boratory in which new ideas and
practices are tested, modified, accepted, rejected.

Change is one of the essential aspects of every society. There are
changes in personnel. In each generation individuals grow old and
retire. Others grow up and take over the tasks of organizing the
communities in which they live. Profound social changes result from
discoveries and inventions: the wheel, the arch, steam and gas engines,
electricity, atomic power. Cyclic changes occur in the economy. Social
changes follow alterations in the weather. Nations, empires,
civilizations are produced by the changing life forms.

During long periods, social changes are so gradual that they are
unnoticed save by the more sensitive and perceptive. At other times,
social changes tumble over one another in an overwhelming revolutionary
flood which sweeps away the old, yielding place to new, "lest one good
custom should corrupt the world".

Changes in society beget changes in ideology. Reciprocally, changes in
ideology lead to changes in social structure and function. The more
rigid the social order, the more stubborn its resistance to change. By
the same token, more fluid societies lend themselves more readily to
changes in practice and in theory.

It is not possible to discuss ideology without some reference to the
closely related problems of means and ends. As we consider our existing
social establishment, in the light of unceasing social change, we must
deal with goals or objectives, with practicable modifications of social
form and function and with the way in which changes can be, might be,
will be brought about.

One fact is obvious. Whether social change is major or minor, local or
general, it shifts the social balance. Any shift in the social balance
involves reactionaries, conservatives, liberals, radicals, some of whom
will gain, while others will lose in the course of each social
transformation. All will be concerned and involved.

Since political change involves some alteration in the balance of social
forces, it behooves those who advocate and those who oppose social
change to maximize acceptance and minimize opposition in order to take
advantage of the gains and cut down the losses incident to all change.

For present purposes we wish to make seven notes about means and ends.

1. _Opportunists_ propose to act now and win what they can
today. Never mind about tomorrow with its sequences and
consequences of today's actio