Principles of western civilisation

144 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

in which the long, slow struggle of the race upwards was dominated in all its aspects by the one controlling principle of military efficiency. On the other side we have dimly portrayed before us the outlines of the first great organic system of society in which there is destined to rise into ascendency at last the causes which are to project the controlling principles of the evolutionary process beyond the present. There is, in reality, no clearly defined boundary line. Far away into the future there still runs the influence of the dominating principle of the ascendency of the present which has hitherto controlled the course of human development. But it is along a downward curve. The culminating period in the first stage of the human process has been passed.

Now when the endeavour is made to concentrate the mind at the point in the evolutionary process at which we see society thus beginning to pass definitely under the control of the future, there comes slowly into view a fact the importance of which soon forces itself upon the attention. It may be observed on reflection that, while the whole trend of development in the second epoch of social evolution must be towards the subordination of the present to the future, the battle-ground upon which Natural Selection can alone distinguish between such types of social efficiency as may arise must, nevertheless, remain always in the present time. There comes into view, therefore, at this point a remarkable principle in our social evolution. It is that no progress can be made towards that second and higher stage in which the future will begin to control the present until Natural Selection has first of