Principles of western civilisation

XI TOWARDS THE FUTURE 433

generally will be no longer determined by competition. Yet, before we endeavour to interpret the character of the future, towards which these events appear to be advancing, it is desirable to turn our attention for a moment to an examination of the remarkable position which is the correlative of them; namely, that to which we have been carried in the world by the application of the most characteristic of all the doctrines of the early competitive era, the doctrine of international trade as it has been developed by the /azssez-faire school of thought in England.

Now we have seen, in following through the preceding chapters the unfolding of the evolutionary process in our Western era, that its meaning must be held to consist essentially in the fact that it represents the great drama of development in which the world is passing under the control of the governing principles with which the larger interests of the future are identified. The ideal towards which the advanced peoples are being carried therein is, therefore, of necessity, that of an open, fair, and free rivalry, in which, in the interests of this future, the potentiality of all natural powers shall be completely enfranchised. And the characteristic principle, the development of which is represented in our civilisation, is that which is emancipating the future from the tyranny of all the forces tending to become absolute in the present. We have seen that the necessary cause and condition which accompanies this development is the projection of the controlling sense of human responsibility out of the present. That is to Say,

l Cf. Economic Journal, No. 34, ‘‘ American Trusts,” by W. J. Ashley. 2F