Principles of western civilisation

vO, THE PROBLEM 145

all developed to the highest possible extent, for the time being, that type of society which, of all others, possesses most power of holding its own in the present time. . For no efficiency in respect of the future would avail any type of society which did not also possess the power of being efficient in such conditions as existed in the present. If it were not able to hold its own in competition with other societies organised to obtain the highest potency in the present time, it must simply disappear from view in the stress of evolution.

The most potent type of organised society in such conditions would be, beyond doubt, that in which every element and interest had been subordinated to the end of military efficiency. What we come, therefore, to perceive is that the type of society organised towards military efficiency must at this point not only become the rival of all other types, but that towards the end of that first stage it will be the one supreme and surviving type before which all others have disappeared. Nay, more, we see that the rise to ascendency of the causes which are to subordinate the present to the future in the second stage cannot begin until this culmination has actually taken place. We seem, therefore, to have, in addition to the principle of the two stages already enunciated, this additional fact in view :-—

It 1s only from the type of society in which there 2s still potential the highest military efficiency that there can be developed that principle of social efficiency which, in the second epoch of social evolution, must ultimately subordinate organised society atself to tts own future.

As we reflect on the nature of the situation L