The Philosophical Theory of the State

by Bernard Bosanquet

But if the quantity to be increased is a determinate growth, of a type whose general character is known, the problem is transformed. It is the commonest of experiences that hindrances can be removed and favourable conditions maintained, if this has to be done, not with a view to every conceivable and inconceivable development, but for a growth the general line of which is known. In this case, as the whole expands, the restraints and the liberty, the room for action, may even increase together. [1] This is not only true in universal theory, but much more important than is always remembered in special theory or practice. The possibility of promoting freedom or well-being by compulsion depends very greatly indeed on the unity of habit and experience which binds together a single community. The more the life has in common, the more definite and automatic arrangements you may safely make in promotion of it. The rules of my household, which inconvenience its members no more than their clothes do, would produce a rebellion if they were enforced by law even throughout our village.

[1] See the author’s essay, “Liberty and Legislation,” in Civilisation of Christendom (Sonnenschein).

Thus, then, we may maintain our principle of the limits of distinctive State action. The peculiarity of it is that it allows of positive acts and interferences, motived by an ultimate positive {196} purpose, but with a bearing on that purpose which is primarily negative or indirect. However positive, as actual facts, are the conditions which it may become advisable to maintain, they may always, on the side which is distinctively due to State compulsion, be regarded as the hindrance of hindrances. And the bona-fide application of this principle will really be, when aided by special experience, in some degree a valuable clue to what ought to be done. It is only putting in other words the rule of action followed by all practical men in matters of which they have genuine experience. We may think, for instance, of the problem involved in State maintenance of universities. It is easy to vote money, to build buildings, and to pass statutes. But none of these things will secure the objects of a university. Money and buildings and statutes may throw open an arena, so to speak, for the work of willing minds in learning and education. But the work itself is in a different medium from anything which can be produced by compulsion, and is so far less vital as it is conditioned by the operation of force upon minds which demand no work of the kind.

But here we meet a difficulty of principle. Do we say that no external conditions are more than hindrances of hindrances to the best life? Do we deny that the best life can be positively promoted by external conditions; or if we admit this, do we still deny that it can be positively promoted by the work of the State? The answer has already been implied, but may be explicitly restated. We refused [1] to separate mind from its embodiment in {197} material things, and so to be drawn into a purely inward theory of morality, It would be exaggeration to call such external conditions as, e.g., first-rate educational apparatus, [2] mere negative conditions of the best life. But then, we are now asked, cannot the State supply such external conditions by expenditure compulsorily provided for, and if so, is not our principle destroyed, viz., the limitation of State action to the hindrance of hindrances?

[1] Page 31.

[2] See Thring on the importance of this, in Parkin’s life of him. Note, however, also the modification of his view by the adventure of Uppingham on the Sea.

The difficulty springs from the fact, that the State, as using compulsion, is only one side of Society, and its action is only one side of social action. If first-rate educational apparatus is called into existence by a State endowment, the first-rateness of the apparatus is not due to the compulsion applied to taxpayers, which rather, so far, negatives the action of intelligent will as such. But it must be due, in one way or another, to the fact that first-rate ability in the way of devising apparatus was somewhere pressing for an outlet, which, by a stroke of the pickaxe, so to speak, the public power was able to provide for it. We must not confuse the element of compulsion, which is the side of social action distinctly belonging to State interference, with the whole of the material results which liberated intelligence produces. When we say, then, that the State as such can do nothing for the best life but hinder hindrances to it, the principle applies in the strictest sense only to the compulsory or automatic side of State action, which {198} must, so to speak, be reckoned against it [1] in comparing its products with those which are spontaneous social growths throughout.

[1] Subject to what will be said on the theory of rights and punishment.

But it is further true that material conditions which come close to life, such as houses, wages, educational apparatus, do not wholly escape our principle. They occupy a very interesting middle region between mere hindrances of hindrances and the actual stimulation of mind and will. On the one side they are charged with mind and character, and so far are actual elements in the best life. On the other side they depend on external actions, and therefore seem accessible to State compulsion, which extends to all external doings and omissions. But what we have to observe is, and it is in practice most important, that, as charged with mind and will, these material facts may not be accessible to State compulsion, while, as accessible to State compulsion pure and simple, they may forfeit their character of being charged with mind and will. This shows itself in two ways. First, just because they are facts of a kind which come so close to life (in other words depend so greatly upon being charged with mind and will), State compulsion cannot with certainty secure even their apparent existence. They fail bodily, like human beings, if there is no spirit to keep them alive. The relation of wages to the standard of life illustrates this point. Secondly, supposing that for a time, by herculean efforts of compulsion, which must call active intelligence to its aid, such facts are made to present a satisfactory appearance of existence, none the less, {199} so far as they are characterised by compulsion, they may lose their character as elements in the best life. That is to say, they may fail to benefit those whom they are meant to benefit. The fact may fail to be absorbed in the life.

The principle of the hindrance of hindrances is most valuable and luminous when rightly grasped, just in these middle cases. A pretty and healthy house, which its inhabitant is fond of, is an element in the best life. Who could doubt it who knows what home-life is? But in order that putting a family out of a bad house into a good one should give rise to such an element of the best life, it is strictly and precisely necessary that the case or policy should come under our principle. That is to say, unless there was a better life struggling to utter itself, and the deadlift of interference just removed an obstacle which bound it down, the good house will not be an element in a better life, and the encroachment on the ground of volition will have been made with out compensation—a fact which may show itself in many fatal ways. If, on the other hand, the struggling tendency to a better life has power [1] to effect the change without the deadlift from outside, then the result is certain and wholly to the good.