Abstract
Mr. Roper has produced a thoughtful and, in many respects, a stimulating book. He is a whole-hearted evolutionist, who regards the failure of post-war reconstruction as arising from the fact that our statesmen have resorted to outworn precedents while neglecting the teachings of evolution. There is, he maintains, a wilful confusion of State and community. A community he defines as “an association of two or more human beings for common (though not of necessity identical or similar) purpose or advantage in their evolution.” Immediately the common purpose ceases, the community also ceases. Taking each of the principal States of Europe in turn, Mr. Roper shows that, owing to the division which has been made and is perpetuated by the financial-governing class between themselves and the working-governed class, none of them constitutes a community in his sense. The imposition of the will of one section of society upon another which is involved in our modern system of government by the majority is therefore fundamentally wrong. The difficulty is old, and if in practice we have made no very essential advance beyond the compromise expressed in Rousseaus distinction between le volonté de tons and le volonté général, it is an advantage that it should be kept before our minds by the clear vision of writers such as Mr. Roper.
The Individual and the Community.
R. E.
Roper
By. Pp. 224. (London: G. Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1922.) 8s. 6d. net.
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The Individual and the Community . Nature 110, 340 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/110340a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/110340a0