Rousseau in some moods is the victim of this fallacy, and it is widely triumphant to-day.
[1] So early an analysis of government as that made by Plato in the _Republic_ shows indeed that this was never the sole theory, as it is not the truest, of the cohesive forces of any community whatever. But it has a certain validity, proportioned to the degree of political imperfection.
But with the success of the democratic principle,
“elective and responsible government became subject to the observations and criticisms which wait upon a great existing fact. It was now observed that such phrases as ‘self-government’, and ‘the power of the people over themselves’, do not express the true state of the case. The ‘people’ who exercise the power are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised; and the ’self-government’ spoken of is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest. The { 75} will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active _part_ of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority ... and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power. The limitation, therefore, of the power of government loses none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable to the community, that is, to the strongest party therein. ... In political speculations, the ‘tyranny of the majority’ is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.”
The paradox of self-government then, so far from being theoretically solved by the development of political institutions to their highest known maturity, is simply intensified by this development. When the arbitrary and irrational powers of classes or of individuals have been swept away, we are left face to face, it would seem, with the coercion of some by others as a necessity in the nature of things. And, indeed, however perfectly “self-government” has been substituted for despotism, it is flying in the face of experience to suggest that the average individual self, as he exists in you or me, is _ipso facto_ satisfied, and at home, in all the acts of the public power which is supposed to represent him. If he were so, the paradox of self-government would be resolved by the annihilation of one of its factors. The self would remain, but “government” would be superfluous; or else “government” would be everything, and the self annihilated. If, on the other hand, we understand the “self” in “self-government” to stand for the whole sovereign group or { 76} community, which is usually called a “self-governing,” as opposed to a subject, state, then we have before us the task of showing that this self is a reality in any sense which justifies the acceptance of what is done by the public power as an act of the whole community. But on the ground where we stand in the theories reviewed in the present chapter, no such self can be shown. Government, in fact and in principle, reveals itself as coercion exercised by “the others” over “the one.” And so long as this is the case, and as the government is alien to the self, not only do the rights of majorities remain without explanation, but no less is it impossible to say on what rational ground an entire community can apply coercion to a single recalcitrant member. We have seen that Mill would solve the problem by a demarcation, according to which the aim and ground of government is to protect the self from the impact of others, and leave it in its isolated purity. Herbert Spencer, it may be noted, [1] has recourse to one of those hypotheses of tacit consent which would reduce a community to the level of a joint-stock company, [2] _minus_ a written instrument of association; which in the case of the State has to be replaced by Mr. Spencer’s estimate of purposes, which would _probably_ be accepted with unanimity _if_ the question were asked! Bentham alone, founding { 77} himself on the actual nature of social life, genially overrides the whole question of individual right, and while maintaining law to be a necessary evil, and pouring scorn on all attempts to exhibit a positive unity throughout the selves which compose a society, makes the promotion of a free and happy life the sole criterion of governmental interference.