18 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



winian conception as giving lasting support to the 

 view that the social struggle supplied the stern, inevit- 

 able condition out of which social efficiency emerged. 

 They took it as confirming that theory of the world, 

 which was already presented in economic science, 

 according to which the natural and unchangeable 

 condition of society was one of extreme polarity. 

 At one end there was the accumulation of property 

 and influence in the hands of the few representing 

 the leaders and the capables, and at the other 

 end there was the vast majority of the population 

 ruled down by the iron necessities of the competitive 

 struggle to the lowest wage at which they would 

 work efficiently and reproduce themselves. 



In little more than the lifetime of a generation 

 we have seen the foundations of this world of know- 

 ledge transformed. The emancipating influence 

 at work in civilization has gradually brought to 

 the multitudes the political enfranchisement in- 

 herent from the beginning in the conception of 

 human equality and human brotherhood. In every 

 leading country the working millions constituting 

 the greater part of the population were to be seen 

 becoming consolidated and organized by the actual 

 mechanism of the process in which they were caught, 

 with the gift of political power in their hands, 

 with the dawning light of an intelligence in their 



