So too with his dress. The dress of a young child does
not express his own character at all, but that of his mother.
If he spoils his things, that makes no difference to him
(unless as a punishment) ; he has what is thought proper
for him at every given moment. So with travel, enjoyments,
and education up to a certain point. What he is enabled
to have and do in no way expresses his own previous action
or character, except in as far as he is put in training by
his parents for grown-up life. The essence of this position
is, that the dealings of such an agent with the world of
things do not affect each other, nor form an interdependent
whole. He may eat his cake and have it ; or he may not
eat it and yet not have it. To such an agent the world is
miraculous ; things are not for him adjusted, organised,
contrived ; things simply come as in a fairy tale. The same
is the case with a slave. Life is from hand to mouth ; it
has as such no totality, no future, and no past.

Now, private property is not simply an arrangement for
meeting successive momentary wants as they arise on such
a footing as this. It is wholly different in principle, as
adult or responsible life differs from child-life, which is
irresponsible. It rests on the principle that the inward or
moral life cannot be a unity unless the outward life — the
dealing with things — is also a unity. In dealing with
things this means a causal unity, i.e. that what we do at
one time, or in one relation, should affect what we are able
to do at another time, or in another relation. I suspect
that the difficulty in accepting this principle is largely due
to a mistake about inward morality — to treating the pure
will for good as if it could exist and constitute a moral
being without capacity for external expression. This is



XVII THE PRINCIPLE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 311

a blunder in principle. If all power of dealing effectively
with things is conceived absent, inward morality, or the
good will, vanishes with it. I will return to this point in
dealing with the " no margin " doctrine.

Private property, then, is the unity of life in its external
or material form ; the result of past dealing with the material
world, and the possibility of future dealing with it ; the
general or universal means of possible action and expression
corresponding to the moral self that looks before and
after, as opposed to the momentary wants of a child or of
an animal. A grown man knows that if he does this he
will not be able to do that, and his humanity, his power of
organisation, and intelligent self-assertion, depend on his
knowing it. If he wants to do something in particular ten
years hence he must act accordingly to-day ; he must be
able in some degree to measure his resources. If he wants
to marry he must fit himself to maintain a family ; he must
look ahead and count the cost, must estimate his com-
petence and his character. That is what makes man
different from an animal or a child ; he considers his life
as a whole, and organises it as such — that is, with a view to
reasonable possibihties, not merely to the passing moment.

3. Certain limitations follow from this principle. Not
all property or absence of property, as existing at a given
time, is the pure expression of this social or spiritual
necessity. In all actual social arrangements spiritual
expression is thus obstructed. There is confusion, and
therefore distortion. Seeking the self, man's true purpose
and calling are metamorphosed into self-seeking. The
means of complete life catch the eye, are noted as
undeniably important, and from an absolutely relative end
become a relatively absolute end. Against this blunder
the mind violently reacts, and because the means falsely
pretended it was an end, the mind in return will pronounce
it not even a means, and thereby enormously aggravate the
evil which the former fallacy had initiated.

Clearly the principle does not demand unlimited acquisi-
tion of wealth, if we disregard the definite mischief which
may attach to the means adopted to limit it. It rests on



312 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM xvii

the conception of a common good, to be realised in indi-
viduals as moral and rational agents, and subject to this,
all means for its realisation must be treated as a practical
problem, turning on what is best in the long run for society
as the external embodiment of character.

Are powers of bequest and alienation necessary to the
idea of private property ? At the dawn of history both in
Greece and Rome the State is found introducing these, in
its own interest, as against the family or clan, which it re-
garded as a dangerous competitor with itself. The opposi-
tion was then between power of bequest and unalterable
family succession ; now it is between power of bequest,
usually to the family, and property not devolving at all, so
that maintenance of bequest within limits is now in favour
of the family. That ground must have full weight. A
reason against compulsory devolution by equal division or
the like is that it makes the several children's shares inde-
pendent of character or capacity. But all these points are
arguable ; it should be noted, however, that limited owner-
ship is objectionable per se. The social need is to make
possession of property very responsive to the character and
capacity of the owner. Thus prohibition of alienation is
objectionable as tending to keep property in the hands of
incompetent holders. It is quite reasonable to treat land
differently from other materials, and differently in different
countries, according to the supply of it and the demand
for it, as conditioned by the nature of the chief industries
and so forth.

In face of CoUectivist ideals, what does our principle
suggest ? Society is to-day largely on a basis of wages and
salaries ; these may and do fulfil the principle of private
property so long as we keep well away from the ideal of
the child or slave. Salaries, to fulfil the postulate, must
be, I should say, in some degree permanent and calculable
— capable of being foreseen with probability, and capable
of being dealt with by investment or some analogous pro-
cess ; if not, we approach the ideal of child or slave life by
cutting the strings of continuity between all material deal-
ings of the same person and making it impossible for his



XVII THE PRINCIPLE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 313

life to be regarded as a whole ; in plain language, we shall
prevent his making plans.

I do not speak of wages being apportioned to service or
to demand, because that is not the point of private pro-
perty, though perhaps necessary or advisable on other
grounds. The point of private property is that things
should not come miraculously and be unaffected by your
dealings with them, but that you should be in contact
with something which in the external world is the definite
material representation of yourself If it were the case
that self-utterance were becoming impossible in industry
and regimented routine production were to be in future
the only possible method of work, it would be still more
important to maintain a unity in the material management
of private life ; but the question of the organisation of in-
dustry is really a separate question. Is it not enough, we
may be asked, to know that one can have what is neces-
sary and reasonable ? No ; that makes one a child. A
man must know what he can count on and judge what to
do with it. It is a question of initiation, plan, design, not
of a more or less in enjoyment.

4. In alluding to objections, I do not speak of mere
practical difficulties such as a growingly large scale organ-
isation of industry. The London and North-Western
Railway cannot be effectively private property in the sense
in which a wheelbarrow can be ; whether it is managed by
the State or not makes but little practical difference in
this impossibiHty. The principle of the unity of life on its
external or material side does not ultimately depend upon
the scale of industrial production. Rather it is a require-
ment which could be satisfied in very various ways. But I
do not say that the destruction of small industries managed
by individuals would be without a bad influence, especially
in the minor arts.

Objections of principle all amount to preferring the
ideal of the child in the family. The most plausible per-
haps is the " no margin " argument. " You either have
enough for your full wants at the moment, or you have not
enough. If you have enough, you ought not to have



314 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM xvii

more ; if you have not enough, then plainly it ought all to
be expended on your momentary necessities." Thus, in
either case, a permanent definite provision for possible self-
expression is in principle objected to. By the hypothesis,
life is cut down to the passing moment. This always
strikes me as analogous to Plato's argument somewhere to
show that one cannot make a mistake. " Either you
know a thing, and then you cannot be wrong ; or you do
not, and then you can say nothing." The answer is, I
suppose, in both cases, that human life is situated on the
progressive margin, and its object and interest is to
organise further the partly organised, not simply to rest at
a given level. Man never has enough so long as his capa-
city for foresight and management, for treating life as a
unity with a past and future, is not tasked to the full ; and
he never has too little to give effect to this capacity in
some degree, so long as he is able to live a human life at
all. The need for possessing a permanent nucleus in the
material world is not subsequent to, nor accrues, so to
speak, on the top of, all immediate needs, but is as deeply
rooted in the mind as they are, and acts in all of them,
and begins to form itself within them and against them,
long before the current standard of comfort of any human
society is attained. And this want is essential to humanity,
and is itself a condition without which human comfort can-
not exist. That, I suspect, is why the Workhouse is
miserable, except in extreme cases of semi-imbecile dulness
or of ascetic resignation. The forward look to the unity
of life is abandoned, and an adult has accepted the status
of a child. So much the greater is the need to narrow,
instead of widening, the sphere of such slavish depend-
ence. To deny, in principle, the need for a permanent
provision for possible work and self-expression is to ignore
the root-principle of human nature, and the connection of
inward and outward morality, or of character and com-
petence. It is also most important to note that the denial
of property gives an enormous impulse to animal selfish-
ness. It declares that my share is not for me to work
with, to contrive and organise with, to express myself com-



XVII THE PRINCIPLE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 315

pletely with, but simply to meet my wants from day to
day. The surplus over the necessary is therefore ear-
marked to be spent on passing enjoyment — a horrible
result.

The real cause of complaint to-day, I take it, is not
the presence but the absence of property, together with
the suggestion that its presence may be the cause of its
absence. This does not immediately concern my argument,
which is directed to showing what element in human life
it represents ; I am speaking, as Ruskin once said, not of
what is possible, but of what is necessary. That society
should to a great extent fail in satisfying a need of man's
nature is nothing new, and the remedy for its failure is a
practical problem ; but no solution will be found in simply
ignoring the need. All our work towards permanent
organisation and improvement of conditions is to the good,
as assisting the treatment of life as a whole, so long as we
do not artificially introduce the ideal of the child or slave —
of a life forbidden to organise its future, and restricted to
receiving what is deemed necessary from day to day. I
add one comparison, which strikes me as interesting.
Property is no doubt liable to be stereotyped and trans-
ferred and accumulated, so that it loses all proportion to
earnings or capacity. The advocates of the child-ideal
cannot complain on this ground, because they disclaim all
idea of apportionment to services, which disclaimer is a
meeting-point of absolute communism and the extreme
private property theory. But those who wish for an
arrangement that should retain the idea of earning, by
some quasi-competitive relation of salary to value or energy
of service, so as to avoid in apportionment of advantages
a total disregard of capacity to fulfil a social demand,
should reflect on this, that the same sort of chance which
transfers property to persons who have not earned it, asserts
itself strongly now in salaried work, and would probably
do so much more intensely if all work was salaried. The
fact is, that much discharge of function — that which is in
any way new or original — cannot be provided for in a
scheme of salaries, because it is not antecedently known



3i6 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM xvii

to exist ; so that in every large organisation by salaries we
get a number of people who are doing possibly very good
work, but not the work they are paid to do. The classical
example is Burns (not John but Robert) as an exciseman.
Every institution, an experienced head of institutions once
said to me, carries some dead weight so far as its immediate
purpose is concerned. This may be good enough for the
whole community (or not), but such persons are not paid
in respect of the services which they really discharge. They
may have created a new function which none of the social
managers have ever thought of or wanted, or they may be
discharging one which really belongs to some other branch
of the social service. In a complete social organisation by
salaries for function there would be a great deal of this
misplacing ; and it might be rather demoralising. It would
be analogous to the leisure class existing on unearned
property ; only its existence, while generally known, would
be officially denied. It is well known that positions in our
Civil Service have given and do give a substantial standing
ground to eminent men of letters, from Robert Burns
downwards. I do not suppose for a moment that they
have proved other than exceedingly valuable servants of
the State, but as a matter of principle their position would
probably be defended in any case by the general voice on
the ground that it is proper, and is creditable to maintain
in the public service men eminent in other fields, so long
as their official duty is reasonably well discharged. They
can hardly, I imagine, as a rule, be those devoted officials
on whose shoulders the public departments really rest.
What I desire to point out is that in such a feeling the
principle of unearned private property as contrasted with
salary for services is in some degree asserting itself Salary
is, so to speak, subsequent and relative to its justification
by work ; unearned property is antecedent, and leaves the
justification to follow. Where salary is the basis of an
unanticipated social service, to which it is not intentionally
relative, it takes on the character of private property
obtained by chance, and is similarly antecedent to its
justification. In a complete salaried scheme of society



XVII THE PRINCIPLE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 317

there would be a good deal more of this chance-medley.
Places would have to be found, and quite undoubtedly
would be found, for good men, and would not always
represent their true services to society. Men put into
positions with one set of duties would employ them for
another. In proportion as this is met by requiring only a
minimum amount of service, and taking it to free the
official for his whole leisure-time, the principle of true
communism and of private property is in some degree
approached. The man is entirely supported in return for a
portion of his work, and, therefore, in part not for what
he does, but because he has the good luck to be there.
Among the working classes, it must be remembered, this
principle is already causing difficulty where the short-hour
men compete in other industries ; and from an extension
of it serious confusion might result ; every one might be
doing some one else's work. Now, if this principle of
antecedent provision for chance cases of undetermined
function is certain to break in, by wresting predetermined
function from its avowed and organised vocation, it may
be well to recognise it as inevitable by permitting the
transference of property to those who have not earned it,
rather than to commit oneself to a system which pretends
to exclude what it necessarily admits. The affinity between
communism and the effects of such transferable property,
in so far as both of them leave undetermined the special
adjustment of share to function, appears to me to be
curious and interesting. It suggests that a private property
system, perhaps in addition to a wage system, is the
natural development out of the perfect communism of the
family, a certain affinity between the two being retained,
and their difference arising simply from the difference
between the child who is unable to deal with his material
surroundings on his own responsibility, and the man whose
manhood consists in his power and need so to deal with
them.

The transference of property to those who have not
earned it, however, is quite a matter for regulation in the
general interest, subject to the fact that a total prohibition



K



3i8 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM xvii

of transference would seriously maim the central principle
of property, viz. the right and need to realise a conception
of wellbeing relevant to the relation which makes the
individual in society what he is. A man who could do
nothing for his friends or for his family would have the heart
cut out of his dealings with the material conditions of his
life as a whole. The true principle of State interference
with acquisition or alienation would refer to their tendency,
if any, to prevent acquisition of property on the part of
other members of society. In a small country especially
this principle may well demand exceptional regulation
of land tenure. On the other hand, the probable or
demonstrated bad use of property is not by itself an
adequate reason against the institution, though it may be a
reason for restrictive legislation. The possible bad use is
a condition of the possible good use, and the social mind
cannot be realised in human individuals who are not at
liberty to deal with the external conditions of life as
instruments of permanent self-satisfaction and self-expression.
For as far as the true human self is social, or is identified
with a common good, it necessarily and inevitably is
incapable of being satisfied, like that of a child or animal,
with the removal of wants or needs from hour to hour, or
from day to day. The principle, I hope, is clear • its
practical application may take many forms in the future,
as it has taken many in the past.



XVIII
THE REALITY OF THE GENERAL WILL

By B. BOSANQUET

"There is often a great difference between the will of all and the
general will ; the latter looks only to the common interest ; the former
looks to private interest, and is nothing but a sum of individual wills ;
but take away from these same wills the plus, 'and minus, that cancel one
another, and there remains, as the sum of the differences, the general
will." " Sovereignty is only the exercise of the general will." ^

This celebrated antithesis, the statement of which I have
translated from Rousseau's own words, has the effect of
setting a problem to which Rousseau himself scarcely finds
an answer. The problem is emphasised by the various
reasons and indications which make it difficult to believe
that the action of any community is a mere sum of the
effects of wholly independent causes operating on a number
of separate individual minds. No doubt, the action of a
community sometimes is, and often appears to be, the sum
of effects of such independent causes. One man gives a
certain vote because he hates Mr. A. ; another man gives
the same vote because he thinks Mr. B. will do something
for his trade ; and a third gives the same vote because of
some one out of a thousand possible social reforms which
he thinks the man he is voting for will help or will hinder,
as the case may be. Now, assuming these causes to be
independent of one another, the direction in which they
will sum up is a question of chance. Of course it is deter-

^ Rousseau, Contrat Social, Book II., chap. i. and chap. iii.



320 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM xviii

mined by causation, but it is not determined by any general
cause, corresponding to a general element in the result
which takes place. As related to the separate causes in
operation, the general character of that result is a coincid-
ence or matter of chance.

And this is, in fact, how Rousseau seems to regard it,
and he therefore suggests what is practically, I should ima-
gine, just the wrong method for eliminating private interest
and getting at the general will. Let the citizens all vote
as independent units, not organising themselves in groups
or adjusting their views by private communication, and then,
he thinks, as I understand him, the general interest will
assert itself, as any general cause does in the elimination
of chance among a great number of counteracting inde-
pendent causes ; that is, as he says, the independent causes,
if present in sufificient numbers, may be expected to cancel,
and the general cause will have a visible effect in deciding
the question. If private interests are equally balanced,
the public interest will affect some minds on both sides
enough to turn the scale. This element of regard to the
public interest is what he calls the general will, as distinct
from the will of all.

I do not think that this view is false ; but it is not ade-
quate to the action of a very complex society with elabor-
ate constructive tasks before it. It is rather adapted to a
plebiscite on a single question, in which the general will is
represented by a conscious though feeble inclination to
what is admittedly the public interest. The discourage-
ment of discussion and of organisation in groups, which
he insists on in order to keep the chances fair, i.e. to
keep all the private interests independent of one another,
would make all complicated legislation impossible, and is
quite incompatible with the method which I shall main-
tain, that necessity prescribes for the formation of the
general will. He so far admits this, that the ideal legislator
is for him a person outside the community, who interprets
the general will into a system of laws.

What we have got then, so far, is a problem or a para-
dox : the idea of a will whose sole aim is the common



XVIII THE REALITY OF THE GENERAL WILL 321

interest, although it can exist as a will only in the minds
of the human individuals who make up the community,
and all of whom are for the most part occupied with their
own individual interests. There is no social brain other
than and separate from the brain of individuals, and
because we seldom face this difficulty fairly, our great
modern gospel, that society is an organism, is becoming a
little stale before it has rendered us the one service which
it might perhaps be able to render — that is, to make us
ask ourselves in what properties or relations of individuals
in society there resides anything corresponding on behalf
of society to the brain or mind of each separate individual.
We know that many not contemptible people speak of the
individual members of any community as mostly fools, and
say that the wise and those who are in the right are always
in the minority, and that the ordinary man picks up his
opinions out of a newspaper, and adjusts them by conver-
sation with two or three other persons no better informed
than himself. The expressions, more or less in this sense,
of so eminent a writer as Mr. Bryce, in his discussion of
Public Opinion in the third volume of the work on the
American Comnwmvealth, were what I had chiefly in my
mind when I resolved to try and examine this paradox,
which in that discussion Mr. Bryce fully recognises. No
candid man can altogether, I think, deny the judgments
to which I am referring, so far as they deal with the
general capacity for intellectual processes in unfamiliar
matter. Mr. Bryce indeed tries to blunt the paradox by
pointing out that the so-called educated classes are not
especially fitted, by the training which has hitherto been