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ceive that it is some form of human well-being. 74
Professor Mackenzie seems here to assume that some form of hu-
man well-being must lie within society itself. But this, though it may
be true, is by no means necessary. All human beings are at present within
society, but it is possible that they may cease to be so in the future, and
that the human well-being which it is the object of society to promote
may be one in which society is broken up, and the individuals isolated.
(I am not, of course, arguing that this is the case. I am only maintaining
that the fact that the present and actual human being is in society, does
not of itself prove that the future and ideal human being will also be in
society.)75
195. The end of a school, for example, is the well-being of the boys,
and the boys form the school. Nevertheless, the school is not an end in
itself. For boys leave school when they grow up, and the end of the
school is their welfare throughout life, when they will certainly have left
school, and may easily be completely isolated from all their old school-
fellows.
Now what is undoubtedly true of this fraction of society may be,
according to some theories, true of society as a whole. Let us take the
case of a man who believed that society existed for the promotion of
true holiness, as the highest end of man, while at the same time he de-
fined holiness as a relation which existed between God and a particular
individual, and which was independent of even incompatible with
any relations between the individuals themselves. Now any one who
believed this and something very like it has been believed would quite
admit that the end of society was nothing else than human well-being,
since he would conceive that the greatest human well-being lay in holi-
ness. But the end of society would not be in itself; on the contrary, it
would be something which could only be realized when society itself
had ceased to exist.
Again, consider the case of a hedonist who should hold that the one
end of society was to make the sum of pleasures felt by its individual
members, taken as isolated beings, as large as possible. Such a man
would hold that the end of society was a form of human well-being,
while he would not regard society as an organic unity, but merely as a
means for the respective ends of the various individuals who compose
158/John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart
it.
196. My contention has been, so far, that it is useless and mislead-
ing to call any unity organic unless we are prepared to maintain that it
(and not merely something at present contained in it) is an end to itself,
and to its own parts. Otherwise .we shall include among organic unities
systems which exist as bare means for the carrying out of ends which
are indifferent, or even hostile to the unity. To call such systems organic
would be improper, in the first place, because that word has always
been employed to denote a relatively close unity, while such a use would
extend it to all unities whatever. Every aggregate of individuals which
were not absolutely isolated from each other, and in which the connec-
tion was not reduced to the level of mere delusion, would be classed as
organic.
And, in the second place, not only would such a definition depart
completely from the ordinary usage, but it would render the term use-
less. When we said that a unity was organic, we should only say that it
was a unity. It would be useless, for example, to say that society was
organic. For we should only thereby deny the assertion that the indi-
vidual, or any part of him, is uninfluenced by being in society. If any
person does hold this remarkable view, I am unable to say; but it is
certainly not of sufficient weight to render it worth while to appropriate
such a convenient word as organic to express disbelief in it. Meanwhile,
the distinction of such cardinal importance in political theory be-
tween those who admit and those who deny that society is an end in
itself would remain without a suitable name.
I should suggest that the most suitable definition of an organic unity
for our present purpose might be something like this: a unity which is
the end of its parts. This clearly distinguishes it from a unity which is
merely mechanical. It also distinguishes it from a chemical unity, to use
Hegel s phrase, in which the parts are regarded as mere means which
may be discarded or merged, if that would conduce to the realisation of
the end. For here the end is the unity of the parts, and the parts therefore
are an element in the end, as well as the means to it.
This definition has the merit of coinciding with tolerable exactness
with the ordinary use of the word organic, which is an important advan-
tage when it can be gained without sacrifice of accuracy. Organic is
commonly used of animal and vegetable life. Now the definition I have
proposed would include animals and vegetables, and would not include
anything which did not bear a tolerably close resemblance to biological
Studies in Hegelian Cosmology/159
unity.
Such a definition would mark a division in our present subject-
matter which would be worth making. There are two theories at the
present day as to the nature of society, and especially of the state, each
of which has considerable practical influence, and for each of which
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