Rights in Civil Society - Section Two
Part Three
Appendix To The Philosophy Of Right —
The Better Construction Of Civil Society
Chapter 4
Continuation — Second condition: the principle of balance between mutually attractive things
2589. To discover this state or regular mode of civil society, we have to recall the three summary forces at work in society. As we said, they are: 1. the human spirit; 2. things included in the notion of good and evil; 3. the social organism.(459) We must return constantly to these three final forces, the sole operatives in society, when we want to investigate what can improve or worsen society's condition. As long as they are not related to one another in certain ways, these forces possess the power to produce both good and evil. Determining these relationships is the object of the Philosophy of Politics.
2590. The organism, the form of government or, more generally speaking, social compaction, must not be the first thing to attract our attention. We cannot determine the best form of compaction in civil society without having solved the problem about the distribution of the second force, that is, the problem of what things are desirable or not to the members. In other words, we have to: `Find in society that collocation of objects included in the notion of good and evil which has more influence on social good.'(460)
2591. The relationship between the first, completely internal, force (the spirit) and the other two external forces (good and evil, and the organism), is discovered by considering the human spirit in its two distinct qualities as active and passive. Activity forms the force of the spirit; passivity is what provides a place for the second and third forces. In other words, passivity occasions the force of things included in the notion of good and evil, and the force of the organism. These things do not, in fact, influence civil society before first influencing the human spirit, which in their regard is passive.
2592. It is not sufficient, however, to consider only the best disposition of the spirit of the individuals who compose society if we want to discover the regular construction of civil society. This disposition does indeed have the greatest influence on civil society. Nevertheless, the principal element in the regular construction of society is to be sought in the second force, that is, in the things included in the notion of good and evil. We have to solve this problem by asking: `What is the best collocation or distribution in civil society of all those objects which can be included, for men and women, in the notion of good and evil.'
2593. The first condition for this collocation is presupposed; the collocation must conform to justice. The problem is, therefore, to see which distribution, amongst all those which can exist in harmony with justice, is preferable for attaining social happiness. Once this is known, all the means at hand for this purpose, proper to the government of society, can be employed.
2594. What principle will help us solve such a general problem? For what reason must one given distribution of these matters be preferred to another, and consequently judged the most regular? The only reason, it would seem, is the following. The things included in the notion of good and evil are divided into different species, each of which, when possessed by someone, inclines that person to desire and want the possession of the next thing, which he does not yet possess. This inclination and impulse, this temptation verified in a multitude of persons, is always the force at work to disturb society. The disturbance lasts until the mass of persons tempted in this fashion obtains what it wants. When this occurs, tranquillity is restored. The state of civil society, when the persons composing it are involved in this endeavour or tendency, is an irregular state subject at every instance to disturbance and change. The contrary is the regular state. Hence the political criterion: THE KINDS OF GOOD WHICH NATURALLY ATTRACT ONE ANOTHER MUST BE CONJOINED IN CIVIL SOCIETY, OR GIVEN THEIR RIGHT BALANCE. If one kind of good is accumulated in great quantities in the hands of certain persons, and another kind in the hands of other persons, on every insignificant occasion which acts as a channel, tension suddenly breaks out between the two kinds of good to rectify the imbalance.
2595. Note that the tumult and disturbance occurring in society when one accumulated good tends to find its balance with some other accumulated kind close to it, is not to be attributed simply to a perverse activity of the human spirit, but rather, as we said, to its passivity, to its weakness. If an individual is tempted to evil, there must be some force independent of him which draws him, even though he is capable of resisting. This force, precisely because it is independent of him, is felt by the individual, according to nature, as good or bad. So, even though we may not know the goodness or evil of the persons who make up a society, we can reasonably conjecture that this society will be subject to greater disturbance and movement in so far as the individuals composing the society have more temptations to produce upheaval. This is the great defect of irregular society. Its irregularity consists in the greater temptations to disturbance felt by the members who have greater means of producing disruption. This state is verified whenever one of these kinds of mutually attractive, mutually desired goods is divided from another.
Notes
(459) SC, 93-107.
(460) Ibid.