Page:The Outline of History Vol 2.djvu/599

 XLI

THE POSSIBLE UNIFICATION OF THE WORLD INTO ONE COMMUNITY OF KNOWLEDGE AND WILL

§ 1

E have brought this Outline of History up to our own times, but we have brought it to no conclusion. It breaks off at a dramatic phase of expectation. The story of life which began inestimable millions of years ago, the adventure of mankind which was already afoot half a million years ago, rises to a crisis in the immense interrogation of to-day. The drama becomes ourselves. It is you, it is I, it is all that is happening to us and all that we are doing which will supply the next chapter of this continually expanding adventure.

Our history has traced a steady growth of the social and political units into which men have combined. In the brief period of ten thousand years these units have grown from the small family tribe of the early neolithic culture to the vast united realms—vast yet still too small and partial—of the present time. And this change in size of the state—a change manifestly incomplete—has been accompanied by profound changes in its nature. Compulsion and servitude have given way to ideas of associated freedom, and the sovereignty that was once concentrated in an autocratic king and god has been widely diffused throughout the 579