Principles of western civilisation

VI THE ASCENDENCY OF THE PRESENT 157

When, therefore, in imagination the evolutionist takes his stand in history in the midst of that phase of social order represented in the empires of the ancient world, he beholds the process of life around him tense with a more characteristic virility, instinct with a larger and deeper meaning, than he finds anywhere disclosed in the more or less local studies of the political histories of these civilisations which have for the most part filled the literature of the past. In the civilisations of the ancient oligarchies, of the Greek States, and of the Roman empire, he is regarding, he sees, not some isolated and distinct type of society, the principles of which can be studied apart in themselves ; but one in which is represented the last phase of an epoch of development which has occupied the greater part of the past history of the race. All the relationships of the time must have, he feels, the same mark upon them. Every tendency in ethics, every principle in politics, every instinct in art, every ideal in religion, must have some relationship to the omnipotent governing principle of the ascendency of the present which has hitherto controlled the development of the world. And the highest outward expression, in which all the tendencies must meet and culminate, will be, he realises, the military State bounded in its energies only by the resistance of others, acknowledging no complete end short of absolute dominion, staying its course before no possible ideal short of universal conquest.

Now, we can never get to the heart of the two last and greatest civilisations of the ancient world until we understand the nature of the peculiar and exclusive significance to be attached to the central