Principles of western civilisation

254 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

the constitutional development of England during the Middle Ages has endeavoured to work, we feel at once, when we have got to the heart of the subject, that in all these we are but in touch with the outward phenomena of a system of life of which the real meaning lies elsewhere. The particulars, for instance, of the development in England under exceptional conditions of the ideas and customs of certain German tribes; of the local modifications of the feudal system; of the operation of conflicting racial characteristics and institutions; of the resulting interaction in circumstances special and local in England of the various claims and powers of the nobles, the people, and the king ;—are all of great interest and importance. Nevertheless, what we feel is that the real meaning of the forces which are making the history of our civilisation, and, therefore, the real meaning of the forces which are afterwards to express themselves in the problems for which the history of England is to stand in the future, is not, in the last resort, comprised in these things. There is, it may be perceived, no characteristic cause or principle in any one of them, or in all of them together, which could serve in itself to differentiate, in any important particular, the world in the future from the world as it has always been in the past.! It is only as they are to contribute to the development of a higher system of life that they are later to become instinct with meaning and significance.

It is therefore towards the principles of a larger order of life than these things by themselves imply, a system of life the pulsations of which may

1 Cf. The Holy Roman Empire, by James Bryce, p. 242.