Principles of western civilisation

264 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

world. That the resulting conditions are destined to ripen towards a crisis of capital importance, and that they must, as already indicated, give rise to a class of phenomena entirely new and special is already clear.

When, therefore, from the eleventh century onward to the sixteenth we regard the history of any country in Western Europe, the phenomenon which has been already noted as characteristic of the history of England is immediately apparent. At whatever point the historical student stands in Europe his face during these centuries turns towards the same centre. It is the great problem in human development, becoming visible as the claims, inherent in the very nature of the concept we have been discussing, grow more and more clearly into view, and are at length uncompromisingly formulated by the human mind, which underlies all the political life of our Western world. It matters not in what country the point of view of the student is taken; the position in the State is found to be everywhere the same; until at length, as we approach the period embraced in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, only one great question, to use words of Sir Frederick Pollock,’ ‘‘draws to itself whatever power or interest men’s minds then had in the theoretical treatment of affairs of State.” This is the controversy between the temporal and the spiritual power.”

1 History of the Science of Politics, p. 34-

* In regarding the capital position towards which this controversy moves, the evolutionist soon understands that one of the first things he has to realise is, that he must not allow his attention to be primarily concerned with those causes, often necessarily of the deepest interest to a certain class of students, which led to the See of Rome becoming the representative of the claims now put forward. For as the intellect is fixed on the matter which claims its