418 



GOVERNMENT 



desire to understand whither the Individualist 

 principle, stripped bare of a priori fogs and for- 

 mulas, and followed out to its consequences, lands 

 its supporters. 



Starting from assumptions about the equality 

 of men, their natural rights and the social con- 

 tract, common to so many political philosophers 

 of the a priori school, we have been offered the 

 choice of two alternative routes. Taking that 

 indicated by Hobbes, Rousseau, Mably, and their 

 successors, we have found ourselves committed to 

 the further a priori assumption that, when men 

 entered into society, they surrendered all their 

 natural rights ; and, acknowledging the omnipo- 

 tence of the general will, received back such 

 legal and moral obligations and permissions as the 

 Sovereign might be pleased to sanction. Absolute 

 political ethics thus arrived, by a plausible logical 

 process, at Regimentation ; that is, a quasi^niliiary 

 organisatio_n-_af_sacie_ty, for the purpose of conquer- 

 ing the general welfare by means of that enforced 

 apparent equality which brings about the hugest 

 of real inequalities. 



On the other hand, when we took the path 

 pointed out by Locke and followed by Liberalism, 

 we made an d priori assumption of a diametrically 

 opposite character. We said that men entering 

 into the social contract reserved all their natural 

 rights, except such as it was absolutely necessary 



