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together of the wills of individuals to pursue some good that rises above the interests of
the individual qua individual. “What do we find in fact” he asks:
Not surely a sand-heap of individuals, all equal and undifferentiated, unrelated
except to the State, but an ascending hierarchy of groups, family, school, town,
county, union, Church, etc., etc. All these groups (or many of them) live with a
real life; they act towards one another with a unity of will and mind as though
they were single persons:…
He goes on in the same passage to say that “In the real world, the isolated individual does
not exist; he begins always as a member of something,…” (Churches, pp. 87-88)
The State then for Figgis is not the same as the groups within it. It is, to coin a phrase
used to describe Canadian federalism by a former Prime Minister, “a community of
communities”. It is not just one more group but rather a special kind of association with a
limited purpose. It is, as pointed out above, the instrument through which all other groups
can pursue their particular good. Figgis argues that people are members of the State,
citizens, only through their being members of the multitude of groups within the State.
Nothing holds the State together other then this purely political bond.
Of the illimitable authority arrogated by the civil power, we say that it is false to
the facts of human life in society; that we are doing a service to politics by
asserting on the highest plane the doctrine of the inherent, underived , though not
uncontrolled, life of societies within the State. (AntiChrist, p. 262)
The important point here is twofold. The groups within the State are natural in that they
are not created by the State; they are “inherent and underived” from the State. Second he
allows that the State has a role in controlling groups. The State is the body that keeps
order and insures that groups do not infringe on each other in a way that limits their
ability to pursue their own ends. It is a tool to ensure that individuals are not oppressed.
This raises an interesting question not answered by Figgis; are internally liberal groups
Convention