The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1915. SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND WESTERN CIVILISATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 18, 13 January 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1915. SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND WESTERN CIVILISATION.

In one of his groat orations Gladstone exclaimed: "The great social forces which roll onward in their majesty and might arc on our side," and it is equally true that in the titanic war which is now raging the great moral forces which roll onward in their majesty and might are on tlie side of the Allies. It is necessary to understand this allirmation in order to adequately comprehend the seriousness of the struggle upon which Britain has entered, and Mr Benjamin Kidd, the well-known writer on social evolution, lias materially helped towards gaining an insight into this conlliet for spiritual ideals by a remarkable article which lie has contributed to the Daily Mail Year Book for I!HS. lie believes that social evolution and Western civilisation are based oil eternal moral forces; lie believes that we do well to bear that Burden of the Future —a belief in the ultimate triumph oi the principle of universal right, and lie believes that we eiin only win against Germany in one way, by cherishing "an idealism which is higher and a belief ana a determination which are stronger than those which sustain Germany in this war." He shows that the ideals which animate Germany to-day in her mad rush for world power "represent the oldest political doctrine of tlie world, namely, the doctrine of the predatory J State as it found its highest expression in history in the empire of pagan Rome. They express, in short, the denial of the characteristic principles with which the progress and liberties of the West have been identified since the passing of the ancient world. But they express this denial backed with science, resources, and organisation such as Rome never commanded. Germany's ideal is "the religion of Force inspired and organised as the world has never seen it before.'' Yet the history of Western civilisation for 2001) years is nothing else than the history of the smashing and pulverisation of this doctrine in every form in which it has attempted to embody itself in the State ill alliance with military power. It has organised itself in churches, creeds, empires, kingdoms, systems of philosophy, refusal of rights to smaller nations, an. l in the despotic rule of weaker peoples by stronger, but never before has civilisation witnessed a ]jelief in tlie aggressive mission of a State raised to the plane of a religio,n allied to so powerful and efficient an organisation, material and military, of a whole people. In defining what progress means, .Mr. Kidd says: "The meaning which underlies all forms of Western progress for twenty centuries is that progress represents the great spiritual integration of mind which has raised the conception of Right to the plane of the Universal by projecting the sense of human responsibility outside all theories of the State whatsoever. It has made Right independent of and superior to all interests of the State on whatever claim or mission they may be based, on whatever scale they may bo represented, by whatever force they maiy be hacked. The contrary doctrine that im right is above the State, and that thel" State has 110 standard but that of power and expediency, resting 011 omnipotent force, has been the standing challenge to liberty and progress in every phase of the stupendous struggles which make the history of the West. The struggle upon which Britain has entered is one for the ultimate place of Britain in civilisation. The challenge from Germany is a challenge to the fundamental principles upon which the whole of British development in the past has been founded, to which our inner life is allied, and upon which our place iTi the future depends. The facts as stated bring out, moreover, the enormous strength of Germany's "position. This is not inertly a struggle of armies or of economic powers. It is a struggle in which we are engaged with enormous forces, organised and inspired by a barboric idealism held as a religious belief, which are seeking to embrace and to mould human activities 011 a world scale. ''There is only one way in which Great Britain can attain to victory in the conflict. She can only win if, behind all her forces and through all her efforts, she is ultimately sustained in the prolonged struggle by an idealism which is higher and a belief and a determination which are stronger than those which sustain Germany in this war." It is Britain who, in her contact with the world for centuries, and who alike in the humiliations and failures as in the triumphs of an Empire of 450,000,000 of the human race, has been learning the great lesson of the Universal, namely, that there is but one race, and but one color, and but one soul in humanity, j although the knowledge at times has j scared her flesh. It is Britain who has projected the pense of human responsi- '

bility outside all theories of the interests of States and Empires. It is Britain who lias taught the world that she liolds a principle of progress to "be that there can he no form of absolute truth or authority safely allied with the military power of any State. It is because the peoples of the world have in some measure:; understood these tilings, and be- 1 can. :■ Britain, allowing for all her faults, stands in their vision in this conllict as the champion of the human spirit in its belief in the ultimate triumph of principles of universal right, and for the full and free development of all races under equal liberties, that the faces of the nations and of alien peoples have been turned to her in the struggle. There has been no tribute ' exacted by a conqueror in history like the free tribute of loyalty and devotion accompanied by material military help from the self-governing nations of her own kin oversea, and from the Indian Empire and from the Indian States, in tliis war. The quarter of a million men equipped and maintained which the colonies, India, and the Indian princes will place in the field are an example of the results of the spirit underlying British rule, which is beyond the understanding of those who govern modern Germany. Every new absolution of the world has constantly essayed to follow in tift' path of its predecessors, and to inscribe on its banner that inexorable motto which is inherent in the conception, and which drives them all to their fate, "World Power or Downfall."