Principles of western civilisation

x1 TOWARDS THE FUTURE 453

economic development, as the earlier phases of the problem have been already solved in the developments described in the preceding chapters, to whom the leadership of the world undoubtedly belongs in the epoch towards which our civilisation is moving.

It may be observed that the idea still continues to prevail amongst intelligent minds that the principle underlying the spectacle of /azssez-fatre competition, that we have here, under so many phases, attempted to describe—that is to say, the principle which has dissociated all sense of responsibility from the competitive process in industry, in trade, in commerce, and in the international exploitation of the resources of the world—is actually the same principle that has been behind the development in Western history described in the preceding chapters as projecting the controlling sense of responsibility out of the present. The opinion, it may be noticed, survives in many minds that the prevailing conditions of competition in our civilisation actually represent the still advancing front of this development in history. When all due allowance is made for the advance which the principle of /azssez-fatre competition involved when compared with the frank feudalism of the State which preceded it, it is, of course, impossible to imagine any conception more completely inaccurate than that here described. It represents what, in many respects, is almost the exact opposite of the truth. For the evolutionary significance of the development which is projecting the sense of human responsibility out of the present, and which is dissociating the controlling meaning of the historical process from all the interests and compulsions within the limits of political conscious-