A SOCIOLOGICAL VJEIV OF SOVEREIGNTY 545
they could not understand the claims of the aspiring class and would be unable to make those concessions implied in partner- ship. They would submit to sheer coercion in the form of imperialism or tyranny, but would not enter into that arrange- ment of mutual veto which characterizes the true state with its constitutional form of government.
Belief in moral perfection is the belief in right and wrong. The morally right is that which squares with the perfect rule of the universe. When this belief sinks in the heart, it leads to a certain judgment of self. This is a consciousness conditioned on personal freedom, either of one's own perfection or of one's guilt ; of one's harmony or disharmony with the rule of right. In the empiric stage guilt is disobedience to ceremony or cus- tom ; in the reflective stage it is the consciousness of a sinful purpose. This consciousness of self is at the same time a judgment of similar perfection or guilt in others conditioned on the recognition of like freedom of choice and action in them. But this of itself does not lead to a recognition of the right of others to be free. There is needed in addition a belief in the moral worth of others ; the conviction that they as well as one's self ought to be free to express self-perfection or self- guilt. The Brahman believes in freedom only for the higher caste. The lower are to have little or no choices of their own, but are to serve the higher. The moral worth of others, con- sidered as an effective motive for self, is ultimately a religious conviction of the equality of others. This is the narrower meaning of the "general will" which Green really has in mind in his contention, referred to in chap. 7, that will, not force, is the basis of sovereignty. The general will, he says, is " not the momentary spring of any and every sponta- neous action, but a constant principle, operating in all men qualified for any form of society, however frequently overborne by passing impulses, in virtue of which each seeks to give reality to the conception of a well-being which he necessarily regards as common to himself with others."' "The state or sovereign presupposes rights, and is an institution for their
'Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, p. 217.
