210 Declining Effectiveness of Force 



concessions in flat contradiction with the poHcy 

 dictated by their own philosophy of the effective- 

 ness of force. 



The decHning effectiveness of force is not only a 

 consequence of the progress of civilization. It is 

 also a cause. As the role of physical force becomes 

 less important, due to the reaHzation of its ineffec- 

 tiveness, more of the energies of men are set free 

 for the higher forms of struggle, economic, political, 

 and intellectual. This increased activity in the 

 higher forms of struggle again makes physical forces 

 less effective, so that we have a cumulative result 

 with the law of acceleration entering into play. 

 The material advance in civiHzation also, due to 

 increasing co-operation and the division of labour, 

 places new and increasingly powerful instruments 

 at the disposal of intellectual forces — instruments 

 of education, the popular press, postal and tele- 

 graphic systems, rapid means of transportation; 

 and these new and powerful instruments greatly 

 increase the effectiveness and rapidity of opera- 

 tion of the intellectual forces. Social evolution is 

 essentially a progressive modification of conflict 

 by association and interdependence, and in the 

 course of this modification conflict itself is trans- 

 formed from a physical into an intellectual 

 struggle. 



The result of this process of the declining ef- 

 fectiveness of force is that in our modern inter- 

 dependent civilization physical force used for 

 aggression has become futile to advance those 



