Principles of western civilisation

20 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

character of its outlines begins to slowly reveal itself to view. In the light of the modern theory of evolution the ruling meaning which expressed itself through all the forms of the ancient civilisations is becoming clear. In these civilisations, in which the purposes of the State included the whole life and interests of the individual—material, moral, and religious—the ultimate fact to which all others stood related was the ascendency of the present in the evolutionary process. It was the rule of the present, and the ascendency of all the powers, forces, institutions, and interests able to dominate it, which constituted the characteristic fact to which the meaning of all other facts was related in this phase of the world’s history. The significance of our civilisation, on the other hand, as expressed through the modern movement of enfranchisement, has been, as we are now beginning to understand, to break this hitherto universal ascendency of the present. And the process of social evolution in which this end is being accomplished is one in which all human activities—in economics, politics, ethics, and religion—are being drawn into the sweep of an integrating process, the controlling meaning of which tends to be projected beyond the content of all theories of the interests of society as included within the limits of the consciousness of the State. What, therefore, is the significance of the remarkable position in modern politics wherein we see the forward movement in our time so deeply committed to a theory of progress in which it is this conception of the ascendency of the present that is again everywhere in evidence? It is when, for answer, we turn now to the inner life of the