The Prospects of Industrial Civilisation

Abstract

History is, in part, a search for precedents — an interpretation of the past designed to indicate similarities and congruities in order to suggest lessons which can be applied to the present and the future so that our performance may be improved. It has been with this purpose that we have explored some of the most important themes in the development of modern Industrial Civilisation. The description of the exercise as an ‘exploration’ is appropriate because the treatment of many large subjects has undoubtedly been perfunctory. Some, indeed, have been dealt with in only a few words, and even with those chosen for examination in more detail little more than a preliminary survey has been possible. Nevertheless, even this cavalier treatment has sufficed to show the essential unity of our civilisation, and the shape of the problems which confront it and which require solutions in this generation. The argument of the preceding pages, in short, has been that Industrial Civilisation has arrived at a point of momentous significance in its development. In an over-worked but realistic metaphor, it is at a cross-roads, where a collective decision has to be made between alternative courses of action. In the generation of those of us who are alive now, decisions will be made, either explicitly or by default, which will affect the character of our civilisation, and even its survival. If it is to have a worth-while future, everything will depend on the wisdom and timeliness of our collective action in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The destiny of the species is in our hands. Never in human history has so much depended upon the decisions of a single generation of men and women.