116 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



inheritance in civilization is the most influential 

 of all elements in the collective heredity. The 

 importance of it is profound, and far exceeds that of 

 inborn heredity hi the individual. It is capable of 

 bringing into existence orders of men permanently 

 endowed with characters, feelings, standards of 

 conduct from the influence of which they can 

 never free themselves, and the distinctive mark of 

 which is the power of renunciation and sacrifice 

 which they create in the individual. 



In the future it will be seen clearly that all Western 

 knowledge is passing in our time through a pro- 

 found revolution. In the past the Western intellect 

 has been exclusively concentrated on that phe- 

 nomenon in time which may be described as the 

 emergence of the efficient individual. The science 

 of this efficient individual is founded on Reason. 

 Reason is essentially the knowledge of material 

 force and not the knowledge of the world as it is. 

 It is the far-flung science, that is to say, of the 

 causes which enabled A to kill B before B was able 

 to kill A in the environment which has prevailed 

 in the past of the world. The higher controversies 

 in Western knowledge for half a century past, 

 in which minds like those of Bergson, Bradley, 

 James, Balfour, Ward, Schiller, Lange, Lodge, 

 M c Taggart, Tolstoy, M c Dougall, and a multitude of 



