Spiritual forces may be decisive at this critical moment when the future of the human race is in the balance. Will it be further decline through pollution and over-exploitation of the planet, with the build-up of weapons of mass destruction and genocidal wars, or will it be a further development of reconciliation and mutual caring such as led to partnerships and a new foundation for post-war Europe? Leaders like Schuman, Marshall and Monnet, backed by people of vision and moral stamina, acted together at that time to overcome the legacy of evil and destructive forces which had shown their power when the twentieth century opened. With disastrous consequences these forces permeated countries in a condition of moral and psychological disorder, particularly Tsarist Russia and Weimar Germany.
Hope for the future comes when a 'creative minority', acting across a broad spectrum of belief, brings in cultural transformations as profound as those which came when mankind moved to permanent settlements leading eventually to cities and civilisation. When a relatively small element of the world's population accepts the moral challenges required, and deals with the forces of evil as they arise, they initiate a new type of society beyond civilisation as we know it, and assure the future of humanity in a viable habitat.
Robert Case Mowat was a Scholar of Hertford College, Oxford, winning the Gladstone Memorial Essay Prize. After war years with the army in Egypt and other countries of that region, he published Middle East Perspective, and took his D. Phil with a thesis on Lord Cromer and his successors in Egypt. He was a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, the University of lbadan, Nigeria, and Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University) where he became Head of the Department of Humanities.
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