Principles of western civilisation

414 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

markable and dramatic features of the situation before referred to become gradually visible. Inspired as the leaders of this movement have been with the inward vision of one of the greatest of modern scientific truths, namely, the importance of the principle of free competition in the evolution of society; perceiving clearly, moreover, despite all the phenomena of opposition, the fundamental relationship of this master-principle to the causes which are irresistibly carrying forward the advancing peoples of the world; we see them in our time as the advocates of the principle of uncontrolled competition, standing, almost as stood the leaders of the medizval Church — resolute, sullen, unconvinced — at bay before a visibly increasing purpose in our civilisation, which seems to them to threaten the central and supreme article of their faith. It is when we turn to the conditions under which the development with which we have been dealing begins to extend now beyond the relations simply of capital to labour, and to draw into its influence the more extensive phenomena of our civilisation, that the deeper interest of the situation takes firm hold upon the mind.

When we look back once again over the history of the early competitive era in our civilisation, it may be perceived that there is one idea which forms the leading conception of the school of thought in England identified with the principles of that period. It is, in reality, the idea which provided the central principle round which all the conceptions of the Manchester school revolved. It is an idea which can be stated more clearly and satisfactorily if, in words at least, we disengage it