In the conception of self-government then we {55} have the paradox of obligation in its purest form. As applied to the individual himself, it gives the paradox of Ethical Obligation. As applied to the individuals who compose a society, it gives the paradox of Political Obligation. This must be the preliminary distinction by which we approach the subject; but we shall find that the two problems and the two cases cannot be ultimately separated, although they are to be distinguished in a certain respect. The paradox of Ethical Obligation starts from what is accepted as a “self,” and asks how it can exercise authority or coercion over itself; how, in short, a metaphor drawn from the relations of some persons to others can find application within what we take to be the limits of an individual mind. [1] [1] On this problem, see below, p. 139. The paradox of Political Obligation starts from what is accepted as authority or social coercion, and asks in what way the term “self,” derived from the “individual” mind, can be applicable at once to the agent and patient in such coercion, exercised _prima facie_ by some persons over others. Both relations and their connection have been pointed out by Plato. [1] [1] _Republic_, 430, 431. Our object in the present chapter is to enforce the reality of the difficulties which attach to the idea of political self-government, so long as current assumptions as to the union of individuals in society are maintained. And for this purpose we are to examine the views of some very distinguished philosophers to whom the paradox has appeared irreconcilable, and law or government has seemed {56} essentially antagonistic to the self or true individuality of man; while the term self, if applied to the collective group by or within which government is undoubtedly exercised, appears to them an empty and misleading expression. The curious and significant point, to which we shall call attention, is, in brief, that while maintaining law and government to be in their nature antagonistic to the self of man--whether as pain to pleasure or as fetters to individuality--they nevertheless admit with one voice that a certain minimum of this antagonistic element is necessary to the development of the sentient or rational self. We have here a dualism which challenges examination.