1. To every-day common sense there is something paradoxical in the phenomena of political obligation; however it may acquiesce in what, although not satisfactorily explicable, is plainly seen to be necessary. Where, indeed, we meet with any form of absolutely despotic government, we have not so much a paradox as a defect; for, although government may exist in such a shape, it is open to question how far true political obligation can be said to arise under such a system. In as far as it does so, we shall find that the fact is due to unacknowledged conditions and relations, which we shall more easily analyse as they appear in free or constitutional states. It would then be easy to show, if we were interested in doing so, that the principles which will have been recognised as operative in the freest states known to history, are and have been, in various degrees, at the root of the common life of every state or community which has held together effectively enough to be treated as in any sense a political whole. But this would be a historical investigation, unnecessary for the purpose of pure {54} social theory. In this we may fairly start from the highest form of political experience, in which, as we shall see, the mere defects of political immaturity being outgrown, the paradox of political obligation emerges with intensified emphasis. Let us take as our starting point, then, the conception of “self-government,” to which, it will be admitted on all hands, the thought and feeling of mature communities has clung both in ancient and modern times, as in some way containing the true root and ground of political obligation. We shall find in it a striking illustration of the strength and weakness of wide-spread popular notions. A universal popular notion cannot but have a hold of some essential truth, otherwise it could not survive and spread, and form a working theory for an immense area of experience. On the other hand, a popular notion, as such, cannot be critical of itself and aware of its own foundations; and so in defending and applying itself it is pretty sure to plunge deep into fallacy. “Self-government” is an idea which will be found, as has been said, to contain the true ground and nature of political obligation. But the rough and ready application of it which, for example, represents the individual as simply one with the community, and the community therefore as infallible in its action affecting him, is a pure example of fallacy, and may be justly characterised as a confusion pretending to be a synthesis. Of this idea as of so many we must say that those who have pronounced it to be self-contradictory have understood it much better than most of those who accept it as self-evident.