We have traced the evolution of the State from the remotest past to its latest development. But the process of its evolution has not come to an end. It is still going on, perhaps more furiously than ever before, as is indicated by the global struggles between the Western national democracies and the communist States and in the new national democracies and the communist States and in the new nation-States in East.
Nobody today can predict what form the State will finally assume in the future, say, a generation or two hence i.e., in the twenty first, century. We can, however, refer briefly to the various changes and struggles in and between the States at present. Attitude towards the State.—In the remote past, the State was worshipped as divine. Then it came to be regarded nothing more than a contract between the ruler and the ruled.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, it was, at best, considered a necessary evil and at worst abhorred. It was asserted, that its powers and function must be confined to as few and necessary tasks as possible. But today, after a century, the attitude towards the sate has completely changed. Instead of the Individualism of the 19th century that opposed the extension of the State functions, there is now a growing demand for increased activity and functions of the State in various spheres of national life, such as industry, agriculture, education, public health, trade, markets, etc.