Principles of western civilisation

XI TOWARDS THE FUTURE 405

to carry forward the whole social process is taken for granted. And the inherent tendency of all economic evils to cure themselves if simply left alone—the characteristic doctrine of the Manchester school of thought in England—becomes, accordingly, the central and fundamental article of belief throughout all that rigid system of social theory, in the influence of which almost the entire intellectual life of England and the United States begins to be held by the last half of the nineteenth century.

When we look closely at the position which is here defined, the fundamental principle it discloses on analysis is very remarkable. Despite the greatly widened area of the process of freedom won for the world, as the doctrine of competition in this form carries the peoples involved in it a long step forward in the direction in which the development described by Schmoller is proceeding ; despite even the gigantic results which immediately follow the increasing intensity of conditions; the fact is indubitable that—just as in the first stages of all -the other developments towards the emancipation of the future which have taken place in our civilisation—economic development as a whole remains still imprisoned within certain inexorable limits. It still moves in all its details within the closed circle of the ascendent present. It is only the immensity of the stage upon which the process is being enacted which obscures for a time the nature of the goal towards which the whole movement slowly advances. In endeavouring to understand the modern worldproblem, it is, therefore, of the highest importance that the intellect should endeavour to hold firmly