When we say that ideas rule the world, or exercise
a decisive power in history, we are generally thinking
of those ideas which express human aims and depend
for their realisation on the human will, such as liberty,
toleration, equality of opportunity, socialism.
Some of these have been partly realised, and there
is no reason why any of them should not be fully realised,
in a society or in the world, if it were the united
purpose of a society or of the world to realise it.
They are approved or condemned because they are held
to be good or bad, not because they are true or false.
But there is another order of ideas that play a great
part in determining and directing the course of man’s
conduct but do not depend on his will—ideas
which bear upon the mystery of life, such as Fate,
Providence, or personal immortality. Such ideas
may operate in important ways on the forms of social
action, but they involve a question of fact and they
are accepted or rejected not because they are believed
to be useful or injurious, but because they are believed
to be true or false.
The idea of the progress of humanity is an idea of
this kind, and it is important to be quite clear on
the point. We now take it so much for granted,
we are so conscious of constantly progressing in knowledge,
arts, organising capacity, utilities of all sorts,
that it is easy to look upon Progress as an aim, like
liberty or a world-federation, which it only depends
on our own efforts and good-will to achieve.
But though all increases of power and knowledge depend
on human effort, the idea of the Progress of humanity,
from which all these particular progresses derive
their value, raises a definite question of fact, which
man’s wishes or labours cannot affect any more
than his wishes or labours can prolong life beyond
the grave.
This idea means that civilisation has moved, is moving,
and will move in a desirable direction. But in
order to judge that we are moving in a desirable direction
we should have to know precisely what the destination
is. To the minds of most people the desirable
outcome of human development would be a condition of
society in which all the inhabitants of the planet
would enjoy a perfectly happy existence. But
it is impossible to be sure that civilisation is moving
in the right direction to realise this aim. Certain
features of our “progress” may be urged
as presumptions in its favour, but there are always
offsets, and it has always been easy to make out a
case that, from the point of view of increasing happiness,
the tendencies of our progressive civilisation are
far from desirable. In short, it cannot be proved
that the unknown destination towards which man is
advancing is desirable. The movement may be Progress,
or it may be in an undesirable direction and therefore
not Progress. This is a question of fact, and
one which is at present as insoluble as the question
of personal immortality. It is a problem which
bears on the mystery of life.
