The realisation of this conceivable better order involves certain necessary achievements. It is impossible for any clear-headed person to suppose that the ever more destructive stupidities of war can be eliminated from human affairs until some common political control dominates the earth, and unless certain pressures due to the growth of population, due to the enlarging scope of human operations or due to conflicting standards and traditions of life, are disposed of. To avoid the positive evils of war and to attain the new levels of prosperity and power that now come into view, an effective world control, not merely of armed force but of the production and main movements of staple commodities and the drift and expansion of population, is required. It is absurd to dream of peace and world-wide progress without that much control. These things assured, the abilities and energies of a greatly increased proportion of human beings could be diverted to the happy activities of scientific research and creative work with an ever-increasing release and enlargement of human possibility. Such a forward stride in human life, the first stride in a mighty continuing advance, an advance to which no limit appears, is now materially possible. The opportunity is offered to mankind. But there is no certainty, no material necessity, that it should ever be taken. It will not be taken by mankind inadvertently. It can only be taken through such an organisation of will and energy to take it as this world has never seen before. These are the new conditions that unfold themselves before the more alert minds of our generation and which will presently become the general mental background, as the modern interpretations of the history of life and of material and mental possibilities establish themselves. Evil political, social and economic usages and arrangements may seem obdurate and huge, but they are neither permanent nor uncontrollable. They can be controlled, however, only by an effort more powerful and determined than the instincts and inertias that sustain them. Religion, modern and disillusioned, has for its outward task to set itself to the control and direction of political, social and economic life, or admit itself a mere drug for easing discomfort. Can it or can it not synthesise the needed effort to lift mankind out of our present disorders, dangers, baseness, frustrations and futilities, to a phase of relative security, accumulating knowledge, systematic and continuing growth in power and the widespread deep happiness of hopeful and increasing life? Our answer here is that it can, and our subject now is to enquire what are the necessary opening stages in the synthesis of that effort. We write here for those who believe that it can, and who do already grasp the implications of world history and contemporary scientific achievement. _Chapter V_ THE FRAME OF THE TASK BEFORE MANKIND: THE WORLD COMMONWEAL