Problem (London

Ibid., p. 398; ibid., 1:18-19, 190. Churchill, Malakand, pp. 6-7. Churchill, The River War, 2 ^94. Ibid., 1:113.

296

Interpretation
civilized rule

The

they

are not

hmited
to its

despotically over the by the need to obtain

"Intrinsic
possessions"42

uncivilized,41

but

although

the formal

consent of

their
of a
of

subjects,

they
race

are restrained.

merit

is the only title

rule of

dominant
superior

because only the

effect

those

merit can

have
on

view of vided

the

proper scope of

civilizing the political

on

the

ruled.

Churchill's

sphere

in

a subject nation pro

He thought that the im perial government ought to play a very minimal role in native edu he was not enthusiastic about missionary activity; and he thought that the imperial government should abstain from involve
further limits
the imperial
power.
cation;43

ment
not

in

rehgious matters and should barbaric.44

tolerate

all religions which were

simply Given these

hmits, how

was

the

empire

to

promote

civilization? and

Churchill thought that

since most men

find it

"painful"

to toil

do

not have a strong inchnation to self-improvement, they require some This incentive is found in man's needs immediate incentive to
work.45

for security, food, and minimal comfort, needs which usually cannot be met unless he exerts himself. The willingness of man to labor, and thereby to do that which is a precondition for his improvement, depends
on

the to

scale and meet

intensity
needs.

of resources

those

of his needs and on the availability Man is in a condition conducive to

his improvement when he is dissatisfied, when he wants things he does not have. Natural scarcity forces men to toil, but scarcity also hmits
improvement because the
cultivate
condition resources are not available

to

enable man

to

his higher faculties. Empire improves

upon

this

natural
a

by
to

expanding

man's

desires

and

by

providing

(assuming

wilhngness

toil)

the

means

to satisfy these "more

numerous wants of and

civilization."46

Promotion

of economic

development
and

commerce,

along
were

with

the

estabhshment of

law,

order,

the tools

which

Churchill thought
that to
embrace

empire

fair administration, should use to civilize its

the
uncivilized was

subjects.

His

conviction willingness

empire would elevate

based

on

his

the

busy,
able

practical, matter-of-fact,
unless

modern

capital

economically projects such as dams

sound."47

"these nothing is desir Scientific technology and large

spirit and practices of
where

times,

and

railways48

are

indispensable to the
Introduction (London:

41 Winston S. Churchill, India: Speeches Thornton Butterworth Ltd., 1931), p. 116. 42

and

an

Churchill, Malakand, p. 298. See Churchill, The River War, 2: 402-3; Churchill, Malakand, p. 314. See Churchill, The River War, 2 :2i4-i5, 401-2 ; Churchill, English-Speaking Peoples, 4: 80-81, 88, 90. 45 Churchill, The River War, 2:398. 46 Ibid., 2:398-99. 47 Churchill, Malakand, p. 122.
43
44

48 Churchill's main concern in the final chapter of My African Journey is He concluded The indicated by its title, "The Victoria and Albert River War by "touching on [for seven pages] the tremendous schemes of irriga (2:406). These were the schemes which captured tion which lie in the Churchill's imagination and on which he set great store for the future of the empire in Africa.
Railway."
future"

Churchill
establishment and

on

Empire

and

Limits of Politics

297
power.49

governing of the empire of a great civilizing Empire would not be just if it did not benefit the ruled, but Church ill's commitment to empire derived mainly from his view that imperial rule elevates the civilized ruler. He did not accept the view that the uncivilized have a universal right to assistance from the civil

ized,

or

that to

civilized men and nations should aid

be

guided

by

a moral

obligation

the less developed. The

ascent

from barbarism to full from the depths

civilization of narrow

did not, in his view,

entail a movement

self-seeking to the peaks of selfless altruism: rather, he thought that a proper view of morality was closer to the one extreme, calculation in one's own interest, than to the other philanthropic altru ism. A
while

sound

morality takes
the
men

account of

selfishness,
also

of

"primary
to

desire

of man

the enduring character of human to seek his own benefit,"50 themselves from injustice
and

obliging

restrain

unprincipled

self-seeking :
for
a man's

Reasonable
affectation

care

interest is

neither a public nor a private vice.

to

pretend

that

statesmen and soldiers who

own

have

gained
of

It is fame in
self-

history
interest
are

have been indifferent to their

or

advancement, incapable

resenting
of

injuries,

guided

in their

public

action

only

by

altruism.

It is

when

outweighs all other

interests in

a man's

soul, that the censures

history
rests

rightly

applied.

The
not on

moral

foundation

of

empire, and thus also of civilization,

the distinction between

duty

and

interests
or

or

rights, but on the

distinction between narrow, pursuit of one's own interest

civilized

"slavish,"

or excessive self-interest and

the

broadly

nobly
wants

conceived.51

The

man, the
and

man of noble

self-regard,
of

the best things for to be the things is that he benefits

himself,
others

most worth

he considers moral and having. The consequence

absence of

political virtue

his

struggle

who, in the

they
"that

receive.

"It is

admitted,"

his efforts, have no claim to the benefits Churchill noted of certain traitors,

they deserve
does
not

to be

shot.

The

question

is not, however,
or

what suits

them, but
nations

what suits

us."52

The

moral obligation of civilized men and

flow down, to the uncivilized,

to
was

across, to their fellow

men, but up, to fully civilized man For Churchill, human excellence
excellence, that

civilization.

largely

equivalent

to

political

is,

to the

moral and political virtues needed

to

govern

the

political community.

The

most

highly

praised men

in his

essays on

great contemporaries spent years

in

positions of political

and, secondari
posses-

ly, military leadership. Their excellence resided above all in their

49 Great Britain, Parliament, Parliamentary Debates, 4th ser., (Mar. 13-Mar. 27, 1907), col. 534. 50 Winston S. Churchill, "Mr. Wells and Bolshevism: A Express, Dec. 5, 1920, p. 1.
51 52

vol.

171

Reply,"

Sunday

Churchill, Marlborough,

1:322.
Rebels,"

Winston S. Churchill, "Treatment of Morning Post, Mar. 31, 1900, The Listener, May 5, p. 5. See also Churchill, "Freedom & Progress for 1937. P- 887.
All,"

298

Interpretation
the
qualities needed
what enabled

sion of

for

statesmanship.

High

public office

was,

conversely,

them to

develop

their

potential.

Man develops
and a
or mode call

his intelligence high level

rately.

by

reasoning, his

rhetorical powers

by

speaking,

of moral virtue
virtues can

Moral

by acting justly, courageously, be developed only in situations which

their

them

or give

them

scope : men need a stage on which

gifts can

for be

developed
there
no can

and displayed.53 no

Without the
of

need

to

give someone

his due

be

development

justice;

without a substantial

danger,
India,

courage;
a

without pohtical

responsibilities,

no prudence. a subaltern

letter to his mother, written when he was Churchill expressed his eagerness to find a more

In

in

demanding

position,

one

to

Somewhat later, on his way up the Nile Khartoum, he wrote that he would come back "the wiser and strong

big

enough

"to hold

me."

er"

for the

experience and

then think

of

"wider

spheres"

of action.

Poh

The first time that he stood for Parlia ment from Oldham (in 1899) he observed: "At each meeting I am con and facilities of speech and it is in this that scious of growing powers
tical life
was

that

wider sphere.

I shall find my
tunate."54

consolation should went

the

result

be

as

is

probable

unfor

to politics, activities which he ranked according to the comprehensiveness of the demands they made
sport war reflections on his own hfe he indicates that ruling a is the culmination of the search which men must undertake to find scope for, and thereby to develop, their powers. Granting that the seeking and exercise of pohtical responsibihties is required to attain individual excellence, why, particularly in a demo upon

Churchill

from

to

him. In his
empire

civilizing

cratic

regime

which

provides

participation,
widespread

must a nation

encouragement

to

virtue?

numerous opportunities for pohtical be imperial in order to provide the fullest Churchill thought that, because of its
can provide a

responsibihties

for governing others, it

than
modern

greater number of more authoritative posts

a non-imperial nation
nation
which

and, in particular, more than a

democratic

has

relatively weak administration and tends to elevate private over public affairs. To have confined the British at home would have been to stifle their unusual potential for excellence, but within the broader em
a

pire
race

"the

peculiar gifts

for

administration and

high

civic virtue of our

may find a healthy and honourable Because of the greater authority of the imperial
scope."55

government

in its
work

possessions and
of

the inevitable

shortage of

trained

men

to do the

governing,
53
54

each

imperial

officer and

administrator,

and

particularly

55

Churchill, English-Speaking Peoples, 3:149. Churchill, Companion Volume I, pt. 2, pp. 813, Churchill, My African Journey, p. 143. In an

969, 1036.
address

to the

electors of

Woodstock in 1874, Lord Randolph Churchill said, "The Colonial Empire of Great Britain, offering as it does a field of development for the talent, energy and labour of the sons of our overburdened island, will continually demand the attention of our (Winston S. Churchill, Lord Randolph Churchill, 2 vols. [New York: The Macmillan Co., 1906], 1 :528).
Legislature"

Churchill
the
younger

on

Empire

and

Limits of Politics

299

greater responsibilities than they would have in home. Reflecting on his trip through East Africa, Churchill noted, "the African protectorates now administered by the Colonial Office afford rare scope for the abilities of earnest and intelli gent youth. A man of twenty-five may easily find himself ruling a large tract of country and a numerous He found, for instance,

men, had

similar pursuits at

population."

that
two young white officers a civilian and a soldier preside from this centre of authority [the office of the District Commissioner], far from the telegraph, over the
peace and order of an area as

large

as an

English county,

and regulate

the

thousand natives, who have never The previously known or acknowledged any law but violence or terror. Government is too newly established to have developed the highly centralized
conduct and of some seventy-five
. . .

fortunes

closely knit perhaps too closely knit hierarchy and control of the Indian It is far too poor to afford a complete Administration. The District Commissioner must judge for himself and be judged upon his actions. Very often the officer is not a District Commissioner at all, but a junior acting in his stead, sometimes for a year or more. To him there come day by day the natives of the district with all their troubles, disputes, and intrigues. Their growing appre ciation of the impartial justice of the tribunal leads them increasingly to carry all sorts of cases to the District Commissioner's Court. When they are ill they
and
system.
. . .

Disease and accident have to be combated with Courts of justice and forms of legality must be maintained without lawyers. Taxes have to be kept with only a shadow of force. All these great opportunities of high service, and many others, are often and daily placed on the whole with admirable within the reach of men in their twenties
come and ask

for

medicine.

out professional skill.

results.56

had greater power than the colonel of an Service in a native army offered far more early opportunities, Churchill noted, than did service in the regular British army: "The subaltern almost immediately after joining finds himself in of the The young white officers command of two companies Native Army are more resourceful and more intelhgent, better fitted Re to lead men in war, than their comrades in the British army.
In Egypt, English
squadron officers
regiment.57
....

...

sponsibility has made the difference. force is there in the

world?"58

What

greater

educating

At the

peak of affairs

Cromer,
His

who

in each possession was the in 1899 had been in Egypt for almost
indefinite; he
minute

equivalent of

Lord

sixteen years :

status was

might

word was

law.

Working

through
and

handful
care

be nothing; he is in fact everything. His Cromer of brilliant Lieutenants

. . .

controlled

with

administration

had

come

and

every department of the Egyptian and every aspect of policy. British and Egyptian Governments gone; he had seen the Soudan lost and reconquered. He had
patient

Ibid., pp. 23-25. Churchill, The River War, 1 ^09. See also ibid., 2 :40i ; Churchill, Companion Volume I, pt. 2, p. 732; and letter to the Morning Post, Sept. 24, 1898, p. 6. 58 Winston S. Pall Mall Magazine, January, Churchill, "The British
57
Officer,"

56

1901, p. 71.

300

Interpretation
tight hold
upon

maintained a movement of

the

purse

string

and a

deft

control of

the

whole

Egyptian

politics.59

In
with of

addition

to

increasing the opportunities for citizens to fill positions

and political

important military
empire augments of

responsibilities, the acquisition

an

the

scope of nation.

the

major offices

in the home
a

government

the imperial

Churchill held that there is

direct
which

relation and

between the
the

goodness or excellence of political and moral

virtues

their

magnitude: grandest

exists on

name
rather

the

periodical

she was

praiseworthy virtue is that When he advised his mother to establishing the "Imperial
the
most
scale.
Magazine,"

than the "Anglo

of excellence
pint."60

Saxon,"

of

idea

about as

it

an

he told her that there was "a sort Imperial pint is bigger than an
a

ordinary
crime,"61

Just

"magnitude lends

certain

grandeur

to

it

adds grandeur and

equal,

much greater powers are

five

million

than

to

govern

nobility to virtue. Other things being called forth to govern properly seventyseventy-five thousand. The highest
who

possibilities

for statesmanship exist for those the foremost stations in the greatest
nation
with

"hold

with

honour
of a station.

storms."62

Clearly,
holds

the head
a

world-wide

imperial
the

possessions

such

Only at the head of an extensive empire can the truly great-souled man,
the "surpreme
combination of

King- Warrior-Statesman,"63

have

his day.

did more, however, than provide scope for de the British nation. By stressing the importance of the civic virtues, it helped to make a capacity for them, and an eager ness to develop them, a kind of second nature of the British. In an un published short story written in 1898 (which contrasted the struggles of the poor in an East End slum to deal with an increase in the price of The British
empire
velopment of

the

gifts of

bread
the
of

with

the

attempt of an owner of a great

American trust to
of

corner

wheat

market) Churchill indicated the

which a

significance

the kinds
and

"outlets"

community

provides

for those

of

talent

ambition:64

was not a character that turned to the pursuit of pleasure. All the energy his vigorous father had descended to him. Unformulated ambitions impelled him to work. No labourer in his factories worked harder than did

His

of

"sweated"

this
or

master of millions.

In

other older service of

lands he
nation.

might

talents he

possessed

to the

the

He

might

have devoted the great have been a general

millionaire army.
.

he

might

have been

a statesman.
.
. .

But the American

has
. .

no such

outlets

for his

ambitions.

He

cannot condescend

to the

will such colossi mingle

in

public

life.

...

So there had been only

one

Still less outlet for

59 Winston S. Churchill, A Roving Commission: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941), p. 216. 60

61 62

My Early

Life (New York:

63
64

The River War, 1:29. Great Contemporaries, p. 263. The World Crisis, 3, pt. 2, p. 405. Quoted in Churchill, Companion Volume I, pt. 2,

Churchill, Churchill, Churchill, Churchill,

Churchill,

1:435.

pp. 917-18.

Churchill
his tremendous
energies

on

Empire

and

Limits of Politics

301

money

making.

And to money making he turned

with

unflagging assiduity

and unparalleled success.

Thus

preordained or

direction is human type in satisfy the nation. By requiring that certain tasks be done, empire calls forth certain virtues and, thereby, a specific kind of human being. The possession of an empire inclines a nation to admire a certain kind of man ; an empire directs, in the broadest sense, the development of its ruling nation. In the peroration of a speech given on October 31, 1898, Churchill called for "young men who do not mind danger [and] older and perhaps wiser men who do not fear responsibility. The diffi
empire
more

does

than

develop

potential

whose

aspirations of

the

predominant

culties and emergencies with which us

the Empire is
and

confronted will give

will

these

men

in

plentiful abundance calls

they

in their turn

help

to

preserve empire

the very Empire that

the

because it
alike

produced men
of war and

Churchill loved like Sir Bindon Blood: "Thirtythem

forth."65

seven years of

soldiering,

have
of

steeled

muscle

in many lands, of sport of every kind, nerve. Sir Bindon Blood is one
...

that type

of soldiers and
of an

administrators,
a

which

the

responsibilities

and

dangers

Empire produce,
the
their

type,

which

has

not

been,
of

possessed and

by any

nation except

British,

since

the days

perhaps, the Senate

world."66

the Roman to

people sent

proconsuls

to

all parts of

the

In addition to the
abroad

empire's

protect and

benefits to those relatively few who went govern it or who held high office in the imperial
citizens who remained at

government, Churchill thought that the

were

fortunate to be

part of an

imperial

nation.

The

empire

home increased

their security, improved their economic well-being, and allowed the poor to emigrate to a British colony in which they could improve their
situation.

The

self-respect of

the

common man was

recognition

that he the

was a citizen of a nation

that

ruled

increased by his "in majesty and

and

tranquihty by
piest regions of
of

merit as well as
world."67

by

strength over

the fairest

hap

His "pride in the broad

the
span of

crimson stretches

the map
and

of

the

globe which marked

the British
need

Empire"68

meaning to his for courage, perseverance, and restraint required by the nation's imperial position. Finally, since its continued existence required a high degree of moral and civic virtue from its foremost citizens, the empire gave its stamp of
patriotism and gave a was

fortified his

larger,
by'

more political general

life,

he

further

civilized

the

men and to the virtues they embodied. It thereby for the general citizenry a fuller view of human excellence than would have otherwise survived in a modern, democratic nation. If the virtue of the pre-eminent statesman is the highest virtue if the life dedicated to political excellence is the achievable by man approval

to these

kept

alive

65 66

67
68

Quoted in Churchill, Churchill, 1:422-23. Churchill, Malakand, p. 80. Quoted in Churchill, Churchill, 1:422-23. Churchill, Liberalism and the Social Problem,

p. 97.

302

Interpretation
and

best hfe
which

if the

most complete virtue

is that

which results

from

and makes possible action on

is imperial

can

make

scale, then only a nation the highest claim to man's allegiance.

the

grandest

Ruling imperially is the highest human activity because, while bene fiting the ruled, it requires the fullest range of virtues exercised on the
grandest scale.

Imperial
soul.

rule

is

at

the

peak of

the

natural
of

hierarchy

of

human
within

activities which reflects

the

natural

the human

The

problem of

ordering establishing the limits

the faculties
of em

pire

is, in principle, identical to the problem of establishing the hmits of pohtics, for the imperial project is the pohtical project par excellence.

The Limits of Politics Is civilizing

empire also

hmited

and moderate empire

political

? As

a means or

instrumentality for developing moral and hmited by the end it serves : dishonorable
forbidden,
purpose,
a
and virtuous actions are

virtue,

empire

is

and excessive of

actions are

demanded
principle

it. To be true to its justly. The

standard
extent of

of civilization
perial

civilizing does not,

empire must

treat its

subjects

however,
pohtical virtue

in

limit the

im
and

expansion.

Churchill's two

crucial

assumptions

that the hfe

dedicated to cultivating
that the
on most complete

excellence

is the highest hfe

is that

which makes possible actions expansion without

the

grandest scale

encourage

imperial

hmit.

In practice, civilizing empire might be limited in extent by the power of rival nations, the lack of uncivilized peoples not already subject to imperial rule, or the estabhshment of world empire. Churchill seems to have been aware, however, of the need to find some other principle by
which

the

expansive

thrust imphcit in his

view of

the

nature and re

quirements of civilization could

The civihzing
cratic

empire which

be controlled. Churchill defended

was also a

"demo

"Imperial Democracy."69 Empire"; Churchill saw that the democratic principles of the imperial regime
the British
regime was an exercised a restraint on

expansion, for in

an

imperial

democracy

the

democratic
to
guide accepted
which

view of

the

relation

between the
the

public and

the private tends

the imperial the

government abroad as well as at

home. Churchill
public sphere

empire's view of
widespread
ruled,70

narrow scope of

the

kept it from
the

and religion of
prove

the well-being of to diverting the nation's

69

involvement in the morals, manners, and the democratic commitment to im the lower classes at home increased resistance
energies and resources

to foreign

projects.71

mentary
70

403;
71

Churchill, Malakand, p. 41; Churchill, The River War, 1:150, or Parlia Debates, 4th ser., vol. 142 (Mar. i-Mar. 14, 1905), col. 812. Churchill, Malakand, p. 314; Churchill, The River War, 2:214-15, Churchill, English-Speaking Peoples, 4:80-81, 88, 90. Churchill, Companion Volume II, pt. 1, pp. 104-5, 182; Churchill, Churchill,

399-

2:32.

Churchill
Churchill
was

on

Empire

and

Limits of Politics

303

aware

salutary in the connection

restraint on

a democratic regime could exert some but he seems to have been more interested empire, between civilizing empire and a healthy democracy.

that

A democratic and civilizing empire combines the democratic commit ment to freedom and the imperial dedication to civilization or virtue. It does this
principle

by

first estabhshing the supremacy

of

the democratic

then allowing for at least one institution within the democratic regime, the institution of empire, which is guided by a
and

different view of man and of the purpose of the political order. Empire is the essentially undemocratic means by which democracy, while retaining its foundation in the equal rights of all, is pushed toward a concern for virtue. Empire is the means for elevating or giving a higher
tone to democracy.

The instability of this marriage of opposites was brought home with force to Churchill during his battle in the 1930's to prevent a devolution of power in India.72 Once they fully accepted democratic principles, both rulers and ruled became convinced that civilizing
great empire was

basically

unjust :

the democratic
not

principles of empire.

freedom

undermined

the higher justification for to be the

equality and Modern mass

opponent of

democracy

was revealed

moderator

but the

civilizing not be found in the contradictory principles of democratic freedom and equahty but, as Churchill had seen many years earher, in an awareness
the limits of all pohtical endeavors. In his political writings, Churchill repeatedly teaches the advisabil ity, in an imperfect world, of moderating all aspirations and expecta Pohtical affairs are governed by a "mys tions for pohtical terious law which perhaps in larger interests limits human achievement, The earth and bars or saves the world from clear-cut
of
reform.73 solutions."74

empire.

It

was clear

that the limits for civilizing

empire could

The best "seems fatal to the noble aspirations of its peoples. efforts of men, however glorious their early results, have dismal end ings; like plants which shoot and bud and put forth beautiful flowers,
. . .

and

then

grow rank and coarse and are withered

by

the

winter."75

give way In war, for instance, "high comradeship and glorious Even the greatest victory leads and disappointment."77 inevitably to "weakness, discontent, faction and

daring"

to "disillusion

prostration."76

Churchill took
that
What
might

particular care

to depreciate any

political utopianism

be

associated with

the

aspiration

for

empire :
and and

enterprise

that

an enlightened

more profitable

than the

reclamation

community may attempt is more noble from barbarism of fertile regions

72 73 74
75

See Churchill, India. Churchill, Companion Volume II,

pt.

1,

p. 229.

76
77

Churchill, Marlborough, 2:191. Churchill, The River War, 1 :57-58. Churchill, The World Crisis, 2:18.

Ibid.,

4:10.

304
large
populations

Interpretation
? To
give peace

all was violence,

to

strike

the

chains off

to warring tribes, to administer justice where the slave, to draw the richness from the

soil, to

plant

the

earliest seeds of commerce and

learning
effort

what more act

ideal

or more valuable reward can

inspire human

? The

beautiful is virtuous, the

exercise

invigorating,

and

the

result often

extremely

profitable.

The

noble

imperial
not

aspiration

is not, however,

fully realizable and more

often

than

is

corrupted

beyond

recognition :

As the mind turns from the wonderful cloudland of aspiration to the ugly scaffolding of attempt and achievement, a succession of opposite ideas arise. Industrious races are displayed stinted and starved for the sake of an expensive Imperialism which they can only enjoy, if they are well fed. Wild peoples, ignorant of their barbarism, callous of suffering, careless of life but tenacious of

liberty,

are seen

to

resist with

fury

the

philanthropic

invaders,

and

to

perish

in

The inevitable gap between conquest and dominion becomes filled with the figures of the greedy trader, the And inopportune missionary, the ambitious soldier, and the lying speculator. as the eye of thought rests on these sinister features, it hardly seems possible for
thousands before

they are convinced of their mistake.

us

to believe that any fair

when

prospect

is

approached

by

so

foul

path.78

And

on

occasion

nation

such

as

the British did

avoid

this

degrading corruption of its aspirations, its accomplishments were inevitably transitory. It was precisely its success which made Churchill
fear for the future
stroyed

of

the empire, for

all great empires

had been de
the
British.79
power

by it,

and none

had

enjoyed such stresses

triumphs

as

In The River War Churchill

modern scientific

the overwhelming
of

that

civihzing technology Modern civilizing empire depends on the conquest of nature by scien had it not been for science, the civilization of modern tific technology
puts at
:81

the disposal

empire.80

Europe might have fallen to the uncivilized, like that In

the
modern civilization

of ancient Rome.82

there is

a coincidence of superior power and

superior

virtue; it is a

civilization

particularly fit to

make

its way in

world. acknowledges civilization's

Churchill but he is
project and

debt to

scientific

technology,

careful

to

express reservations about

the

whole scientific

to

caution against

the

sense of

human

omnipotence which
suggests

accompanies

the

successful conquest of nature. and

He

the

need

to

arrest

the development the

direct the

employment of snatched

"the

unex

pected powers which

science of man

has

from is

nature."83

Moreover, despite its

In the early
political and with

aspirations,

scientific civilization

ephemeral.

chapters of

The River

War, Churchill
of

compares mutable
and

human

affairs with

unchanging nature,

the Nile. He

contrasts

the "arrogance

science"

which seeks

particularly to

Churchill, The River War, 1:18-19. Ibid., 2 :237. 80 Ibid., 1:235-36; 2:114-15, 118-19, 121, 189, 197, Churchill, My African Journey, pp. 40, 140-41, 144. 81 Churchill, My African Journey, pp. 70, in. 82 Churchill, The River War, 2:250. 83 Ibid., 1 :2c
79

78

375,

405-12.

See

also

Churchill
conquer

on

Empire

and

Limits of Politics
which waters":
alike

305

the Nile

with

the

"feeling

reverence"

of mystic

he

as

sociates with

drinking
. . .

these "soft

yet

fateful
and

Emir borne

and

Dervish,

officer and

soldier, friend

foe, kneel

to this
age.

god of

It has the stately barges of the Pharaohs and the unpreten tious sternwheel steamers of Cook. Kingdoms and dominations have risen and fallen by its banks. Religious sects have sprung into life, gained strength in
ancient

Egypt.

The

great river

has befriended

all races and

every

with

impartial

smile

adversity, triumphed over opposition, and relapsed

existence.

The knowledge

shape and structure of

unchanged.84

into the obscurity of non has grown, withered, and revived. The very the human form may have altered, but the Nile remains
of men

Observing
battle in

the battlefield

at

Omdurman

several

days
of

after

the

great

which of

the Dervish

empire was

destroyed, Churchill concluded

that

that the fate

the fallen Dervishes

presaged

their

conquerors :

in their strength, in the justice of their cause, in the support They of their religion. Now only the heaps of corruption in the plain, and the fugitives dispersed and scattered in the wilderness, remained. The terrible machinery of scientific war had done its work. The Dervish host was scattered and destroyed.
were confident

Their end,
at

however, only

anticipates

that

of

the

victors

; for

science, as science laughs at valour,

combatants
away.85

will

in due

course

Time, which laughs contemptuously brush

both

The

power

and

beauty
wishes

of

reflect on

the insignificance

of

man, but

the unchanging Nile led Churchill to man resists the notion that he
world.
when

is unimportant; he
Political
slipped great men

to live beyond his lifetime in this the

trapdoor,"

in memory, from beneath their feet hke a

"long for

a refuge

world shall

have
so

through deeds

as

to be

remembered

by

all

subsequent

generations.

In The
men

River War Churchill directly and nations obtain for their

rejects

the

view

that the glory that

political

deeds

can somehow

be eternal,

suggesting that even the greatest accomplishments are soon forgotten, for the few men who seek glory for themselves tend to concentrate on the present, and most men are indifferent to greatness, particularly
to the
The
greatness which existed

in

other

times :

past

in

relation

to the

pected
attract

that
their

when others

attention.

present is but a fleeting moment ; nor is it to be ex occupy the world, the events I have chronicled will Each generation exults in the immediate possession of

life,

and regards with

indifference, scarcely tinged by

are no more.

pride or

pity, the records

and monuments of

those that

The

greatest events of

history

are

insignificant beside the bill of fare. The greatest men that ever lived serve to pass an idle hour. The tremendous crash of the Roman Empire is scarcely heard outside the schools and colleges. The past is insulted as much by what is re
membered as

by what is altogether
the

forgotten.88

Through his depreciation

observations

of

the

possibilities

for

eternal

glory, his

on

transitory

and

imperfect

nature of all political

84

85
86

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

pp.

10, 8-9.

2:226.

1:9, 11.

306

Interpretation
his failure to
of

arrangements, and
empire and

stress a connection

the

pursuit

glory, Churchill

sought

between civihzing to moderate the

aspiration

for

greatness which of political

is the

ultimate cause of such an empire. of a more

effect.

His depreciation
natural order

things in the light

same

enduring
question

was

intended to have the

as

The

remains,

however,
However

to

what

kind

of

life

should

be
to

pursued

by

the

best

men.

flawed,

if

political accomplishments are men ought

the highest

achievements open

to man, the best

empire can

and will commit

themselves wholeheartedly to
moderate
and

grand political projects.

It

seems

that

limited

be

reconciled with a commitment

to human

excellence or

to

civilization of

is

not seen as of

the highest form

only if pohtical and moral virtue human attainment. There must be a

political of

way

grounds

life equal or superior to the for limiting the expansion

sufficiently detached

life if there

are

to be

solid

the

political

community

and

for

taking

attitude

toward

all political endeavors.

In his early and only novel, Savrola, and later in his essay on painting, Churchill explicitly calls into question the superiority of political accomplishments and suggests, thereby, the highest grounds for establishing the hmits of empire. Savrola was the leader of a movement to
the
republic of overthrow as a

the dictator

of

Laurania. Churchill describes him

His temperament
those "whose
contentment was

"public

man"

driven know

by

ambition.

"vehement, high
that

and

daring"; he
rest

was one of

only in action,

find their only action. In contrast to

in the

peace."87

they danger, and in confusion Savrola was not, however, simply a man of his friend Moret, the man of action incarnate,
spirits are so wrought

only in

whose exaggerated and passionate nature caused

...

him to live "always "counterpoise of healthy cyni His stoical philosophy was the basis for his detachment: he had not fixed his "thoughts on the struggles and hopes of the And there was a private side to Savrola's life : Churchill described his room as being "the chamber of a philosopher, but of no frigid, academic
superlative,"

Savrola had

cism."

world."88

recluse; it
all

was

the

chamber of a appraised
roof of

earthly pleasures,
them."

man, a human man, who appreciated them at their worth, enjoyed, and
an

despised
which

On the
under

his house he had for the

of

"he loved to
came

watch

the

stars

sake of
spell

their

observatory from He
ex

myste

frequently
ercises on

"the

power

the
a

that stargazing
of

curious,

inquiring

humanity,"

dream

world more

beautiful,
was

appreciate a such
a

boundless life devoted to the search for beauty

a world of

possibilities."

"another world, a He could

that
one:

and even saw

life

more perfect

than his

own

active

"To hve in
could

dreamy
the
87

quiet and philosophic calm

in

some

beautiful garden, far from

art and

noise of men and with

every diversion that

new ed.

intellect

Winston S.
pp. 30-32.

Churchill, Savrola,
62,
125.

(New

York:

Random House,

1956),
88

Ibid.,

pp.

125,

Churchill
suggest, was, he
able

on

Empire

and

Limits of Politics
picture."

307
agree one

felt,

a more agreeable
a

But, however

the alternative,

life

of action

was, he

could ever live."89

thought, the "only

with politic.

he

Savrola becomes
made on

more and more

dissatisfied

"unsatisfactory; something was lacking. When

the
scores
of

all

His life is deductions had been

or

ambition,

duty,

excitement,

fame,

there

What was the good of it His disillusionment with politics increased when he saw that he, and the goals of moderation and justice which he represented, were going to be shunted aside by the revolutionary party as soon as he was no longer necessary for their victory. He had saved the people of
remained an unabsorbed residuum of emptiness.
all?"

from
save

Laurania from tyranny, but he found it impossible to "save them Pohtics lost its excitement and charm; power had
themselves."

small attraction

all

that

remained was

the

duty to do what he could t o

Savrola's

the

revolution.
a second and perhaps more powerful source of was

However,
In the

disillusionment
course of

his love for Lucille, the wife of the slain dictator. his passion his ambition faded: "The object for which

he had toiled
comparative

so

long

was now

nearly
say,

attained and

it

seemed of

little
and

worth,

that is

to

beside

Lucille."

Savrola

Lucille fled from Laurania, and we are left to wonder whether there was not some connection between his love for Lucille and his love for the pleasures of his Savrola observatory and for eternal beauty.
"Honour,"

tells

Lucille, "has
are

no

true

foundation,
with

no

ultra-human sanction.
places,"

Its

codes

beauty
Savrola

constantly changing is eternal. It conforms to "an

ends with
register of

times

and

while

true
more

fitness."

eternal

standard of

Gibbon's

observation

that

history

is "little

than the

the crimes,

follies,

and misfortunes of

mankind."90

In his essay on painting, first published in 1921, Churchill qualified his teaching in Savrola by suggesting that there are a number of ways of life which, if not superior, are at least equal to that devoted to
politics.

but,
old

on another

He found painting to be a new and fascinating amusement, level, he also found it to be a means of expressing "the
and symmetries

harmonies
memory.91

in

an

entirely different

language."

Painting
and

requires,

and

thus

serves

to

develop,

powers of observation

manifestation

More generally, artistic achievement is essentially a of the artist's intellectual powers. The artist can produce
. .

"every effect of light and shade by expressing justly the relations

surfaces."

of

distance or nearness, simply different planes and This ability was, Churchill thought, "founded upon a sense proportion, trained no doubt by practice, but which in its essence is a
.,

of

between

89 90

80, 78, 81, 241. Winston S. Churchill, Amid These Storms: Thoughts & Adventures (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932), pp. 305, 306, 317, 318. The title of the
pp.

Ibid., Ibid.,

pp.

31-34, 86. 129, 229, 236, 233-34,

91

essay is

"Painting

Pastime."

as a

308

Interpretation
size."

frigid

manifestation of mental power and

battle"

Painting
long,

a picture

is

like

"fighting

or

"unfolding
few

sustained, interlocked

A painting
is
a proposition

which,

whether of
.
.

or numberless

parts, is commanded
an

by

require intellect Painting a unity of conception. on the grand scale. There must be that all-embracing view which presents the beginning and the end, the whole and the part, as one instantaneous impression held in the mind. When we look at the large Turners retentively and untiringly we must feel in the presence of an intellectual manifestation the equal in
single
.

great picture must

quality

and

intensity

of

the finest

achievement of warlike

action,

of

forensic

ar

gument, or of

scientific or philosophical adjudication.

The

art of

the

painter reflects

the harmonies that

of a

which

form the

common and

core of
science.

the

greatest

human

accomplishments can

in war, politics, art,

The "same

mind's eye

justly survey

and appraise and

.
. .

prescribe geneous

beforehand the values

technique be
of able

truly great picture in one

homo
any

comprehension,

would also with a certain acquaintance with

the

special

to

pronounce with sureness intellect."92

upon

other

high activity
of

the human

There
degree
political,

are a number of activities open

to

man which

demand

high

intellect but
situation.

which

do

not

take

place

in

an

imperial,

or even a

The limits to the

at

political

life

are established

by the

least equally elevated (or, as is suggested in Savrola, more elevated) human activities. Churchill's impetus toward imperial expansion is thus restrained by his recognition that it is possible
existence of

other,

to become

fully

civilized

in

a non-imperial nation.

92

Ibid.,

pp.

312,

309-10.

309

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE

RIGHT TO
REBELLION*

Laurence Berns
legislation therefore may be good to look at, and to be humane: he who hears about it receives it joyously, believing that there will be some kind of mar velous friendship of everyone for everyone ; especially when ever anyone charges that the evils existing in polities now have come about because property is not common. I mean lawsuits with each other about contracts and judgements for false witness and flattery of the rich. It is not because of the absence of communism that these come to be, but because of wickedness. Furthermore, it is just not only to speak of how many evils they will be deprived of by sharing in com mon, but also of how many goods. Aristotle, Politics, II
sort of
might seem
. .
. .

This

the

Pohtical philosophy concerns itself with the political fundamentals, roots of political life. It raises the most radical questions about

pohtical

hfe,

osophers answer

e.g., what is the purpose of government? Different the question in different ways in fact, they also
ways

phil

raise

it in different
answer

it, find
seen as

philosophers, they themselves in a certain pohtical predicament,

all no matter who speculates about principles act

but

how

raise and which

can

be

follows: he

justifying
that does
attempt

all government could

is in that very

speculating
any

about principles which government

justify

the

alteration or abolition of
principles.

not measure

up to those
what

Or, in

other

words, every
or

to determine to

the

principles of political a

life

and of government are

leads to something like

right
rebellion.1

doctrine

of a right

to revolution,

better,

Let us take one of the clearest examples. Thomas Aquinas in his Treatise on Law2 argues that since law is for the sake of justice, the common good, an unjust law seems to be no law at all. Every human
Based on a talk at West Virginia Wesleyan College, November 21, 1969, in part by questions raised in the St. John's College Student Forum meeting of October 15, 1969. 1 Cf. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Civil Government, xix. In Locke's perhaps more cautious language rebel always means aggressor. Anyone in does "Rebellare", i.e., bring back civil society who uses "force without a state of war, and is thereby a rebel, be he subject or ruler. Locke does speak both of the right to resist a government whose enforcements violate the fundamental ends of government and of the right to erect a government or form of government to secure those ends. The right to rebellion, as we use it, comprehends both these rights. 2 S.T. I-II, Q. 95, A. 2. Cf. Alfarabi, Avicenna, Maimonides and Albo in Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook, eds. Ralph Lerner and Mushin Mahdi (Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), pp. 24-27, 39-57,61, 104-10, 212-15, 221-25, 242-51. Cf. Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann, Nov. 24, 1824.
prompted
Right"

310

Interpretation

law, Thomas argues, is binding only in so far as it is derived from the natural law, the law of reason, the moral law. To the extent to which it
deviates from the
violates right
natural

law it is
who

a perversion of
understands

law. Confronted
such

by a

tyrannical government, he

that

government
aware of a some

the fundamental
rebel

purpose of government

becomes

to

cases a

duty
The

or, as the Declaration of Independence puts it, in to alter or to abohsh the oppressive government, a
right

duty

to

rebel.

to

rebellion

is

dramatic
the

reminder

that

no govern

ment of men ment.

is

as

important
of

as are

moral principles of good govern

But the doctrine

gogues of all ages

the

right

to

rebellion

is easily
their that

abused.

Dema
to

have been

carried

away

by

own ambition

denounce,
their

as

unjust, laws

and governments

stand

accession to political power. Idealists of all ages intemperate indignation have allowed themselves to become the dupes of demagoguery, demagoguery that originates both inside and outside of themselves. Laws and governments, because they do and

in the way of in righteous but

bound to go against the grain of every in his soul that needs restraining, against the grain of every man who is not only rational, who is not an angel, in sum against the grain of every man. The more reasonable man faces
must

restrain, in some

ways are

man who

has

some passion

an

additional

irritation,

though

one which

he

might

be

expected

to

understand, namely,

being

forced to live in

accordance with restrictions work on

framed for those less

those

reasonable

than himself. Demagogues to the

to

abraded passions

and,
of

by

wrongheaded appeals right rebellion

sense of
men

justice,

abuse

the doctrine

the

by leading

to

rebel and

to expect,

as a matter of

justice,

what no man and no govern

ment can ever give unreasonable panied

them. Reasonable

radicalism can
radicalism

be destroyed

by

expectations.

Reasonable

must

be

accom

by

reasonable conservatism.

Hence, Thomas
between the
the
of

and

the Declaration

of

Independence distinguish
right

possession of a

right, in this case the

to rebel,

and

exercise of a right.
rights

ways,

to

Speaking generally, Americans have, in hundreds behave foolishly, as long as they do not interfere
others, but
whether

with

the

rights of

they

ought

to

exercise

those

is another matter. The possession of a right does not automatic hcense its possessor to exercise it. Whether it is wise or prudent to ally exercise a right, whether it ought to be exercised or not, depends upon circumstances. If it is likely that the evils attendant upon the exercise
rights

the evils justly complained of, a just man, avoiding the greater evil, does not exercise his right. If action to overthrow a despotic government is likely to lead to the imposition of a more despotic government, rebellion is not called for.3
of a right would outweigh

for the

sake of

3
of

Cf. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Dion and

Brutus."

and

Plutarch's "Comparison

of

the Lives

Political

Philosophy

and

Right to Rebellion
right of peaceful

311

If

a certain exercise of

the First Amendment

assembly
of

the very conditions of reasonable deliberation tends to lead to situations that endanger the existence of the rule
undermine

tends to

law generally and the system of government that is the guarantor of the Bill of Rights as a whole, then that right at that time probably
ought not strange

to be
call

exercised.

As Aristotle

notes

in his
the

Politics,'1

it

would

be

to

that

action good which makes exercise of

thing

it is

exercised

upon worse.

In the

his rights,

as

responsible

for the foreseeable

of

consequences of

in everything else, man is his actions. In practice,

the

maintenance and extension of

upon

the abihty
appeal

the

recipients

any right, of any to use it well.

freedom, depends
is
made

The

from human law

the
a

and

from It

convention

in the

name of

the

natural or
and

reasonable.5

would seem

that now, in the

beginning,
with

always,

science

and

the

awareness

that

distinction

can

philosophy come into being be made between nature and

conventional. Wherever include erring philosophers)

convention, between the there are philosophers (a

reasonable and class which can

the

there

seem

to

arise

men who are aware of

but

who never

imitators of philosophers, sophists, or intellectuals, the distinction between nature and convention sufficiently reflect on the reasons for conventions. The
the fundamental distinctions
coeval with philosophy. of science and philo

sophistic abuse of

sophy is
of

danger

the tasks

of political

Because of this danger one philosophy is to defend decent convention,

the
attacks of sophistical scientism.

ordinary

decency,

against

Why
cannot

are

conventions, human
rational

laws,

governments,

necessary? reason

Why

man, the
know."

animal,

govern

himself

by

alone?

Aristotle's Metaphysics begins with the assertion: "All men by nature We might contrast this with the famous remark of desire to Hobbes : "The Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies to range find the way to the thing desired."6 Thought serves desire. The two remarks are not as far apart as they might seem. In the last chapter of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, which is the preface to his Politics, he argues that while all men do desire to know, most men
abroad and

things more. Hobbes, then, even according to Aristotle, be right, not about all men but about most men. Those men, Aristotle suggests, for whom the desire to know dominates all the other desires are rather rare. The presence and power of those other desires make political laws, laws backed up by force and fear of punishment,
other would necessary.

desire

As The Federalist

puts

it :
be
necessary.

If In

men were

angels, no government

would

If

angels were

to

govern

men,

neither external nor

internal

controls on government would administered

be

necessary.

framing
4 5 1261b

a government which

is to be

by

men over

men, the

10,

and 1281a 20. as

understood

The reasonable,
and

here,

would

contain

as

species

both the

"historical"

the

progressive.

Leviathan,

viii.

312

Interpretation

great

difficulty
is,
no

lies in this:

you

must

enable

the

government

to

control

the
the

governed people

; and in the

next place oblige

it to

control

itself. A dependence

on

doubt,

the primary

control on

taught

mankind

the necessity

of

auxiliary

the government, but experience has precautions (No. 51).

Yet

men

American Union
. . .

hope for more than merely tolerable government. Behind the and the Constitution Lincoln perceived "something
namely, the closely about the human in the Declaration of Independence that "all men
more
heart,"

entwining itself

principle expressed

equal."

are created

About that
that

statement

he

also said:
all

I think the

authors of

notable

instrument intended to include

men,

but they did not intend to declare allmen equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did
consider all men created and equal equal

in "certain inalienable rights, among

happiness."7

which are

life, liberty,
of

the

pursuit of

The basis
difference in

these

natural

rights, rights

which

all men

share, is a

nature.

It is the difference between

animals

rational and

irrational
and

animals, between men,

capable

of

thoughtful speech,

incapable of thoughtful speech. This difference is fundamental both for Aristotle and for the Founding Fathers. Aristotle

beasts,

animals

puts more emphasis on possess

never

the different

ways and

degrees to

which men

this capacity; but the differences of ways and degrees can be as significant as the difference between animals which possess
not.8

faculty naturally and those which do The distinctions emphasized by Aristotle appear to be present to Lincoln himself, when he suggests that there is a tendency in demo
the
cratic
with

society to confuse created equal "in certain inalienable the idea that all men are or ought to be equal in all respects. Such
often provoke counter-tendencies

rights

tendencies

or,

Frustrated aspirations for some kind of

nobility,
would seem

genuine

as they say, reactions. distinction, or authentic moral and pohtical

to be behind

much of

the

rebellion of our

time, behind the outbreak of corrupt and perverted forms of heroism. If aspirations toward the heroic can only be fulfilled by
7

Speech

at

Springfield, 111., June

recent studies of

26,

1857.

Cf.

John Locke,

op.

cit.,

vi,

section 54.

language-type skills in great apes would Although great apes have demonstrated very interesting capacities for being taught by humans how to utilize and form linguistic-type symbols: "Only man's intelligence is sufficient for agreements to be approximated regarding the meanings/symbolic-referents of the lexical units. It would appear that the necessary intelligence levels must be higher than those of the anthropoid apes ; otherwise they would have developed a public, languagetype of communication in the field, if it is true that, as generally held, such communication has significant survival "The Mastery of Language-type Skills by the Chimpanzee by Duane M. Rumbaugh and Timothy V. Gill, paper presented at the New York Academy of Sciences, September, 1975. Cf. "Animal Communication and Human by Emile Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics, (Coral Gables, Fla. : University of Miami Press, 1971), v; and Aristotle, History of Animals, VIII, i.
appear

Evidence from
to
support

this

argument.

value."

(Pan)"

Language"

Political

Philosophy

and

Right to Rebellion

313
chaos and

becoming
its
able.

a part of mass political

movements, demagogic
or

natural

culmination,
to the

dictatorship,

despotism, may be

unavoid

This

moral and political rebellion

can, in part, be understood

elements of our

as a reaction

life

which result

ignoble, petty and from the development

mass media with

dehumanizing
of

large-scale technology. The

pollution of

pollution of

the

natural environment and

the
the

the

spiritual

environment

by

the

its

propaganda and

advertising

have begun to
the

make

increasingly
the

evident

problematic character of
set

great project

for the

conquest of nature

first

in

motion

by

the

philosopher-scientists of

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

These

developments
for
a what

are plausible

targets for

reasonable reform and

and

rebellion,

radicalism extent

that is both

reasonable

conservative.

Yet to

have the
the

ominous

technological developments
principle of equal rights

been
all

aggravated

by

extension of

the

for

into

belong ? To what extent are our troubles the result of the tendency to try to make "all men equal in all ? The technological development and the leveling tendency seem to go hand in hand. For example, higher productivity depends on in
spheres where not

it does

respects"

creasing

and

extending
;

mass

production;

mass

production

requires

advertising has the task of producing and maintaining those markets; and advertising, like all propaganda, appeals to the lowest common denominator of human motivation. The commitment
mass markets upon

to any set of institutions, as the style of life fostered

of

a practical

matter,

will always

depend
in
of

by

those institutions. The

and unequal

"diversity

the faculties
call

men,"

the "different

faculties"

men,

for

protection not

only in that
the

sphere

noted

by

Madison (The

Federalist, No. 10) but in

of spiritual or

sphere of

the

production and acquisition

The costs of neglect, especially become dangerously high. To what extent is student disaffection an effect of the introduction of mass production techniques and the principle of "all men equal in all resinto education?
goods as well. could under conditions of

intellectual

affluence,

spects"

Education, rightly
speak of

conceived, may be essentially

aristocratic.

(I

course, not of aristocracy of birth but of aristocracy

of natural

experience.9) Education, rightly conceived, does gratify, salesmanship it never flatters. Education involves confront ing oneself with minds or souls that are acknowledged to be superior in some decisive respect. It involves striving continually to raise one's own understanding to the level of one's teachers. When it is effective, one be
and

talents

but

unhke

comes aware of one's own

whatever

defects;

one

is

moved

is petty and ignoble about

to
and

oneself.

towards overcoming Salesmanship, on the other

the
petty.

hand,

caters

thereby

encourages

the

selfish and

Edu
the

cation,

liberating

or

liberal education, is

not

likely

to

win out on

open market.

Cf.

correspondence of

Thomas Jefferson

with

John Adams, Oct. 28, 1813.

314

Interpretation

rather

Why should the communications media be dominated by commercial than by educational purposes ? Its defenders usually assert that
success

their
what

is based upon the democratic Is there

society?

principle of

giving the

people

they

want. 10

no proper place

for

aristocratic preserves

within

democratic
education

If

ever)'

society for
good

requires

leaders,
and

liberal

is

education

leadership,

and if if liberal

education

the

tive terms

is

requires such power over cease

to conceiving of human greatness in quantita essentially aristocratic enterprise, democratic societ y preserves. Should not the media, which have so much
antidote

an

the formation

of

taste, be

compelled

to serve,

or at

least to

from undermining,
that the
not

our more serious

purposes?11

In general, to

the

extent

will

it

men who

advertisers succeed in forming the national character, become increasingly difficult to insist that we be treated as deserve the rights and dignities that befit free
men?12

Can
their
our

men

be free
to

without

abihties

control

self-respect, privacy, themselves ? 13 Have those who the

growth of

and

confidence

in To

shape and guide

qualities?

intellectual lives
extent

encouraged

these

what

and

is the present situation a consequence of those hterary academic fashions which blur the line between the properly
the properly public, which identify profundity the liberation of thoughtless,
with

private and

misery,

which acclaim and preach

even

brutal,

and perverted passion

?
private

Here, however,

predicament,

parallel

to

the

political

Vital Speeches of the Day, Feb. 1, 1970, speech by Dr. Frank Stanton, the Columbia Broadcasting System; March 15, 1970, speech by Reuven Frank, President of National Broadcasting Company News; and June 1, 1971, speech by L. S. Matthews, president of Leo Burnett Co. 11 Cf. George Anastaplo, "Self-Government and the Mass Media: A Practical Man's Guide"; and Walter Berns, "The Constitution and a Responsible in The Mass Media and Modern Democracy ed. Harry M. Clor (Chicago; Rand
president of
Press," ,

10

McNally,
12

1974).
most

comment on mass media advertising was made President Kennedy, when its seemingly sponta neous banishment from the airways for three days made perfectly evident that it is simply incompatible with sustained seriousness and dignity. Periods of

Perhaps the
the

telling

just

after

assassination of

national

be

allowed

mourning, however, are not the only times when serious people to sustain a serious mood. Other free nations have separated

should
adver

from programming altogether, and limit it to certain prescheduled times with one-half to one hour of nothing but advertising, where those who wish to be informed about wares may tune in without imposition being made upon those with no interest in such information. 13 To the extent that ordinary citizens cease to police themselves and each other, the tendency is to rely on appointed officials. As a result we find the increase of crime in the United States joined with a not altogether proportional expansion of police forces. Once it could be reported that: "The criminal police of the United States are not numerous ; Yet I believe that in no country does crime more rarely elude punishment. The reason is that everyone conceives himself to be interested in furnishing evidence of the crime and in seizing the delinquent" (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Phillips Bradley, [ed. [New York : Vintage Books, 1954] 1 : v, p. 99]) There is, apparently, a direct connection between intellectually fashionable permissiveness and this new, but evidently necessary, internal militarization of American society.

tising

advertisers'

Political

Philosophy

and

Right to Rebellion
to light. Is
and
not

315
a certain effect
and

predicament with which we shamelessness

began,

comes

both the
the

precondition

for

the

natural

of art

intellectual
generally
shame and

liberation,
tact,
respect

of

enlightenment?

Should literature
shame,

respect

sense of shame

in the way

suggested above
would seem

for

another's sense of

? Yet to be

nature's ways of exclusive

in

man.

protecting the intimate, the vulnerable, the naturally If self-respect depends upon such protection, and
upon

freedom depends for the

self-respect, freedom

also

depends

upon respect

sense of shame.

No

simple

identification

of enlightenment with

edification would seem

enlightenment

to be possible, though one might reply that in the full sense of the word is dependent not upon shamelessness, but rather on an awareness of the problem of shame. In conclusion, however, let us return to the more directly political

question : can political

unalienable rights survive used

institutions predicated upon equahty in certain if they and the hberty they provide are not human
excellence which

for that

cultivation of

is the

ultimate

justification

of

any

good government?

social

research
AN INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

VOLUME 42 WINTER 1975

NUMBER 4

A Publication

of

the Graduate

Faculty,

New School for Social Research

Hannah Arendt
INTERACTION BETWEEN EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN SOCIAL SCIENCE

Hans Jonas

Problems Remarks
and

of on

Sociological Method
the

Jacques Ellul

Interaction Between American Franco Ferrarotti

on
Opinion'

European Social Science

'That All Governments Rest

Ernst Vollrath

Developmental Interaction Between American

and

German

Sociology
The Ethics
of an

Urs Jaeggi

Responsibility Today :
Endangered Future

Hans Jonas
and

Technology, Ethics,
On Orient
and

International Relations

John H. Herz

Occident in Max Weber

Benjamin Nelson

The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structure in Modern Policies

of

Society
the Social Sciences
on

Nikias Luhmann Gertrude Lenzer

Virginia Held

John Locke

Robert Nozick

Individual Subscriptions: $10.00; Institutions: $12.00; Single issues: $3.00

Editorial
and

Business

office:

66 West 12th Street

New

York, N.Y. 10011

Philosophy

of

Science

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE ASSOCIATION

Editorial Board Richard S. Rudner (Editor-in-Chief), Peter Achinstein, Gustav Bergmann, May Brodbeck, Arthur Burks, C. West Churchman, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Adolf Griinbaum, Edward Mad den, Henry Margenau, Gerald J. Massey, Alberto Pasquinelli, Wesley C. Salmon, Kenneth F. SchafFner, Dudley Shapere, J. J. C. Smart, Melford E. Spiro, Patrick C. Suppes, Lewis K. Zerby, Peter D. Asquith (Managing Editor). Book Reviews, James Van Evra. Assistant Editors, Patricia Ann Fleming and Paul C. L. Tang.

Volume 42 (1975)

will

include

Deborah Rosen. An Argument for the Logical Notion of a Memory Trace / Ronald C. Hoy. The Role of Genidenity in the Causal Theory of Time / Herbert Hendry. Ramsey Sentences for Infinite Theories / Jean-Claude Faimagne. A Set of Independent Axioms for Positive Holder

Systems

sophical

/ C. A. Hooker. On Global Theories / S. Wendell- Waechtler and E. Levy. More Philo Aspects of Molecular Biology / Arthur E. Falk. Learning to Report One's Introspections / David G. Blair. On Purely Probabilistic Theories of Scientific Inference / Brown Grier. Prediction, Explanation and Testability as Criteria for Judging Statistical Theories.

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE is published quarterly by the Philosophy of Science Association, 18 Morrill Hall, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824. Subscription price $17.50 ($18.50 non-U. S. A.) per Volume. Members of the Association
receive about subscriptions or

the Journal as a privilege of membership paid for out of membership dues. Inquiries membership should be directed to the Managing Editor.

^Public

Philosophy
is designed to fill the
viewpoints and

Editors Stuart Hampshire, John Rawls

Advisory
Editor

Marshall Cohen Associate Editors

^Affairs
...

Thomas Nagel, Thomas Scanlon

ferent

need for a periodical in which philosophers with dif philosophically inclined writers from various disciplines including law, political science, economics, and sociology can bring their distinctive methods to bear on problems of public concern.

"The journal has

maintained

a
as

high level
the

of

discussion from
of war and

the start, publish

war

ing

articles

on

such

topics

morality

responsibility for
.

crimes, civil
erential

disobedience,
and

the obligations of the affluent to the starving, pref

abortion.
.

hiring

compensatory discrimination,

The New York

Times Magazine

$9.75

a year.

$17.50 two

years

$25.00 three

years*

$15.00

a year

for institutions* $6.00

Princeton

special student rate* charge on

$4.00

single

issues

$1.25 handling University Press*

foreign

orders

Box 231 U.S.A.

Princeton, New Jersey 08540