The European peoples, like the Indians, Egyptians, and Persians, were motivated by a desire to build perfection. Unlike the others however, the Europeans believed that perfection had no final end point but was a journey that must be undertaken for its own sake. This is why the Europeans continued to innovate while the other civilizations stopped progressing once they had attained a certain level of perfection. It seems fashionable to rejoice the decline of the West in some circles nowadays. If the Chinese were to become tomorrow’s hegemonic power, would they be able to construct a new paradigm to replace the current one created by the West? If the answer to that question is negative, the West may never lose it’s relevance in world affairs and hence will never truly decline.