equilibrium constantly tending by its very nature to a point where
dissolution is apparently inevitable.

It is no part of my task to elaborate this thesis, and still less to
magnify its perils. Enough has been said and written on this subject
during the last two years; more than enough, perhaps, and in any case no
thinking person is unaware of the conditions that exist, whatever may be
his estimate of their significance, his interpenetration of their
tendency. I have set myself the task of trying to suggest some
constructive measures that we may employ in laying the foundations for
the immediate future; they may be wrong in whole or in part, but at
least my object and motive are not recrimination or invective, but
regeneration. Nevertheless, as a foundation the case must be stated, and
as a necessary preparation to any work that looks forward we must have
at least a working hypothesis as to how the conditions that need
redemption were brought about. I state the case thus, therefore: That
human society, even humanity itself, is now in a state of flux that at
any moment may change into a chaos comparable only with that which came
with the fall of classical civilization and from which five centuries
were necessary for the process of recovery. Christianity, democracy,
science, education, wealth, and the cumulative inheritance of a thousand
years, have not preserved us from the vain repetition of history. How
has this been possible, what has been the sequence of events that has
brought us to this pass?

It is of course the result of the interaction of certain physical,
material facts and certain spiritual forces. Out of these spiritual
energies come events, phenomena that manifest themselves in political,
social, ecclesiastical transactions and institutions; in wars,
migrations and the reshaping of states; in codes of law, the