rget the other side of the original
supposition. Society consists wholly of persons. It has no distinct
personality separate from and superior to those of its members. It has,
indeed, a certain collective life and character. The British nation is a
unity with a life of its own. But the unity is constituted by certain
ties that bind together all British subjects, which ties are in the last
resort feelings and ideas, sentiments of patriotism, of kinship, a
common pride, and a thousand more subtle sentiments that bind together
men who speak a common language, have behind them a common history, and
understand one another as they can understand no one else. The British
nation is not a mysterious entity over and above the forty odd millions
of living souls who dwell together under a common law. Its life is their
life, its well-being or ill-fortune their well-being or ill-fortune.
Thus, the common good to which each man's rights are subordinate is a
good in which each man has a share. This share consists in realizing his
capacities of feeling, of loving, of mental and physical energy, and in
realizing these he plays his part in the social life, or, in Green's
phrase, he finds his own good in the common good.

Now, this phrase, it must be admitted, involves a certain assumption,
which may be regarded as the fundamental postulate of the organic view
of society. It implies that such a fulfilment or full development of
personality is practically possible not for one man only but for all
members of a community. There must be a line of development open along
which each can move in harmony with others. Harmony in the full sense
would involve not merely absence of conflict but actual support. There
must be for each, then, possibilities of development such as not merely
to permit but actively to further the development of others. Now, the
older economists conceived a natural harmony, such that the interests of
each would, if properly understood and unchecked by outside
interference, inevitably lead him in courses profitable to others and to
society at large. We saw that this assumption was too optimistic. The
conception which we have now reached does not assume so much. It
postulates, not that there is an actually existing harmony requiring
nothing but prudence and coolness of judgment for its effective
operation, but only that there is a possible ethical harmony, to which,
partly by discipline, partly by the improvement of the conditio