Principles of western civilisation

vi ZHE GREAT ANTINOMY: FIRST STAGE 249

The outlines of the situation are capable of being readily grasped by the mind. They may be presented in this wise. The controlling centre of human consciousness has hitherto been, as we have seen, inthe present time. But, as has been throughout insisted, by a necessity from which there is no escape, and which is inherent in the very nature of the evolutionary process itself, this controlling centre is sooner or later destined to be shifted into the future. Yet now, as the concepts accompanying this transfer begin to take shape in the human mind; as we actually see the human consciousness clearly defining to itself in the full light of history the concept that the interests which it has come to include under the head of “spiritual,” are of more importance than its temporal welfare; there looms out before us an issue more far-reaching and more complex than has ever before been encountered.

For, if the human mind is now really to rise to the position of holding with absolute conviction that the interests which it defines to itself as spiritual are more important than its temporal welfare, what must happen? To all appearance there is involved in the very nature of the concept through which such a subordination can alone be effected, a principle which must again imprison all human activities in a tyranny even greater than any from which they have just emerged. In the past, as we have seen, the interests of the future were entirely at the mercy of the tyrannies through which the omnipotent present expressed itself. But now, although the operation of Natural Selection tends to be, as it were, projected into the future, the battle-ground, it must be remembered, remains, and must for ever remain,