A TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR:

THE HUMAN CYCLETHE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITYWAR AND SELF-DETERMINATION(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, vol. 25)

THE HUMAN CYCLE....................................................................................................................................iTHE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY..................................................................................................................iWAR AND SELF-DETERMINATION..........................................................................................................iPublisher's Note...............................................................................................................................................iCONTENTS....................................................................................................................................................iiTHE HUMAN CYCLE....................................................................................................................................1Publisher's Note to the First Edition.................................................................................................................3

Chapter I.....................................................................................................................................................5The Cycle of Society...................................................................................................................................5

A. Some light on the thickly veiled secret of our historic evolution.................................................5• Modern Science has attempted to base upon physical data its study of Soul and Mind......5

1. In history and sociology attention has been concentrated on the external data............................52. There are profound psychological factors – The theory by Lamprecht........................................53. Stages symbolic, typal and conventional, individualist and subjective........................................6

B. A sort of psychological cycle through which a society is bound to proceed....................................71. The symbolic stage of this evolution is predominantly religious and spiritual............................7

a) Man feels the mystic influences that are behind his life...........................................................7b) Religious worship and the social institutions were penetrated with this spirit.........................7

• The religious institution of sacrifice governs the whole society..........................................7(1) This symbolism influenced for a long time Indian ideas of marriage..............................7• The human is an inferior figure and image of the divine marriage......................................7(2) Other examples of the influence of symbolism................................................................8

(a) The relation between man and woman, as between the Purusha and Prakriti..................8(b) The four orders described as having sprung from the body of the creative Deity...........8

• The Vedic institution of the fourfold order miscalled the system of the four castes............8• The Creator's body was more than an image, it expressed a divine reality..........................8

2. The second stage, the typal, is predominantly psychological and ethical..................................10a) Out of the symbolic idea, developed a firm but not yet rigid social order.............................10

• Religion becomes a mystic sanction for the ethical motive and discipline, Dharma.........10b) This typal stage creates the great social ideals – The idea of social honour..........................11

• In the end they remain more as a tradition in the thought and on the lips than a reality....113. The conventional stage is born when the outward expressions predominate.............................11

a) Thus in the evolution of caste, the outward supports of the ethical fourfold order................11b) A copper age and not the true golden – A hard mass of rule and convention........................13

• The tendency of the conventional age of society is to fix, to formalise.............................134. The individualistic age, a necessary passage to the subjective period.......................................13

• A period when the gulf between the convention and the truth becomes intolerable..........13Chapter II..................................................................................................................................................15The Age of Individualism.........................................................................................................................15and Reason................................................................................................................................................15

A. An attempt to get back to some solid bed-rock of real and tangible Truth................................15• An individualistic age – As a result of the corruption and failure of the conventional......15• The individual has to search out the true law of the world and of his own being..............15

B. The individualistic age of Europe...................................................................................................15

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1. The rationalistic civilisation of Europe – The East in conventionalism.....................................15• It is in Europe that the age of individualism has taken birth and exercised its full sway...15• The East has entered into it only by contact and influence................................................15• The East – In the cramping bonds of a mechanical conventionalism.................................15

2. A revolt of reason and a triumphal progress of physical Science...............................................16• The dawn of individualism is always a questioning, a denial............................................16

a) The falsehood that the individual finds in religion, in politics, in the social order................16• A religion which does not base its dogma and practice upon a living sense of Truth........16• In politics – Divine rights, established privileges, sanctified tyrannies.............................16• In the social order – An equally stereotyped reign of convention......................................16• The individual – To destroy falsehood and lay bare a new foundation of truth.................16

b) By what individual faculty or standard shall the innovator guide himself?...........................18(1) Individual experience and illumined reason – The true sense of inspired Scripture......18

(a) The movement of religious freedom in Europe – Atheism and secularism...................18• In the East such a movement would have produced a series of religious reformers..........18• In the West atheism and secularism were its inevitable and predestined goal...................18

(b) The evolution of Europe determined less by the Reformation than by the Renascence19• The individualistic age sought for the principle of order and control................................19(2) The attempt to govern and organise human life by verifiable Science...........................19• The unrestrained use of individual illumination or judgment is perilous...........................19• The pursuit of justice through the stark assertion of individual rights – A struggle..........19

(a) Two supreme desiderata – A standard of Truth and a principle of social order............19(b) Science seemed to fulfil impeccably these desiderata – The end of individualism.......20

• In seeking the truth and law of the individual – The truth and law of the collectivity.......213. The result to which this points is an ordering of society by a rigid Socialism...........................21

• A curious new version of the old Asiatic or even of the old Indian order of society.........21a) The rigidity of such a social state would greatly surpass that of its Asiatic forerunner.........21

• This static order would at long last be broken – An extreme philosophical Anarchism....21b) There are in operation forces likely to frustrate or modify this development........................22

(1) A mounting flood of psychological and psychic knowledge – A subjective age...........22• The succession of the individualistic age of society to a subjective age............................22(2) The influence of the East in the direction of subjectivism and practical spirituality.....23• The West in its triumphant conquest of the world has awakened the slumbering East......23• The individualistic period in the East – Neither of long duration nor rationalistic............23(3) Two idea-forces – The rights of all individuals and the individual as a soul.................24• The individualistic age of Europe fixed two idea-forces of the future...............................24• The right of all individuals to the full life and the full development..................................24• The individual is not merely a social unit – A soul with his individual truth and law.......24

Chapter III................................................................................................................................................26The Coming of the Subjective Age..........................................................................................................26

A. The development of an individualistic age of mankind..............................................................261. The need of rediscovering the substantial truths – Not the old original ideas............................262. An inevitable period – The need of a critical reason largely destructive...................................26

• Throughout the East, the subjective Asiatic mind is being driven to adapt itself..............263. A search for the truth and law both of the individual being and of the world............................27

• From the individual to the universal – Some universal law and truth................................27• In Europe and in modern times this has taken the form of physical Science.....................28• But the knowledge of the physical world is not the whole of knowledge..........................28

B. The transition from the rationalistic and utilitarian to a greater subjective age.............................281. The need of a deeper knowledge than the knowledge of the physical world.............................28

a) Man must go deeper and fathom the subjective secret of himself and things........................28b) A turn towards new powers and means within himself..........................................................29

• The ideal of intuitional knowledge and a deeper self-awareness.......................................29• The aspiration towards self-consciousness and self-realisation.........................................29• The effort towards living according to the veiled Law and Will and Power......................29

2. All these tendencies are manifest now in the world and are growing........................................29

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a) A rapid turning of the current of thought – Vitalism and a new Intuitionalism.....................29b) The art, music and literature of the world – An ever-deepening subjectivism.......................30

• The first tendency was an increasing psychological vitalism.............................................30• There succeeded a turn towards a more truly psychological art, music and literature.......30

c) In the practical dealing with life there are advanced progressive tendencies.........................31(1) War as a result of a combination with a falsely enlightened vitalistic motive...............31(2) The seed of a new subjective and psychic dealing – New educational methods............32• The new ideas about the education and upbringing of the child........................................32• A glimmering of the realisation that each human being is a self-developing soul.............32• The true secret is to help him to find his deeper self, the real psychic entity within..........32

C. The nascent subjectivism mostly in the self-consciousness of the nation......................................33• We shall see the true purpose and conditions of a subjective age of humanity..................33

Chapter IV.................................................................................................................................................35The Discovery of the Nation-Soul............................................................................................................35

A. The parallel between the individual and the nation or society...................................................351. The primal law and purpose is to seek self-fulfilment...............................................................35

• The primal law and purpose of the individual life is to seek its own self-development....35• The primal law and purpose of a nation is to seek its own self-fulfilment.........................35• The nation or society is a soul rather than has one. It is a group-soul................................35

2. The group-soul is much more complex – A greater crudeness and objectiveness.....................35• The ordinary emotional conception of the nation – Its most outward aspect.....................35• Its more real body is the men and women who compose the nation-unit...........................35• A great corporate soul with all the possibilities and dangers of the soul-life.....................35

B. A general change from an objective to a subjective view of society..............................................361. The objective view of society in the past....................................................................................36

a) The view of scientific history – Political and economic motives on the surface...................36• Scientific history has been conceived as a record of the environmental motives..............36• The truer science of the future – A greater subjective force worked subconsciously........36

b) The community has an objective sense of subjectivity..........................................................37• This has been the rule not only with the nation, but with all communities........................37

c) The insistence on things objective in religious history...........................................................37• A Church is an organised religious community.................................................................37

2. A new psychological tendency of the communal consciousness...............................................38a) Most powerful in new nations and those afflicted by subjection or defeat............................38b) The subjectivism of certain nations as the sign and precursor of a general change...............38

• A new type of national movement, as in Ireland and India................................................383. The new conception opens the way to great dangers and errors................................................39

a) The formula «to be ourselves» – Not to live solely for and to oneself...................................39• The nations should become conscious not only of their own but of each other's souls.....39

b) The example of Germany.......................................................................................................40(1) Germany was a nation preparing for the subjective stage – Two sides..........................40

(a) Her master achievement in the two spheres of philosophy and music...........................40(b) The transmission to the objective mind of the scholars and organisers.........................41

(2) Why and where was the failure of Germany – The vital ego mistaken for herself........42C. A distinction between a true and a false subjectivism....................................................................43

Chapter V..................................................................................................................................................44True and False Subjectivism...................................................................................................................44

A. Everything depends on how that step is taken............................................................................441. The subjective stage of human development is a critical juncture.............................................44

a) The dangers of error are as great and far-reaching as the results of right seeking.................44b) To mistake the frontal for the real self is the one general error, root of all others.................44

2. The new turn – In education, in dealings with the criminal, in the view of society...................44B. Two great psychological truths and the errors of German subjectivism........................................45

1. Two great psychological truths...................................................................................................45a) The ego is not the self – There is one self of all and the soul is a portion..............................45

(1) The fulfilment of the individual – The flowering of the divine in man..........................45

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(2) The will to be, the will to power, the will to know are perfectly legitimate...................46(3) The true individual is not the ego, but the divine individuality......................................46

b) The individual is not only himself, but is in solidarity with all of his kind............................47• We are a higher self than our ego or our members.............................................................47• We are in our life and being not only ourselves but all others...........................................47

2. These two truths apply to the individual and to the nation – German subjectivism...................48a) The first error – The egoistic self-vision and the fulfilment of the collective ego.................48b) A number of logical consequences, each in itself a separate subjective error........................49

(1) The cult of the State and the effacement of the individual.............................................49(2) The service of State and community as the only absolute rule of morality....................49• In relation to other States, the effective law is still that of war..........................................49(3) The conquest of the world by German culture as the straight path of human progress. 50

3. The force of the German position...............................................................................................51a) A tremendous sincerity is the secret of its force, and a perverse honesty..............................51

• If this ideal is to be defeated – An equal sincerity and a less perverse honesty.................51b) The German gospel has two sides, the cult of the State and of international egoism............52

(1) The victory in the first – The direction of the tide in the second....................................52• War is a dangerous teacher and physical victory leads often to a moral defeat.................52(2) Certain strong actual tendencies and principles of international action.........................53

C. The root of the German error lies in its mistaking life and the body for the self...........................53• It is necessary to see wherein lies the true individuality of man and of the nation............53

Chapter VI.................................................................................................................................................55The Objective and Subjective..................................................................................................................55Views of Life..............................................................................................................................................55

A. Human thought and action before the principle of subjectivism................................................551. The principle of individualism – Liberty and mutual respect for each other's freedom.............55

• As with the individual, so with the nation..........................................................................55• The social law of the nation has been called in to enforce the violated principle..............55• It has been sought to develop international law in the same way.......................................55• The development of international law is the solution which still attracts..........................55

2. The growth of modern Science has created new ideas and tendencies......................................56a) A vitalistic egoism – The right for each to live his own life at the expense of others............56b) Modern collectivism – The individual should live for all and subordinate himself...............56c) A new idea of human universalism or collectivism for the race............................................57

B. The principle of subjectivism entering into human thought and action.........................................571. The same data, the individual and the collectivity – A difference of view-point.......................57

a) Objectivism takes an external and mechanical view – The idea of the State.........................57• A law outside oneself, this is the governing idea of objectivism.......................................57

b) Subjectivism proceeds from within – The point of view of a self-consciousness..................58• The law here is within ourselves – Life is a growth and development...............................58

2. The question of the truth of the self – Individual or collective or universal..............................59a) Individual life and consciousness – The group consciousness, the collective self.................59

• We may concentrate on the individual life and consciousness as the self..........................59• We may lay stress on the group consciousness, the collective self....................................59

b) A universal Being which fulfils itself in the world and the individual and the group............60• The growth of the individual and of the group – Each helps to fulfil the other.................60

3. The search for the self – A new possibility for subjectivism.....................................................61a) The identification with the physical being, the vital being, the mental being........................61

• A subjective materialism, pragmatic and outward-going, is a possible standpoint............61• Vitalism – Man regards himself as a profound, vital Will-to-be........................................61• A subjective idealism beginning to emerge and become prominent..................................61

b) The true Self as something greater even than mind – The Self in the world..........................62• Mind, life and body then become merely an instrumentation............................................62

Chapter VII...............................................................................................................................................63The Ideal Law of Social............................................................................................................................63Development..............................................................................................................................................63

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A. How the true law of our development can become clear to us...................................................631. In the subjective return inward, the potentiality of a perfect self-creation.................................63

• This is the reason why the subjective periods – The most fruitful and creative.................632. The essential law of unity and variation – In matter, life, mind.................................................63

• That law is that all things are one, but each has its own law of variation..........................633. The destiny of man and the object of his individual and social existence..................................64

a) Man can arrive through mind and beyond mind at the Self...................................................64b) This object is achieved primarily through the individual man...............................................65

• Everything in Nature is an occasion for him to develop his divine potentiality.................65c) The object of all society..........................................................................................................65

• First to provide the conditions of life and growth..............................................................65• Secondly to express in the general life of mankind what has been attained.......................65• Freedom and harmony are the two conditions....................................................................65• A task difficult until the possession of a spiritual and psychical unity..............................65

d) The destiny of mankind and the evolution of the race............................................................66• Mankind upon earth is one foremost self-expression of the universal Being.....................66(1) All mankind is one in its nature and has one destiny.....................................................66(2) Each individual following on the lines of his own nature by a growth from within......67• The group self has no true right to regard the individual as only a cell of its body...........67(3) The liberty claimed for the individual is the divine instinct within him........................67• His life and growth are for the sake of the world – But his own real self..........................67• Laws and disciplines – Their only purpose is to be instruments and servants...................67• He has to gather in his material from around – But through assimilation..........................67

e) Individual man belongs also to his group or society – In modern times the nation...............68(1) But he is not limited and cannot be limited by any of these groupings..........................68• And even there is a part of him, the greatest, which is not limited by humanity...............68(2) The community as an intermediary value between the individual and humanity..........69

(a) The absolute claim of the community is a deformation of a truth..................................69(b) The truth deformed is the right to be oneself in the interests of humanity....................70

• The nation or community is an aggregate life that expresses the Self................................70(3) The nation lives by the life of other nations – But it has to assimilate this material......70• The free development of individuals from within is the best condition.............................70• The free development of the community or nation from within is the best condition.......70

B. The ideal law of social development..............................................................................................711. The law for the individual, for the community or nation, for humanity.....................................71

• For the individual – To perfect his individuality, to harmonise.........................................71• For the community or nation – To perfect its corporate existence, to harmonise..............71• For humanity – To pursue its upward evolution, towards one divine family.....................71

2. This is an ideal law – The very business of a subjective age to find the ideal law....................71Chapter VIII.............................................................................................................................................73Civilisation and Barbarism......................................................................................................................73

• The rule of perfect individuality and perfect reciprocity is the ideal law...........................73• A perfect union and even oneness in a free diversity is its goal.........................................73

A. Self-realisation is the sense of individual and of social development........................................731. From the individual we have to start – Our index and our foundation.......................................732. The Self of man is not his body, not his life, not his mind – Self-exceeding.............................73

• Neither the fullness of his physical, nor of his vital, nor of his mental nature...................73B. Barbarism, the Graeco-Roman civilisation and the modern world................................................74

1. The first rank in importance can no longer be given to the body – Barbarism..........................74a) The vital attitude of the race is changing – A vital and economic animal..............................74b) The idea of the necessity of general education – The conception that now governs..............75

(1) In essence, a return to and a larger development of the old Hellenic ideal....................75• The lost elements are bound to recover their importance...................................................75(2) The Graeco-Roman culture – An extensive ignorance is a danger................................76• Confining the cultured mentality to a small minority – Civilisation can never be safe.....76

2. Science has enlarged for good the intellectual horizons of the race...........................................77

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a) Science has equipped culture with the means of self-perpetuation........................................77• The universalisation of knowledge and intellectual activity in the human race.................77

b) The materialism of Science is a very different thing from the old barbarism........................77(1) An assertion of man the mental being and of the supremacy of intelligence.................77

(a) The perfection of the physical sciences as a field for the training of the mind..............77• The development of new and the recovery of old mental and psychic sciences................77

(b) Even in its negative work the materialism of Science had a task to perform................78• Philosophy had become too much a thing of abstractions..................................................78• Poetry and art had become too much cultured pursuits, ornaments of life.........................78• Religion itself had become fixed in dogmas and ceremonies, sects and churches.............78• A period of negation was necessary – Truth is the secret of life and power......................78(2) But Science has encouraged the economic barbarism – Commercialism......................79

(a) The vital being mistaken for the self – Its satisfaction as the first aim of life................79(b) In a commercial age the soul of man cannot permanently rest......................................80

• If it persisted too long, Life would become clogged and perish.........................................80Chapter IX.................................................................................................................................................82Civilisation and Culture...........................................................................................................................82

A. Man’s individual existence and the aim and norm of his society...............................................821. Nature induces man, the mental being, to dwell upon Matter and Life......................................822. But there is here a double motive of Nature...............................................................................83

• It would seem at first sight that the mental life should be man’s highest aim....................83• Man has to turn Mind not only on itself, but on Life and Matter.......................................83• Not only to expand inwardly and outwardly, but to grow upward.....................................83

B. The pursuit of the mental life for its own sake is what we ordinarily mean by culture.................841. Our mental existence is a complex matter and is made up of many elements...........................84

• First, we have its lower and fundamental stratum, nearest to the vital...............................84• We have next the moral being and its ethical life, and the aesthetic..................................84

a) Above all these elements, we have the intellectual being, the buddhi...................................84• Man's highest accomplished range is the life of the reason................................................84

b) There enters into it a light and force driving at a kind of illumination...................................84• It is the light of which the religious spirit and the spirituality of man is in pursuit............84• This very complexity of his mental being is man's great embarrassment..........................85

2. Still, man has formed certain large ideas of culture and the mental life....................................85a) Certain definite lines determined by the divisions of his nature............................................85b) Civilisation and culture...........................................................................................................86

(1) The distinction between civilisation and barbarism – The state of society....................86• Barbarism – Man is almost entirely preoccupied with his life and body...........................86• Civilisation – The activity of the mental life in most if not all of its parts is added..........86(2) In a civilised society, the distinction between the cultured man and the Philistine........87

(a) The Philistine is in fact the modern civilised barbarian.................................................87• His mental life is that of the lower substratum of the mind................................................87• His aesthetic side is little developed – His moral being is crude........................................87• He has a reason and the appearance of an intelligent will, but they are not his own.........87

(b) The Philistine no longer reigns – The sensational man is trying to be mentally active.89• The shadow of this new colossus is everywhere – The reshaping of the modern world....89

(c) The higher mental life has been democratised, sensationalised, activised.....................90• Still the activism and sensationalism of the crude mental being, more open and free.......90• Yet even the sensational man has begun to undergo a process of transformation.............90• Especially, new methods of education, new principles of society are beginning...............90

Chapter X..................................................................................................................................................92Aesthetic and Ethical Culture.................................................................................................................92

A. We get by elimination to a positive idea and definition of culture.............................................921. The purely physical life and the unintellectualised vital life are its opposites...........................92

• The societies or nations which bear this stamp – Barbarous or semi-barbarous................92• The gross vital, commercial, economic view of existence – Not a cultured humanity......92

2. Not to live principally in the activities of the sense-mind – The ideal of a true culture.............93

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B. Aesthetic culture and ethical culture on the higher plane of the mental life..................................941. The opposition between culture and conduct – Hellenism and Hebraism..................................942. A misunderstanding between two sides of our nature – Two conflicting ideals........................95

• A sort of triangular disposition of the higher or more subtle mentality.............................95• A side of will, conduct, character which creates the ethical man.......................................95• A side of sensibility to the beautiful which creates the artistic and aesthetic man.............95• There can be such a thing as a predominantly or even exclusively ethical culture............95• There can be too a predominantly or even exclusively aesthetic culture...........................95

3. A like contrast and opposition between social and national types.............................................96a) Social formulas to illustrate these tendencies – Rome, Sparta, Athens..................................96b) Civilisations which have not allowed an intelligent freedom of development.......................97

(1) Republican Rome – The self-mastery of a definite ethical type.....................................97(2) The limitations at once appear – The end of these purely ethical cultures.....................98

c) Civilisations which have encouraged a freely human development.......................................99(1) We are tempted to give the name of a full culture to all those civilisations...................99• But without some kind of high or strong discipline there is no enduring power of life.....99(2) The insufficiency of the aesthetic view of life – Italy of the Renascence....................100• The subsequent prostration and loose weakness of Italy was the inevitable result..........100

C. The ethical being and the aesthetic being are two elements – A higher principle........................100• That higher principle seems to be the human faculty of reason and intelligent will........100

Chapter XI...............................................................................................................................................102The Reason as Governor of Life............................................................................................................102

A. The sovereignty of the intellect at the present point of evolution............................................1021. Reason using the intelligent will is the highest developed faculty of man...............................1022. A stage of being in which Nature becomes self-conscious in the individual...........................102

• In this change there appears the presence of the Soul in things.......................................102• Man represents the turning of the consciousness upon itself and on things.....................102

3. The intellect has this advantage that it can disengage itself from the work.............................1034. Reason has been the helper, instructor, elevating friend, civiliser of mankind........................104

• Reason is the sovereign power by which man has become possessed of himself............104B. Recently there has been a revolt against the sovereignty of the intellect.....................................105

1. Vaguely it is felt that there is some greater godhead than the reason.......................................1052. To some this godhead is Life itself or a secret Will in life – In fact, the soul itself.................106

C. The reason trying to govern our existence....................................................................................1061. The disinterested seeking after true knowledge and the difficulties of the reason...................106

• When knowledge is pursued for its own sake – Likely true knowledge..........................106a) The subjection to the tyranny of the interests, prejudices, instincts or passions..................106b) The subjection to the tyranny of ideas – Compromises and insufficiency...........................107

• The ideas are to a certain extent fulfilled – But disappointment and disillusionment......1072. All systems have been a partial and confused application of reason to life.............................1083. The labour of the individual thinker in man – The impulsion of Science................................109

• This has achieved a higher quality and risen to a loftier and clearer atmosphere............109• The result – Philosophy, Science, learning, the reasoned arts, the critical reason...........109• This effort has done great things, but it has not been in the end a success.......................109

4. The whole difficulty of the reason in trying to govern our existence.......................................110a) Reason is unable to deal with life in its complexity or in its integral movements...............110b) The reason of man struggling with life becomes either an empiric or a doctrinaire............110

(1) The subjection of reason to the rule of a vital and physical practicality......................110• Reason can indeed make itself a mere servant of life.......................................................110• Reason may again determine to found itself securely on the facts of life........................110(2) When it attempts a higher action reason separates itself from life...............................111• A world either of abstract ideas or of ideals or of rigid laws – Life escapes....................111

D. The root of the difficulty – The real sovereign is another than the reason...................................112• Behind everything in life there is an Absolute, which that thing is seeking after............112• The intellectual reason and the intelligent will cannot deal with life as its sovereign.....112

Chapter XII.............................................................................................................................................114

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The Office and Limitations....................................................................................................................114of the Reason...........................................................................................................................................114

A. The Spirit is greater and profounder than the intellect.............................................................114• The reason cannot succeed in giving a perfect law to the other estates of the realm.......114

B. Meanwhile, the intellect performs its function.............................................................................1141. An action downward and outward upon our subjective and external life................................114

• It takes first the lower powers of his existence, each absorbed in its own urge...............114• It plays the part of a judge and legislator – The sealing up of the fountains of life.........114• The inlellect has to bring in its own saving faculty of doubt............................................114• This double action – The intelligence affirming and imposing and again questioning....114

2. An action upward and inward and a more luminous functioning.............................................115• It is opened in this power of vision to a Truth above it – Large governing ideas............115• When translated, these powers become disparate and conflicting ideals.........................115• The opposition of a number of such master ideas and such conflicting principles..........115

C. The individual and social progress of man – Self-illumination and self-harmonising.................1171. Man has to proceed by a constant swinging backward and forward........................................1172. Mankind works out the difficulties under the stress of the spirit within it...............................117

• Man has to contrive continually some harmony between the elements of his being.......117• Each of them again has to arrive at some order of its own disparate materials................117• A number of conflicting ideas and ideals – Self-experience and self-actualisation.........117

D. The place of the intellect in the human movement – The limitations of reason...........................1191. A double working, dispassionate and interested – Ideas applied to life...................................119

• In putting knowledge at the service of life the human intellect falls into confusion........119• So long as we pursue knowledge for its own sake – The natural function.......................119

2. Ideas becoming the plaything of forces over which the reason has little control.....................1203. Reason is an imperfect light with a large but still restricted mission.......................................120

• Reason can in its nature be used and has always been used to justify any idea...............1204. Two constant articles of faith of the rationalist – An error containing a truth.........................121

a) That his own reason is right – To justify to man his action and the faith in him.................121• Man moves towards the infinity of the Truth by the experience of its variety.................121• His reason helps him to progress, grow, enlarge himself.................................................121

b) That the collective human reason will arrive at purity – A reflection of the Light..............122• The reason cannot arrive at any final truth.......................................................................122• Nor can reason found a perfect life for man or a perfect society.....................................122• But the reason of man is bound to arrive at a reflection of the Light that surpasses it.....122

Chapter XIII...........................................................................................................................................124Reason and Religion...............................................................................................................................124

A. Reason is an insufficient guide for humanity in the great endeavour.......................................124• The discovery of the divine Reality and the shaping of human life in that image...........124

1. Neither the Hellenic ideal nor the modern ideal can be the final goal.....................................124• The ancient Greek mind was philosophic, aesthetic and political....................................124• The modern mind has been scientific, economic and utilitarian......................................124• The most advanced tendencies of a subjective age – Man is a developing spirit.............124

2. The hope of the kingdom of heaven within us and the city of God upon earth........................1243. Our aim of self-fulfilment is a complete evolution of the hidden divinity...............................125

• There must be a superior range of being with its own proper powers..............................125• Otherwise we may simply come back to an old idea........................................................125

a) The old idea of a spiritualised typal society – One element of the divine nature.................125• The theory of ancient Indian culture divided man in society into the fourfold order.......125

b) The typal principle cannot be the foundation of an ideal human society.............................126• Each man contains in himself the whole divine potentiality............................................126• That can only be realised by the evolution of the spiritual ranges of our being...............126• We shall better understand what may be this higher being and those higher faculties....127

B. The dealings of reason with the suprarational and the infrarational.............................................1271. The three powers of being are present in all our activities.......................................................127

• The spiritual or suprarational is always turned at its heights towards the Absolute.........127

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• The infrarational has its origin and basis in the obscure infinite of the Inconscient........127• The life of the reason and intelligent will – Between that upper and this nether power. .127

2. The limitations of the reason when it is confronted with the religious being of man..............129a) An order of psychological truths and experiences foreign to reason....................................129b) Two attitudes of reason faced with the phenomena of the religious life..............................129

(1) Either it views the whole thing as a mass of superstition or it patronises religion.......129(2) Both attitudes have played their part in the history of human thought.........................130

c) The deepest heart, the inmost essence of religion is suprarational.......................................131(1) This has nothing to do with the realm of reason or its normal activities......................131(2) Reason has indeed a part to play, but that part is secondary and subordinate..............132• The work of spiritual philosophy in the East and of theology in the West......................132

d) There is an infrarational life from which all human aspiration takes its beginning.............133• Much impurity, ignorance, superstition, many doubtful elements must form..................133• Here it would seem that reason has its legitimate part to enlighten, purify, rationalise...133(1) The rational mind cannot do anything here that is of a high positive value.................133(2) If reason is to play any part, it must be an intuitive rather than an intellectual reason 134• Intellectual reason unenlightened by spiritual knowledge tends to deny and destroy......134

C. The intuitive mind is our means of passage to a higher principle of knowledge.........................135Chapter XIV............................................................................................................................................136The Suprarational Beauty......................................................................................................................136

A. Reason as an intermediary between the infrarational and the suprarational............................1361. In other spheres than religion, the same function of an intermediary......................................136

• Religion is the seeking after the suprarational – Reason may well be insufficient..........136• In the other spheres it may be thought that it has the sovereign place – Not truly...........136• On one side it is an enlightener and the corrector............................................................136• On the other it is only one minister of the veiled Spirit....................................................136

2. This is especially evident in the search for Beauty and the search for Good...........................136• In its origin this seeking for beauty is not rational – An instinct and an impulse............136• It is here that the reason comes in – Self-conscious and rationally discriminative..........136

B. The sphere of reason in the creation of beauty and its appreciation.............................................1371. The creation of beauty in poetry and art...................................................................................137

a) By itself the intelligence can only achieve talent – Genius is suprarational........................137b) The achievements of a supreme inspired and revealing beauty...........................................138

(1) Great art seeks for a deeper and original truth, the truth of beauty..............................138(2) All great art has carried in it a classical, a romantic and a realistic element................139• Classical art and poetry – To bring out universal truth and beauty..................................139• Romantic art and poetry – To bring out what is striking and individual..........................139• Realism – Bringing out of the external truth of things, not the perverse romanticism.....139• The type of art is determined by the prominence it gives to one element........................139

c) The guidance of an inner power of discrimination in the very act of creation.....................140• This discrimination is not that of the critical intellect......................................................140• An influx of power and light from above lifts the faculties into suprarational working. .140

2. The appreciation and the enjoyment of beauty.........................................................................141a) What is needed is the awakening of an intuitive response in the soul..................................141

• The intellect cannot give to the appreciation of beauty that deeper insight.....................141b) We see this in the history of the development of literary and artistic criticism...................142

• Criticism – A consummation in which the rational understanding is overpassed............142c) Criticism must become inspired, intuitive, revealing – An intuitive discrimination............143

• The soul of beauty in us identifies itself with the soul of beauty in the thing created.....143• The action of the intuitive mind must complete the action of the rational intelligence. . .143

3. What has been said of great creative art applies to all beauty..................................................143a) The place of reason and its limits are of the same kind as in regard to religion...................143b) And for the same reason, because that which we are seeking is the Divine.........................144

• The soul of beauty in us is in truth seeking, as in religion, for the Divine.......................144Chapter XV.............................................................................................................................................146The Suprarational Good........................................................................................................................146

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A. The universality of a principle and law which is that of all being............................................146• Through the principle and law of our religious being, of our aesthetic being..................146

1. The truth that all active being is a seeking for God..................................................................146• The seeking for God is also, subjectively, the seeking for our highest self.....................146

2. Each power, infrarational, rational, suprarational, feels out for it in its own way...................146• Knowledge seeks for that in order that Life may know its own true meaning.................146

3. This truth comes most easily home to us in Religion and in Art..............................................147• There lies the immense value of Religion, the immense value of Art and Poetry...........147

4. But in other spheres of life, we are less ready to recognise the universal truth........................148• All life is only an opportunity given us to discover, realise, express the Divine.............148

B. In our ethical being this truth of practical life becomes most readily apparent............................1481. The rational man has tried to reduce the ethical life to a matter of reason...............................148

a) The attempts of the reason are false and impracticable........................................................148• Such was the system of utilitarian ethics discovered in the nineteenth century...............148• The hedonistic theory refers all virtue to the satisfaction of the mind in good................148• The sociological theory supposes ethics to be no more than a system of formulas.........148

b) All these errors have each a truth behind their false constructions......................................149(1) Utilitarian ethics – It is true that the highest good is also the highest utility................149• Good, not utility, must be the principle and standard of good.........................................149• Nor can ethics at all or ever be a matter of calculation....................................................149(2) The hedonistic theory – It is true that the highest good is the highest bliss.................150• But virtue comes to the natural man by a struggle with his pleasure-seeking nature.......150• The action of the ethical man is not motived by even an inner pleasure..........................150(3) The sociological theory – Ethics begins by the exigencies of the social existence......151• But the ethical demand does not always square with the social demand.........................151• The ethical imperative comes not from around, but from within and above....................151

2. The infra-ethical, the ethical and the supra-ethical...................................................................151a) The laws of the gods – There is a truth in this ancient superstition or imagination.............151

• It has been felt and said that the laws of perfect conduct are the laws of the gods..........151• There is something constant at the very roots of man’s nature and of world-nature........151• The supra-ethical is itself a consummation of the ethical.................................................151• The supra-ethical cannot be reached by any who have not trod the long ethical road.....151

b) At first instincts and impulses, then ethical ideas and will, they soar up in the end............152• Our ethical impulses and activities begin like all the rest in the infrarational..................152

c) The ethical being is a growth and a seeking towards the divine..........................................153• The value of our actions – Their help towards the growth of the Divine within us.........153

d) In fact ethics is an attempt to grow into the divine nature....................................................153• Such was the supreme aim of the ancient sages...............................................................153

C. It is with the cult of Good, as with the cult of Beauty and of the spiritual...................................154• The ethical is like the aesthetic and the religious being a seeking after the Eternal.........154

Chapter XVI............................................................................................................................................155The Suprarational Ultimate of Life......................................................................................................155

A. We must look on the life-power and its manifestations to see what it is..................................1551. In all the higher powers of his life man may be said to be seeking for God............................155

• God – Some great Soul and Self of Truth and Good and Beauty in the world................155• To get at this as a spiritual presence is the aim of religion...............................................155• To grow into harmony with its eternal nature is the aim of ethics...................................155• To enjoy its eternal beauty and delight is the aim of our aesthetic nature........................155• To know and to be according to its eternal principles of truth is the end of knowledge..155

2. But all this seems to be something above our normal and usual being....................................155• Society – A principle of vital satisfaction, vital necessity and utility, vital efficiency....155

3. The reason is that here we get to another power of our being, the life-power.........................156a) The struggle for life – Individualistic and collective self-assertion.....................................156

• Not only a principle and instinct of egoism, but a principle and instinct of association. .156b) The vital dynamism and the view of life and society...........................................................157

(1) The modern European idea of society is founded upon this vital dynamism...............157

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• Life in society – Domestic and social, economic, political..............................................157• Society – The organisation of these three things and nothing more.................................157(2) The ancients held a different, indeed a diametrically opposite view............................158• Life – The development of the rational, the ethical, the aesthetic, the spiritual being.....158(3) On this hangs our idea that life is a seeking for God and for the highest self..............159

B. The life-power in its appearance...................................................................................................1591. Two impulses, individualistic and collective – Family, society and nation.............................159

a) The individualistic impulse – The competitive side predominates......................................159• In the family the individual seeks for the satisfaction of his vital instinct.......................159• In society he finds a less intimate but a larger expansion of himself and his instincts... .159• In the nation he finds a means for the play of a larger sense of power and expansion....159

b) The collectivist or cooperative tendency – An overgrowth of this ideal of life...................161• The family is an essentially practical, vitalistic and economic creation...........................161• The society is essentially economic in its aims and in its very nature.............................161• The nation or State – A political character is necessarily added to the social life...........161

2. What account are the higher parts of man's being to make with this.......................................162a) Ethics and religion especially have an attitude of almost complete hostility.......................162b) No society dominated by the denial of the life dynamism can flourish...............................163

• The ancient Indian ideal divided life into four essential divisions...................................163C. The life-power in its reality – The truth behind Life....................................................................164

1. Whether this life dynamism is really rebellious in its very nature to the Divine.....................164a) What we have described is the first stage of the vital being, the infrarational.....................164

• Reason has proposed to take up all this physical and vital life and perfect it..................164• The ancient attempt of reason achieved only an imperfect discipline..............................164• The modern attempt of reason is not succeeding any better.............................................164• Reason must be overpassed or surpass itself and become a passage to the Divine..........164

b) This great mass of vital energism contains in itself the imprisoned suprarational...............165(1) The first mark of the suprarational is the growth of absolute ideals............................165• The domestic and social life of man – The strivings of love towards its absolute...........165• The economic development of life – To give the divine ease and leisure of the gods.....165• Politics itself can be a large field of absolute idealisms...................................................165• This great vital, political, economic life – Towards a realisation of power and unity.....165(2) No doubt all is still moving clumsily, however touched by dim lights from above.....167• For life organises itself at first round the ego-motive – The instinct of ego-expansion...167• The struggle for life corrected by the need and instinct of association............................167• But the order arrived at by the reason is always partial, precarious and temporary.........167(3) A process of life through a first obscure and confused effort of self-finding...............168

(a) An involution of the spiritual truth of things in what seems to be its opposite..........1686• Being, Consciousness and Bliss – The aspect of an indeterminate Inconscient...............168

(b) The Inconscient imposes the law of a difficult emergence – The law of fragmentation.. .......................................................................................................................................169

• Even the spiritual being seems to obey this law of fragmentation...................................169• Limited being – The cause of the difficulty, discord, struggle, division that mars life....169• The limitation of consciousness – The cause of suffering, pain and sorrow....................169• Limited power of consciousness – The cause of error, wrongdoing and evil..................169• The oneness of the liberated Spirit – To escape from these results..................................169

2. The overmastering impulse to pass on from mental to spiritual being.....................................170a) What Life is obscurely seeking in its own higher impulses and deepest motives................170

• Life cannot arrive at its secret ultimates by following instinct and desire.......................170• But neither can human reason give it what it searches after.............................................170• Therefore with man as he is the upward urge in life cannot rest satisfied always...........170

b) The ultimates of life are spiritual – In the full light of the liberated self and spirit..............171D. There is then a suprarational ultimate of Life...............................................................................172

• The endeavour to reach it is the spiritual meaning of this Life-nature.............................172Chapter XVII..........................................................................................................................................173Religion as the Law of Life....................................................................................................................173

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A. Reason cannot be the last and highest guide – Where are we to find this................................173• Culture, as it is understood ordinarily, cannot be the directing light................................173

1. Religion is the first answer which will suggest itself...............................................................1732. A certain pre-eminence of religion as the normal state except in brief periods.......................173

• This predominance of religion has been attacked and rejected by modern Europe.........1733. The historic insufficiency of religion as a guide and control of human society.......................174

a) The indictment against religion in its premiss had much to justify it...................................174• Progress and not unmoving status is the necessary and desirable law of his life.............174

b) The root of this evil is not in true religion itself, but in its infrarational parts.....................175(1) The confusion with a particular creed, sect, cult, religious society or Church.............175(2) This error in its many shapes has been the great weakness of religion........................176• Churches and creeds have stood violently in the way of philosophy and science...........176• A narrow religious spirit often oppresses and impoverishes the joy and beauty of life...176• In politics religion has often thrown itself on the side of power......................................176• So too religion has often supported a rigid and outworn social system...........................176

B. One secret of the divergence and one clue to the reconciliation..................................................177• In a sense religion should be the dominant thing in life – But as the cult of spirituality. 177• Religion when it identifies itself only with a system may become a retarding force.......177• There are two aspects of religion, true religion and religionism......................................177

1. True religion and religionism – The spiritual essence of religion............................................177• True religion is spiritual religion, that which seeks to live in the spirit...........................177• Religionism entrenches itself in ceremonies, creeds or systems......................................177

2. A deeper source of divergence – The quarrel between earth and heaven................................178a) Spirituality as something remote from earthly life, different from it, hostile to it...............178

• A religion of sorrow and suffering and the gospel of the vanity of things.......................178• All pessimism is to that extent a denial of the Spirit, of its fullness and power...............178

b) The Western recoil from religion was an opposite error......................................................179• Only by the light and power of the highest can the lower be perfectly guided................179• The spiritual man who can guide human life – The ancient Indian idea of the Rish.......179

C. In spirituality we must seek for the guidance...............................................................................181• In religion only in proportion as it identifies itself with this spirituality..........................181• Spirituality respects the freedom of the human soul........................................................181• The freedom to expand and grow towards perfection by the law of one's own nature....181• This liberty it will give to all the fundamental parts of our being....................................181

Chapter XVIII.........................................................................................................................................182The Infrarational Age of the Cycle.......................................................................................................182

A. The evolution of the elements of a spiritualised society...........................................................1821. In spirituality would lie our hope for perfection – A divine guidance of the race...................182

• A spiritualised society can alone bring individual harmony and communal happiness...1822. Such an evolution is that which a subjective age makes at least possible................................183

• God works by an evolution of possibilities prepared in their elements............................183• Often the decisive turn is preceded by the most uncompromising opposite....................183

3. There are necessarily three stages of the social evolution........................................................184a) An infrarational stage, a rational and, through a subjective, a suprarational age.................184b) These stages or periods are inevitable in the psychological evolution of mankind..............184

• But we must not suppose that they are naturally exclusive and absolute.........................184B. The infrarational period – It has its strong elements of reason and spirituality...........................185

1. Even the savage has a theory of life and a religion..................................................................1852. The infrarational stage of society may arrive at a very lofty order of civilisation...................186

a) A higher stage of development or of a return towards a fuller evolution.............................186(1) Pure reason and pure spirituality will be represented, if at all, by individuals.............186(2) This may well lead to an age of great individual thinkers or mystics..........................187• In the midst of a humanity which is still infrarational as well as infra-spiritual..............187

b) As reason and spirituality develop........................................................................................187(1) Reason and spirituality become wider and more effective on the mass.......................187• The mind and intellect must develop so that the spirituality of the race may rise...........187

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(2) A mixed society, infrarational in the mass, saved for civilisation by a higher class....188(3) At this point the difficulties of Nature proceed from two sides...................................189

(a) The exceptional nation is surrounded by an infrarational humanity and endangered..189• At this stage the light and power of civilisation always collapses in the end...................189

(b) Within the communities themselves, reason and spirituality are endangered.............190• Maintaining the tradition of intellectual and spiritual activity in the favoured classes....190• Finally, the next advance when all immediate danger of relapse is overcome.................190

Chapter XIX............................................................................................................................................192The Curve of the Rational Age..............................................................................................................192

A. The progress of the reason as a social renovator and creator...................................................1921. The present age of mankind – A constant series of radical progressions.................................1922. A typical course – A seed-time, a partial achievement, then disillusionment..........................1923. Three successive stages are possible, individualistic, socialistic, anarchistic..........................193

• In the transition to its third stage, reason will be tested – Or to a higher guide...............193• Till this third stage has its trial, it is Force that in the last resort really governs..............193

4. It is individualism which opens the way, after an age of conventionalism..............................194a) In the pre-individualistic, pre-rational ages – The old method of mentalising life..............194

• Thinkers did not think in the characteristic method of the logical reason........................194• Mind in its spontaneously intuitive or its reflectively seeing movements........................194

b) The method of reason, questioning facts and ideas – An age of progress............................194• Reason lives not only in actual facts, but in possibilities.................................................194• Reason lives not only in realised truths, but in ideal truths..............................................194• The ideal truth once seen – The impulse of the idealising intelligence............................194• By this inherent characteristic, the age of reason must always be an age of progress.....194

c) How reason gets her first real chance of an entire self-development...................................195• The necessity of questioning conventions and traditions arises.......................................195• The idea that society can only be perfected by the rational intelligence..........................195

B. The first ideal of the rational age – The principle of individualistic democracy..........................1951. The reason and will of every individual – Individual and common judgment.........................195

• It must be the reason of each and all seeking for a basis of agreement............................195• Each individual must be allowed to govern his life – His own reason and will...............195

2. In practice it is found that these ideas will not hold for a long time.........................................197a) A disparity between fact and idea that must lead to inevitable disillusionment...................197b) The first defects of the individualistic theory in practice.....................................................197

• The individualistic democratic ideal – Not a rational order of society.............................197c) Universal education is the inevitable second step – The first defects of education.............198

• The actual education given in the most advanced countries – Not the necessities...........198d) Something has been done – But a new and enormous defect has revealed itself.................199

• Instead of a harmoniously ordered society – A huge organised competitive system.......199C. Democratic socialism, collectivist ideal and totalitarianism........................................................200

1. The transition from democratic individualism to democratic socialism..................................200a) The true nature of socialism – The shifting from liberty to equality....................................200

• To replace a system of organised economic battle by an organised order and peace......200• Socialism – Away with the democratic basis of individual liberty..................................200• Equality, not a political only, but a perfect social equality, is to be the basis..................200• The collective reasoning mind and will of the community has to govern........................200

b) Even at its best the collectivist idea contains several fallacies.............................................201• The idea of collectivist democracy may find itself before long in difficulties.................201• The rational and democratic Idea may fall back upon a third form – Anarchism............201

2. The collectivist ideal of society................................................................................................202a) Equality, like liberty, is not indispensable to the essence of the collectivist ideal...............202

• Equality like individualistic liberty may turn out to be an obstacle.................................202b) The collectivist ideal can very well do without the democratic trinity.................................203

• If both equality and liberty disappear there is left brotherhood or comradeship..............203• But comradeship without liberty and equality – A service to the collectivist State.........203

3. Totalitarianism and a tenebrous No Man's Land of obscure mysticisms.................................204

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a) Totalitarianism seems to be the outcome of Socialism – A revolutionary mysticism..........204• Socialism – The organisation of the society by its own conscious reason and will.........204• If a democratic polity and machinery – The result will be Social Democracy.................204• If a non-democratic polity and machinery – Totalitarianism...........................................204

b) There is a total unprecedented compression of the whole communal existence..................205• In Russia the marxist system of Socialism has been turned almost into a gospel............205• In Fascist countries the swing away from Rationalism is marked and open....................205• The essential features are the same in Russia and in Fascist countries............................205

c) If this trend becomes universal, it is the end of the Age of Reason.....................................206(1) Totalitarian mysticism may not be able to carry out its menace..................................206(2) In that case the curve of the Age of Reason may prolong and complete itself.............206• The subjective turn may have time and freedom to evolve..............................................206

Chapter XX.............................................................................................................................................208The End of the Curve of Reason...........................................................................................................208

A. The collectivist theory..............................................................................................................2081. The rational collectivist idea of society has at first sight a powerful attraction.......................208

a) Every society represents a collective being – The external efficiency.................................208b) Man’s infrarational parts of nature – Obedience to the collective reason and will..............209

• Individual liberty of life and action may well mean an undue freedom...........................209• The collective reason and will as his own larger mind, will and conscience...................209• The obedience to it as a strong delivery from his own smaller and less rational self......209

2. A discrepancy between the set ideas and the actual facts of human nature.............................209a) It ignores the complexity of man's being and all that that complexity means......................209

• The need of freedom – Of a growing self-control, not a mechanical regulation..............209• Obedience to a true guiding power – Not to a mechanised government and rule............209• A society develops a group-soul – But no discoverable common reason and will..........209• Government by the organised State – Always government by a number of individuals. 209

b) A real suppression or oppression by the relentless mechanism of the State........................211• Democratic liberty tried to minimise this suppression.....................................................211• Collectivism goes exactly to the opposite extreme...........................................................211

3. The central defect of a socialistic State – The rise of anarchistic thought...............................211a) Man needs freedom of thought and life and action in order that he may grow....................211

• Intellectual and vital dissatisfaction may take the form of anarchistic thought...............211• Anarchistic thought must be necessarily subversive of the socialistic order....................211• If from the first freedom of thought is denied – The end of the Age of Reason..............211

b) Whatever the perfection – The suppression or oppression of individual freedom...............212(1) A government undemocratic or pseudo-democratic or even really democratic...........212• The innermost difficulty would not disappear..................................................................212• And worse, the tendency to mechanisation is the inherent defect of the State idea.........212(2) The progress of Life – A truth not of the reason but of the spirit.................................213• Life differs from the mechanical order of the physical universe......................................213• A larger and better development on a basis of harmony – The spiritual truth.................213• A progressive upward transformation of life-values into those of the spirit....................213(3) The attempt at a rational ordering of society can never arrive at perfection................214• The reason mechanises in order to arrive at fixity of conduct and practice.....................214• The reason can never truly succeed in dealing with conscious life..................................214

B. Intellectual anarchism...................................................................................................................2151. Anarchistic thought supervening upon the collectivistic..........................................................215

a) The contention that the collectivist period is a necessary stage in social progress..............215• This may well be the intention of Nature in human society.............................................215• Collectivism may itself in the end allow for a free individual development....................215• But to do that it must first spiritualise itself.....................................................................215

b) An intellectual anarchistic thought, not the vitalistic or violent anarchism.........................216(1) A natural principle of good – Even the social principle in itself is questioned............216(2) The exaggeration – The principle of social compulsion was clearly inevitable...........216• Until man has grown out of the causes of its necessity, he cannot be really ready..........216

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2. The highest anarchistic ideal – Free equality and spontaneous cooperation............................217a) Two powers, the enlightenment of the reason and a natural human sympathy....................217b) Communalism – No sufficient account of the infrarational element in man........................218c) The rational being as a middle term – A pull from below and attraction from above..........219

3. A spiritual or spiritualised anarchism nearer to the real solution.............................................219a) The solution lies not in the reason, but in the soul of man – Love and brotherhood............219

• A deeper brotherhood, a yet unfound law of love is the only sure foundation.................219b) A decisive turn of mankind to the spiritual ideal may not be impossible.............................220

• If this is not the way, then there is no way for the human kind........................................220• Then the terrestrial evolution must pass beyond man and a greater race must come.......220

Chapter XXI............................................................................................................................................222The Spiritual Aim and Life....................................................................................................................222

A. A society founded upon spirituality will be different in two essential points..........................2221. The normal human society – A radical defect somewhere.......................................................222

a) A mechanism of law, custom and contract – The price to pay for civilisation....................222b) The normal society treats man essentially as a physical, vital and mental being.................222

• In the end, however society tends to die by its own development...................................2222. Where is the seat of the defect and by what issue shall we come out?.....................................223

• The more advanced minds begin to declare civilisation a failure....................................223a) The remedy proposed – A halt or a retrogression or more mechanical devices...................223b) The radical defect – Society has neglected the spiritual element.........................................223

• A healthy body, a strong vitality and an active and clarified mind – Not complete........223• Add a rich emotional life governed by a well-ordered ethical standard...........................223• Add a religious system and a widespread spirit of belief and piety.................................223• Modern society has discovered a new principle of survival – Modern progress..............223• Only in the turn inwards, towards a greater subjectivity, is there a better hope...............223• By that turning it may discover that the real truth of man is to be found in his soul.......223

c) It will be said that this is an old discovery under the name of religion................................225(1) The old religions in their social as apart from their individual aspect..........................225• The false socialisation of religion – The cause of its failure to regenerate mankind.......225(2) The falsehood of the old social use of religion is shown by its effects........................225• The coincidence of the greatest religious fervour and piety with darkest ignorance.......225• A socio-religious system and its rites and forms rather than any spiritual growth...........225• When the individual is obliged to flee from society for his spiritual growth...................225• Unless the society is moved towards spiritualisation or an ideal – Stagnation................225• Or the race has to turn to the intellect for rescue – An age of rationalism.......................225

B. The true and full spiritual aim in society – A large liberty as the law..........................................2271. Man not as a mind, life and body, but as a soul, the collectivity as a soul-form......................227

• The life, mind and body – Their destiny will be to spiritualise themselves.....................227• The possible godhead of man will be the one solitary creed and dogma.........................227

2. A large liberty, not an external compulsion upon the lower members.....................................228a) All members of man's natural being to grow into the godhead............................................228b) Man must have as much free space as possible for all these members to grow...................228

(1) Thus true spirituality will not lay a yoke upon science and philosophy.......................228• The dharma of science, thought and philosophy is to seek for truth................................228• Often we find atheism both in individual and society a necessary passage.....................228(2) The same law holds good in Art – Art has its own essential law.................................229• The highest aim of the aesthetic being is to find the Divine through beauty...................229• The highest Art is that which unseals the doors of the spirit............................................229(3) Even with the lower nature of man – A free self-rule and development from within. .230

(a) A certain freedom to stumble in action as well as to err in knowledge........................230(b) Spirituality will not leave the lower members to themselves......................................230

C. A fullness of man's being in the individual and the race – The inner theocracy..........................230• It will show man the way to seek for the Divine in every way of his being.....................230

Chapter XXII..........................................................................................................................................232The Necessity of the Spiritual................................................................................................................232

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Transformation.......................................................................................................................................232A. Our present very unsatisfactory manhood................................................................................232

1. Our normal conduct of life – Two complementary powers......................................................232• First, an implicit will central to the life – In our vital and physical being........................232• Secondly, whatever modifying will can come in from the Idea in mind..........................232• The first self-direction of this Life-Force, its first orderings of method are instinctive...232• A life according to Nature as the remedy for all our ills..................................................232

2. An attempt to find a rule in the essential nature of man...........................................................232a) Nietzsche's idea of the superman – But not the intellect and will, the spirit........................232b) Man is not perfect in his own nature like the plant and the animal – A half-god.................233

• Man is an abnormal who has not found his own normality..............................................2333. What precisely is the defect from which all his imperfection springs?....................................234

a) A double nature, an animal nature and a half-divine nature – The manhood of man..........234b) Man has developed a new power of being – But more he has not been able to do..............235

• The transformation of his life into the image of the true, the good and the beautiful......235• He has never arrived at any great turning-point, any decisive crisis of transformation...235

c) The failure to shift upward what we have called the implicit will central to his life...........236• His central will of life is still situated in his vital and physical being..............................236• The higher life is still only a thing superimposed on the lower........................................236• Man's practical failure to solve the riddle and the difficulty of his double nature...........236

d) This failure is due to the fact that this higher power is only a mediator...............................237(1) Individuals have succeeded something – A dominance, but not a transformation.......237(2) Mind is not the destined archangel of the transformation............................................237

(a) Life cannot be entirely rational – There are times when mankind perceives this fact. 237(b) Such a period was the recent materialistic age – The conflagration of a world-war. . .238

• That is what the great war signified and was in its real origin.........................................238B. The solution – The spiritual transformation.................................................................................238

1. The solution lies in an awakening to our real, because our highest self and nature.................238a) A spiritual self and spiritual nature will use the mental being.............................................238b) The return to an ancient secret – The whole life elevated into spirituality...........................239

(1) Asia temporarily failed because she did not follow after the spirit sufficiently...........239• The call of the Spirit demands that we shall follow it always to the end.........................239(2) Mistakes made on the path are instructive – To superimpose the spiritual life............240• To superimpose the spiritual life on the mental, vital and physical nature......................240• This is the most that human society has ever done in the past.........................................240

2. The secret of the transformation which our nature is seeking to discover...............................241a) The central will implicit in life must be the spiritual will....................................................241

• It is its supramental power and truth that we have somehow to discover........................241b) We are always divided between two tendencies, one idealistic, the other realistic..............241

• Our idealism is always the most rightly human thing in us – A spiritual realism............2413. The perfection of man lies in the unfolding of the ever-perfect Spirit.....................................242

a) The upward transference of our will to be and our power of life.........................................242b) The higher perfection of the spiritual life will come by a spontaneous obedience..............243

• It will be an illimitable perfection capable of endless variation in its forms....................243c) The spirit within will turn upon mind and life to transform them into its own image.........243

C. Man's road to spiritual supermanhood – A greater Truth behind mind and life...........................244Chapter XXIII.........................................................................................................................................246Conditions for the Coming.....................................................................................................................246of a Spiritual Age....................................................................................................................................246

A. Two conditions for the spiritual change – This has never yet happened..................................2461. First in the mind and spirit of an individual or a limited number of individuals......................246

• The Spirit discovers, develops, builds its formations first in the individual man............2462. At the same time a mass ready to follow – Numerous possibilities of failure.........................247

B. The readiness of the common mind of man – A subjective age...................................................248• If the common human mind has begun to admit the ideas proper to the higher order.....248• If the heart of man has begun to be stirred by aspirations born of these ideas.................248

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1. The signals must be there that are precursors of a subjective age............................................248a) Here the first essential sign must be the growth of the subjective idea of life.....................248b) Where these ideas are likely first to declare their trend........................................................248

• Signs are only incipient and sporadic...............................................................................248• A subjective age may stop very far short of spirituality...................................................249• The subjective turn is only a first condition, not the thing itself......................................249

2. The search for the Reality – The natural order described by the Upanishad............................249a) Something of the kind has been happening – A predominant surface vitalism....................249

• After the material formula – The vital élan has brought us no deliverance.....................249• A Life-power that sees nothing beyond itself can only add Titanism or demonism........249

b) The possibility of a mental and psychic subjectivism emerging out of vitalism..................251(1) The first stage of mentalised pragmatism – This tendency may rise to the higher idea.....

......................................................................................................................................251• The tendency to rationalise entirely man and his life – This attempt is bound to fail......251• The greater idea – The greatening of the mental and psychic being................................251• The human will mastering not only physical Nature, but vital and mental Nature..........251(2) A profound revolution in human existence – Dangers and safeguards........................252

c) Mankind to be spiritualised must become the psychic and the true mental being...............253(1) One principal reason of the failure of past attempts to spiritualise mankind...............253• They endeavoured to spiritualise at once the material man by a sort of rapid miracle....253• The endeavour may succeed with individuals but it must fail with the mass...................253(2) The upward past and present curve of civilisation is a sign of great promise..............253• First the possibilities of materialism upon the basis of Matter as the sole reality............253• Afterwards a great evolving Life – Life as the original reality........................................253• In preparation, a great inner Mind – Mind as the original reality.....................................253

C. A spiritual age of mankind...........................................................................................................2541. The true secret can only be discovered in an age of mental subjectivism................................254

• The mind itself as no more than a secondary power of the Spirit's working....................254• The Spirit as the great Eternal, the original and the sole reality.......................................254• Then only will the real, the decisive endeavour begin – A spiritual age of mankind......254

2. Three essential truths of existence to realise, God, freedom, unity..........................................254a) God.......................................................................................................................................254

(1) You cannot realise freedom and unity unless you realise God.....................................254(2) The revealing and finding of the divine Self in man as the guiding aim......................255

(a) The freedom from the egoistic standpoint – Not a sacrifice to the larger egoism........255• The kingdom of God within – A spiritual age would be the result..................................255

(b) Its education, its knowledge, its science, its ethics, its art...........................................256• Education would embrace all knowledge in its scope......................................................256• Physical and psychic sciences – The Divine in the world and the ways of the Spirit......256• Ethics – Not to establish a rule of action, but to develop the divine nature.....................256• Art – The significant and creative vision that goes behind..............................................256

(c) Sociology, economics, politics – The one common work of humanity.......................257• Sociology – Souls to be rescued, souls growing, souls grown.........................................257• Economics – To give to men the joy of work according to their own nature...................257• Politics – The peoples as group-souls meant to grow according to their own nature......257• The one common work of humanity would be to find the divine Self and to realise.......257

b) Freedom................................................................................................................................257(1) The law of a growing inner freedom – The largest possible freedom..........................257• So long as man has not come within self-knowledge – A law of external compulsion.. .257• The compulsion of the Spirit – Our inner right to escape other compulsion....................257• But even in the unregenerated state – The largest possible freedom................................257(2) An awakening of the inner divine compulsion of the spirit within..............................258• A spiritual age of mankind will aim to diminish the need of external compulsion..........258

c) Unity – Not a featureless but a conscious and diversified oneness......................................259• Not only to see and find the Divine in oneself, but to see and find the Divine in all.......259• Not only to seek one's own but to seek the liberation and perfection of others...............259

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3. The goal of the cycle of social development – The kingdom of God on earth.........................260Chapter XXIV.........................................................................................................................................261The Advent and Progress.......................................................................................................................261of the Spiritual Age.................................................................................................................................261

A. There must be a dynamic re-creating of individual manhood in the spiritual type..................2611. Beyond the mere holding of the ideal and its general influence in human life........................261

a) The indispensable mental environment for a living renovation of human society...............261• The idea of the kingdom of God on earth should become definitely an ideal of life.......261

b) The way that humanity deals with an ideal – A partial influence........................................262• The holding of an ideal – Almost an excuse for not living according to the ideal...........262• To live inwardly and outwardly the divine life is what is meant by spirituality..............262

c) This can only be brought about by an individual change in each human life......................263• An increasing number of individuals no longer satisfied with the normal existence.......263

2. In the past, as a result, the coming of a new religion for a new universal order......................263a) This was always not only a premature but a wrong crystallisation......................................263

• In the end the spirit in the religion has become a thin stream choked by sands...............263b) The ambition to universalise and the tendency to turn towards an afterworld.....................264

• The one thing essential – The conversion of the whole life of the human being.............264B. A true beginning has to be made. The rest is a work for Time.....................................................265

1. The individuals who will most help the future of humanity in the new age............................265• Those who will recognise a spiritual evolution as the great need of the human being....265• An evolution of the present type of humanity into a spiritualised humanity....................265

2. Every part of human life has to be taken up by the spiritual....................................................266• The great necessity is the conversion of the normal into the spiritual mind....................266• The uncertain and stumbling mental will has to rise towards the sure intuitive...............266• The psychic sweetness, fire and light of the soul behind the heart – To alchemise.........266• All our other members have to pass through a similar conversion...................................266

3. A supreme and difficult labour for the individual, but much more for the race.......................267• For the leaders too this ascent to the first spiritual levels would not be the end..............267

C. This at least is the highest hope, the possible destiny before the human view.............................268THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY.............................................................................................................271

Preface to the First Edition....................................................................................................................273Publisher's Note......................................................................................................................................275to the Second Edition..............................................................................................................................275

The Ideal of Human Unity.........................................................................................................................277Part I............................................................................................................................................................277

Chapter I.................................................................................................................................................279The Turn towards Unity:.......................................................................................................................279Its Necessity and Dangers......................................................................................................................279

A. The necessity of a search on the communal and collective life of humanity...........................2791. What we ought to know to understand existence – Life’s profundities...................................2792. Nothing is more obscure to humanity than its own communal and collective life...................279

• Sociology does not help us – History teaches us nothing.................................................279• Our whole thought and action with regard to our collective life is shallow.....................279

B. The knowledge to prevent the failure of the ideal of human unity...............................................2801. The ideal of human unity – Among the determining forces of the future................................280

• The intellectual and material circumstances of the age almost impose it.........................2802. How the unity of the human race can be enduringly or fruitfully accomplished.....................281

a) Men must accept the inner change along with the external readjustment............................281b) The dangers of a unification by social and political devices only........................................281

(1) A greater social or political unity is not necessarily a boon in itself............................281(2) If we consider the past of humanity so far as it is known to us....................................281

(a) The interesting periods of human life – Little independent centres.............................281(b) The defect which compelled a tendency towards large organisations.........................282(c) The period of the organisation of nations, kingdoms and empires...............................282

[1] The groupments of smaller nations had the most intense life..................................282

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[2] The most vigorous life was gained by an artificial concentration of the vitality.....283(d) The advantages and disadvantages of unity illustrated by the Roman Empire............283

(3) The consequences of a unification of mankind as dreamed of nowadays....................283• A long period of mere conservation, increasing stagnancy and ultimately decay............283

C. The unity of mankind must come about – The conditions and safeguards..................................284Chapter II................................................................................................................................................285The Imperfection of Past Aggregates....................................................................................................285

A. Harmony between the individual and the aggregate.................................................................285• The perfect society – Which most entirely favours the perfection of the individual.......285• The perfection of the individual – Towards the perfect state of the social aggregate......285

B. The gradual development and the difficulties of accord..............................................................285• Between the interests of the individual and those of the immediate aggregate................285• Between the smaller integralities and the growth of that larger whole............................285

1. It has been necessary to form lesser aggregates.......................................................................285a) Stages in the gradual process of Nature – The lesser aggregates.........................................285b) Instances of failure and success which are full of instruction..............................................286

2. The unequal progress – The dominant classes or dominant nations........................................286• The progress of all the individuals does not proceed with an equal and equable march..286

a) The conflict of classes is always possible – Which class will predominate.........................286b) These can only be transient devices – A fundamental equality is essential.........................287

• Such dominations bear always in them the seed of their own destruction.......................287c) A dominant minority must recognise in good time the right hour for its abdication...........288

• Where this is done, the social aggregate advances normally............................................288C. The social aggregates standing in the way of the perfection of the individual.............................288

• They must find their term and their day of change or destruction....................................288• The human individual tends to exist in himself and to exceed the limits.........................288

Chapter III..............................................................................................................................................290The Group and the Individual...............................................................................................................290

A. The progress towards harmony accomplishes itself by a strife of forces.................................2901. A constant method of Nature to reconcile two elements of a harmony....................................2902. The strife between two human tendencies, individualism and collectivism............................290

• The size of the State makes no difference to the essence of the struggle.........................290B. History and sociology on man’s historic and prehistoric evolution.............................................291

1. The available facts only – Man as an individual was subservient to the group........................2912. The ancient tradition of humanity – The social state was preceded by another.......................2913. Always two types in the group – A third type has been added.................................................292

• One asserts the State idea at the expense of the individual..............................................292• Another seeks to give freedom, power and dignity to the individuals.............................292• A third type – The State abdicates as much as possible to the individual........................292• Of this type England has been until recently the great exemplar.....................................292• We find the collective or State idea breaking down the old English tradition.................292

4. It is quite immaterial to the principle what form the State may assume...................................293C. In modern times the State idea is dominating the thought and action of the world.....................294

• Two motives – The external interest and its highest moral tendencies............................294• Pushed to its ultimate conclusion, this means the socialistic ideal in full force...............294• Yet the two ideas – A fatal mixture of truth and falsehood..............................................294

Chapter IV...............................................................................................................................................296The Inadequacy of the State Idea..........................................................................................................296

A. What is this State idea – A collective egoism with a ruling class or body...............................296B. The State is not what the State idea pretends that it is..................................................................296

1. Not the best mind of the nation nor even the sum of the communal energies..........................296a) The governing instrument – The disease and falsehood of modern political life.................296

• As a matter of fact, it is in no way the largest good of all that is thus secured................296b) So much available as the machinery of State organisation will allow.................................297

• A less trammelled individual effort doing what the State cannot do................................297• It is this energy of the individual which is the really effective agent...............................297

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• The State sometimes comes in to aid it – As often it stands in the way...........................297• But what we are now tending towards – Free individual effort will disappear................297

c) A collective egoism much inferior to the best of which the community is capable.............298(1) No soul or only a rudimentary one – A «sacred egoism» is still the ideal of nations. .298(2) The State egoism in its inner life – In ancient times and in modern times...................299

(a) The claim to absorb all free individual activities – A check to human progress..........299(b) The giving up of the individual egoism into another, a collective form......................300

• Man must learn not to mutilate but to fulfil himself in the fulfilment of mankind..........3002. Not the best means of human progress.....................................................................................300

a) Its real utility of the State – Providing for the cooperative action of the individuals...........300b) The State is bound to act crudely and in the mass – State-governed education...................301

• It is right and necessary that education should be provided for all..................................301• But when the State controls the education, it turns it into a mechanical system..............301

c) The business of the State, , so long as it continues to be a necessary element.....................301• To provide all possible facilities for cooperative action...................................................301• To secure for every individual a just and equal chance of self-development...................301• All unnecessary interference with the freedom of man's growth is or can be harmful....301

C. An external or administrative unity may be intended but it cannot be really healthy..................302• The experiment will break down and give place to a new reconstructive age.................302• It ought to be possible for us now to avoid it by subordinating mechanical means.........302• Our true development – Through a moralised and even a spiritualised humanity...........304

Chapter V................................................................................................................................................304Nation and Empire: Real.......................................................................................................................304and Political Unities................................................................................................................................304

A. The problem of the unification of mankind – Three doubts to deal with.................................304• Whether an external unity in some effective form can be securely established...............304• Whether crushing the free life of the individual and of the various collective units........304• Whether it ought not to be preceded by a moral and spiritual oneness............................304

B. Whether an external unity in some effective form can be securely established...........................3041. The distinction of the political and the real unit and the truth of a real unity..........................304

a) The nation is the living collective unit – Empires are only political and not real units.......304b) The important consequences of the real inner oneness........................................................305

• When a non-national empire is broken to pieces, it perishes for good.............................305• A real national unity broken up will always preserve a tendency to recover...................305

c) Historic instances of a distinct group-soul constituting for itself an organised body...........306(1) Nations which have arrived inevitably at organised oneness.......................................306• A psychologically distinct unit – Towards an inevitable external unification.................306(2) The most striking example in history is the evolution of India....................................307• The more foreign the rule, the greater has been its force for the unification...................307(3) The aid lent by foreign rule to the process of nation-making – The principle.............308• History abounds with illustrations....................................................................................308• In all cases the essential has been a shock or a pressure..................................................308

d) Now the nation as the one living group-unit, until a greater living unit can be found.........309• Political unity is not the essential factor...........................................................................309• The nation in modern times is practically indestructible, unless it dies from within.......309

2. Whether the empire is not psrecisely that destined unit in course of evolution.......................310• There is no insurmountable reason why a similar evolution should not take place.........310• This then is the possibility we have next to consider.......................................................310

Chapter VI...............................................................................................................................................312Ancient and Modern...............................................................................................................................312Methods of Empire.................................................................................................................................312

A. How to transform a heterogeneous empire into a real and psychological unity.......................3121. A distinction – Homogeneous national and heterogeneous composite empire........................312

• A homogeneous empire would form a psychological and not merely a political unit.....3122. Example of a federation – The change from a political to a psychological unit......................312

• The United States are the example of such an aggregate.................................................312

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3. The tendency towards vast homogeneous aggregates..............................................................313• Vast aggregates of this kind would find enclaves heterogeneous to them or mixed........313• This tendency does not appear ever likely to be the eventual solution............................313• It would have to meet the difficulties of the heterogeneous type.....................................313

B. The attempt by the replacement of the local by the imperial culture...........................................3141. An attempt to solve the problem – The example of the Roman empire...................................314

a) Rome triumphed over all disruptive tendencies by its inner principle of unity....................314b) The Roman rule succeeded in blotting out the sense of separate nationality.......................315

• And this was done but by a peaceful pressure..................................................................315c) The essential vice of the method was that all the living forces were destroyed...................316

• By crushing out the living cultures or the incipient individuality....................................3162. The change in the movement and orientation of the world's tendencies..................................317

a) Every attempt at renewing the Roman success has failed....................................................317b) The European colonies have been commercial colonies of exploitation..............................317c) A growing sense of the necessity of leaving the soul of the subject nation free..................317

• The difficulty of uprooting the indigenous culture as the Romans surmounted it...........317d) The effacing of heterogeneous cultures – The attempt is bound to fail................................318

• If a psychological unity has to be created, it must be by other means.............................318C. The new turn of the impact of cultures.........................................................................................319

• The impact of different cultures upon each other has been accentuated..........................319• The earth is in travail now of one common, large and flexible civilisation.....................319

1. Each culture shall bring its contribution – The struggle for survival.......................................319• Success in this struggle is worst served by military violence or political pressure..........319

2. A law of interchange and adaptation – The value of variations...............................................320• The seeds of a new order of things are being rapidly sown..............................................320

3. The new turn shows itself most clearly where the European and the Asiatic meet..................320• The East is willing or forced to accept the valuable parts of modern European culture. .320• But the East refuses to proceed farther – In the things which are deepest.......................320

4. The old idea is not entirely dead – But the signs of the hour point to a new era......................321• There are still those who dream of a Christianised India.................................................321• Christianity has only succeeded where it could apply active compassion.......................321• A new Asiatic society broadened and liberalised will emerge from this travail..............321

D. A new model is demanded – The federal or else the confederate empire....................................322• Is it possible to create a securely federated empire of vast extent, heterogeneous?.........322• How can such an empire be welded into a natural and psychological unit?....................322

Chapter VII.............................................................................................................................................323The Creation of the.................................................................................................................................323Heterogeneous Nation............................................................................................................................323

A. Whether merely an enlargement of the nation-type or a new type of aggregate......................323• The problem of a federal empire founded on a true psychological unity.........................323• Two different factors, the question of the form and the question of the reality...............323

B. The first idea – A realisable parallel between the nation-idea and the empire-idea.....................3231. The heterogeneous constituents of the empire as a composite nation......................................323

a) The motherland unites men most securely now – The empire as the greater mother..........323b) There are conditions without which such a fiction cannot succeed......................................324

• It must be based on a plausible superficial resemblance..................................................324• It must lead to a realisable fact strong enough.................................................................324• And this realisable fact must progressively realise itself..................................................324

c) Is it true that the true imperial unity will be only an enlarged national unity?.....................325• If not, what is the realisable fact which this fiction is intended to prepare?.....................325• We must cast a glance at the most typical instances of the successful composite nation 325

2. The instance of the British nation and the British Empire........................................................325a) The British nation has been a general success – Ireland was the element of failure............325

• What light do they shed on the possibilities of the larger problem?................................325b) The three conditions followed by Nature in building up the human aggregates..................326

• First a natural body, next, a common life, last, a conscious mind....................................326

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c) The three orders of the natural conditions in the case of Ireland..........................................327(1) The geographical necessity of union, but not the unity of race and past association...327(2) The economic life and prosperity of Ireland were deliberately crushed......................327• The Irish movements of Home Rule and separatism – Ireland's will to survive..............327(3) The attempt to get rid by violence of all elements of Irish particularism.....................328

3. Great Britain as a field of experiment for the heterogeneous federal empire...........................329Chapter VIII...........................................................................................................................................330The Problem of a Federated..................................................................................................................330Heterogeneous Empire...........................................................................................................................330

A. The evolution of the colonial empire of Great Britain – Not a foregone conclusion...............330B. The fusion of a colonial empire into a great federated commonwealth.......................................330

1. The evolution of Australia, Canada and South-Africa.............................................................330a) Not so long ago the separation of the colonies was considered inevitable...........................330b) The conditions now are altered – A great federated commonwealth...................................331

(1) There are difficulties in the way, economic, political and other..................................331(2) England as the centre of a great confederation of States and nations...........................332

2. The problem becomes much more difficult with regard to Egypt and India............................332a) The renascence of India is inevitable....................................................................................332b) The nature of the difficulties in the way of a practical union...............................................333c) We will assume a combination to be possible......................................................................334

(1) Under what conditions the process of unification is possible.......................................334• India.s political and economic interests and a care for her own untroubled growth........334(2) Of what nature the unity will be – The type of the supra-national unit........................335

d) A stage which would make possible the unity of the whole human race.............................335Chapter IX...............................................................................................................................................337The Possibility of a World-Empire.......................................................................................................337

• The progress of the imperial idea to the national idea is only a possibility......................337A. Other possibilities of the unification of mankind by political and administrative means........337

• If either the old ideal of a single world-empire be an accomplished fact.........................337• Or if the opposite ideal of a free association of free nations overcome the obstacles......337

B. The theoretical possibility of a world-empire imposed by a single nation...................................3371. It is not likely that it will convert itself into a practical possibility..........................................337

• It could only come about by immense changes as yet hidden..........................................3372. That it may be attempted, is possible – That it will fail may almost be prophesied.................338

a) The old ideal of dominant Force conquering the world is still a vital reality.......................338b) Previous failure was not a proof of the impossibility of the imperial dream.......................339c) The necessary conditions for the success of the imperial enterprise....................................340

(1) To avoid a successful coalition of hostile forces – A series of struggles.....................340• A succession of struggles seems to be beyond the range of actual possibilities..............340(2) Assuming that a coalition would be formed against it.................................................341

(a) To possess a combined military and naval predominance...........................................341• The creation of this double predominance is a contingency highly improbable..............341

(b) A new science or new discoveries not shared by the rest............................................342C. The unification by a single forceful imperial domination is improbable.....................................342

• At the same time, we have to take into account the surprises of Nature..........................342Chapter X................................................................................................................................................344The United States of Europe..................................................................................................................344

A. The free democratic nation and the perfectly organised State..................................................3441. The dominant idea of the French Revolution – The free democratic nation............................344

• The assertion of the free, independent, democratically self-governed nation..................344• National self-consciousness and self-government............................................................344• Freedom and enlightenment for the people......................................................................344• So much social equality and justice at least as is indispensable to political liberty.........344

2. The ideal of the perfectly organised State................................................................................345a) A new idea in the progressive mind of humanity – Modern Socialism................................345

• It implies an abrogation or at least a rigorous diminution of all individual liberty..........345

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• Democratic Socialism still clings to the ideal of political freedom..................................345b) The progress of the socialistic idea – A realisable programme............................................346c) The near future of the human group – The control of the organised national State.............346d) The increasing tendency to State interference and State control..........................................347

• The great modern tendency of the perfectly organised socialistic State..........................347B. The United States of Europe and the international life.................................................................348

1. Independent but increasingly organised national States associated together...........................348a) The idea of a federation of free nations – But imperialism is in the ascendant....................348

• This imperialistic tendency is likely to grow stronger for some time in the future..........348• National egoism, the pride of domination and the desire of expansion still govern........348

b) A free association and unity must be the ultimate goal – The time has not come................349• A system of federated empires and free nations is not altogether impossible..................349

2. As a rule, suggestions for a closer association were limited to Europe....................................350a) Suggestion of an international Court – Some form of European federation........................350

• The Law within a nation is only secure because there is a recognised authority.............350• An international or an inter-European law must have the same advantages....................350• Such a federation must necessarily be tightened – Towards a United States of Europe. .350

b) Objections to the idea of a United States of Europe.............................................................351(1) It would inevitably awaken antagonism – A division on the continental basis............351• Continental groupings would mean cataclysms of an unprecedented kind and scope.....351• The general sense of humanity is already beyond continental distinctions......................351(2) The Pan-European idea – Europe is under the necessity of overpassing it..................351(3) Consequences if the nation-idea in the West is to merge into the Europe-idea...........352

C. A new supra-national order must be an organisation of international life...................................353Chapter XI...............................................................................................................................................355The Small Free Unit and the..................................................................................................................355Larger Concentrated Unity...................................................................................................................355

A. A unification of the human race on political, administrative and economic lines...................3551. The demand by an underlying spirit and sense of need in the race..........................................355

• The real strength of this tendency is in its intellectual, idealistic and emotional parts....3552. On what lines it is likely to work itself out...............................................................................355

• Initial arrangements will naturally develop into a closer unity........................................355• An internal arrangement progressing rapidly towards a rigorous State socialism...........355

3. The question whether the political unity of mankind thus and now is desirable......................357• If so, under what circumstances, with what necessary conditions...................................357

4. The concentrating and formative rigidity in the creation of a new unity.................................357• When it proceeds by external and mechanical processes.................................................357• It has to sacrifice the diversity..........................................................................................357• It has to create a paramount centre, a concentrated State power......................................357• There is a tendency to create a firmly mechanised and rigid state of society..................357

B. The small human communities before the creation of the modern world....................................3581. The participation of the individual generally in the many-sided life of the community..........358

a) The turn towards freedom in the political and civic life – The city state.............................358• The tendency to a democratic freedom in which every man had a natural part...............358

b) In the social life – A certain democratic equality is almost inevitable.................................359c) A general vividness of life and dynamic force of culture and creaton.................................360

2. The early life of the old city states and clan-nations had vital defects.....................................361a) The two great problems of economic serfdom and the subjection of woman......................361b) The failure to solve the question of the interrelations between communities......................362

• Therefore the old States had to dissolve and disappear....................................................362C. The creation of the national aggregate – This cycle we must briefly study.................................362

Chapter XII.............................................................................................................................................364The Ancient Cycle of Prenational.........................................................................................................364Empire-Building – The Modern............................................................................................................364Cycle of Nation-Building........................................................................................................................364

A. The ancient cycle of prenational empire-building....................................................................364

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1. Separate and distinct culture-units before they could become nation-units.............................364• Where the sense of local distinctness was most acute – A unification more difficult......364

2. The national unification became the starting-point of great empire-movements.....................364• The full result came only by the hard discipline of subjection to a foreign yoke.............364• Where this discipline was lacking – A career of conquest...............................................364

3. The empires could not endure – No firm foundations in the central nation-unity...................3654. The problem in the unification of human aggregates...............................................................366

a) A phenomenon as the creation of vital organisms in physical Nature.................................366• To build a body and vital functioning for a distinct corporate ego..................................366(1) In this process, first smaller distinct units in a larger loose unity are formed..............366(2) The larger unity finds itself among a number of similar unities – A similar problem. 367

b) In unification of life an assimilation is possible – An association of units..........................367• How the units shall be subordinated without their death and disappearance...................367

5. The weakness of the old empire-unities created by conquest...................................................368a) They tended to destroy the smaller units they assimilated, as did imperial Rome...............368b) A device to discourage in their excessive separative vitality the old smaller units..............369

• Such a process implies a pressure and breaking up of old institutions.............................369• If destruction is done, it is because the destruction was indispensable............................369

B. The modern cycle of nation-building...........................................................................................3701. In Europe, after the Roman pressure was removed – A new construction...............................370

a) Except in Italy the city state offered no real resistance to national unification....................370• The city-life of Italy recovered the art and science of the Graeco-Roman world............370

b) The old clan-nation perished – The work done by the Roman rule......................................3702. The European cycle of nation-building differs from the ancient cycle – Three stages............371

• First, a long balancing of centripetal and centrifugal tendencies.....................................371• Second – A movement of unification and increasing uniformity – Certain features.......371• The creation of a metropolitan centre...............................................................................371• The growth of an absolute sovereign authority................................................................371• The establishment of a governing spiritual head and body..............................................371• Third – Revolt and diffusion through freedom and equality, as in the ancient city.........371

3. The point which the development of the nation-aggregate has reached...................................372• It has been possible to envisage a psychological unity.....................................................372• We can move towards a partial decentralisation..............................................................372• We contemplate the organised use of a State intelligently representative........................372

Chapter XIII...........................................................................................................................................374The Formation of the Nation-Unit –.....................................................................................................374The Three Stages....................................................................................................................................374

A. Where a new form of unity has to be created by an external process......................................374• The three stages of development may be regarded as the natural process.......................374

B. The three stages............................................................................................................................3741. First – A looser yet sufficiently compelling order of society...................................................374

a) A fixed social hierarchy – A division according to four different social activities..............374• The necessity of a large effective form of common social life.........................................374

b) The subsequent stages did not necessarily follow – The direction needed..........................375(1) A turn towards a secular organisation and headship – The different result in India....375• In mediaeval India – The social dominance of the sacerdotal class.................................375(2) The struggle between the Church and the monarchical State, in the history of Europe.....

......................................................................................................................................376• The Church was obliged to renounce its claim to independence and dominance............376(3) A centralisation of the common life under a secular or a national head.......................377• It wast necessary for the creation of a political self-consciousness..................................377

2. Second – A period of stringent organisation directed towards unity and centrality.................378• To make room for a powerful and visible centre of political and administrative unity. . .378

a) The abrogation of liberties and the concentration of power.................................................378(1) The historical importance of kingship in the evolution of the nation-type...................378(2) Absolutism and the suppression of liberties – The reviving idea of the State..............380

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• Its right to impose its will on the life and thought and conscience of the people.............380(3) The crushing of the religious liberties – Unification by mechanical means.................380

b) The monarchical State was doomed – The monarchy had destroyed its own base..............381• By changing the old order into a mere simulacrum..........................................................381

3. Third – A period of free internal development as soon as the formation is assured................382a) The inner justification of the great revolutionary movement...............................................382

• When the aggregate is sure of its existence and feels the need of an inner expansion.....382• Liberty then becomes the watchword of the race.............................................................382

b) The cry for equality arises – Liberty sacrificed to the need of equality...............................383• This need might have taken the form of an ideal of free cooperation..............................383• It has actually reverted to the old notion of an absolute and efficient State.....................383• Liberty and equality reconciled – The ideal of fraternity or an inner oneness.................383• That no mechanism social, political, religious has ever created or can create.................383

Chapter XIV............................................................................................................................................384The Possibility of a First Step................................................................................................................384towards International Unity –...............................................................................................................384Its Enormous Difficulties.......................................................................................................................384

A. If the unity of the human race is to be brought about by the same means................................384• We should expect it to follow a similar course than the growth of the nation-unit..........384

B. A first period of loose formation and imperfect order is inevitable.............................................3841. There cannot as yet be a real external unity, far less a psychological oneness........................3842. How the future will be shaped under such conditions..............................................................385

a) Not by the ideas of the thinker but by the practical mind of the politician..........................385• The politician and the statesman act in accordance with this average general mind.......385• The political mind has limitations beyond those of the general average mind................385

b) The result we could expect, if the politician mind is left entirely to itself...........................386(1) We might expect some serious attempt towards the beginning of a new order...........386(2) Still, the most that we could at all expect must needs be very little.............................387

(a) The two points on which the general mind of the peoples was powerfully affected. . .387• A sense of revolt against the possible repetition of this vast catastrophe.........................387• The necessity for finding means to prevent the dislocation of the economic life............387

(b) Some real development could be expected in these two directions.............................388• For the regulation and minimising of war, for the limitation of armaments....................388• For the satisfactory disposal of dangerous disputes.........................................................388• For meeting that conflict of commercial aims and interests.............................................388

(c) The principle of international control will not be thoroughly effective at first............389[1] The difficulties are too great – How war can be abolished......................................389

• If national armies are abolished and by the development of some other machinery........389[2] New causes of strife – The spirit of national egoism and cupidity...........................390

• National egoism remaining, the means of strife remaining..............................................390(d) The new arrangement that is expected – An Illusory remedy......................................391

[1] The limitation of armies and armaments – A stronger international law.................391[2] On what really depend the authority of Law............................................................391

• First, the strong interest in maintaining it.........................................................................391• Secondly, the possession of a sole armed force, police and military...............................391• Even so, Law has not been able to prevent strife of a kind..............................................391• Crime with its penalties is always a kind of mutual violence...........................................391• Law has not been able to prevent the possibility of civil strife........................................391

[3] The armed force would still be divided among the constituent groups....................392[4] A composite armed force of control – This composite would break apart...............393

• Here the constituents would be a small number of nations..............................................393• The soldiers of the composite army would belong at heart to their country....................393

C. The actual evolution of an international State by political or administrative means....................3941. Wherever egoism is the root of action it must bear its own proper results..............................3942. No loose formation without a powerful central control could be satisfactory.........................394

• There must be a second step, a movement towards greater rigidity.................................394

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Chapter XV.............................................................................................................................................395Some Lines of Fulfilment.......................................................................................................................395

A. Speculations on what is likely to emerge – Certain ideas are suggested..................................395B. Some forms half glimpsed in the multitude of the possibilities...................................................395

1. An association of free nationalities...........................................................................................395a) We have ruled out of consideration this idea in the present international conditions..........395

(1) Obviously the ideal basis – A harmony of nationalism and internationalism..............395(a) The problem approached at once on a rational and a sound moral basis.....................395(b) Some chance of an earlier reasonable solution with much less friction and violence. 396

(2) There is little chance of such an unprecedented good fortune for mankind.................396(a) Ideal conditions cannot be expected – In their absence, the trend of forces................396

• The claims of intermediate powers – Class strife, quarrels of Church and State.............396• Commercial interests and combinations, cultural or racial sympathies...........................396• The great intermediate factor of Imperialism that must demand its own satisfaction......396

(b) Forces take the first place in actual effectuation..........................................................397• Moral principles, reason, justice only so far as forces admit them...................................397

b) Whether by the time that things are ready the idea may have made enough progress.........397• A just internationalism based on respect for the principle of free nationalities...............397(1) Moral pressure succeeds only so far as it does not compel to sacrifice vital interests.397• Nations struggling for liberty have to depend on their own strength and enthusiasm.....397(2) A tendency to the rearrangement of States in a system of large imperial combines....398(3) It is only the great Powers that really count in the international scale.........................399

(a) The actually existing free and non-imperial States in a position of vasssals...............399(b) The constitution would probably become an oligarchy of the great Powers...............400

c) The situation for humanity the same as for unformed aggregates in the past......................4002. Some possible solutions to the problem...................................................................................401

a) A distribution of mankind in large natural aggregates.........................................................401• The advantage of simplifying a number of difficult world-problems..............................401• It might lead to a comparatively painless aggregation in a World-State..........................401

b) A king-nation with the mission of evolving a real order – The arbiter of the nations..........402• Such a possibility in any form is as yet extremely remote...............................................402

c) The domination by two or three great imperial Powers – A painful process.......................4033. The evolution may be broken in upon by the long-threatened war of classes..........................403

• The crucial question of the form and conditions of the new State socialism...................403• Whether it shall be regulated in the interests of Labour or of the capitalistic State.........403• Whether its direction shall be democratic or oligarchic or bureaucratic..........................403

Chapter XVI............................................................................................................................................405The Problem of........................................................................................................................................405Uniformity and Liberty..........................................................................................................................405

A. The question with which we started has reached some kind of answer...................................405• The possibility of a unification of mankind by political and administrative means.........405• It has been concluded that it is not only possible but one of the dominant drifts.............405• We have concluded that the one line it is not likely to take is the ideal...........................405• Not likely the form of a federation of free and equal nations...........................................405

B. And now we have to consider the second aspect of the problem.................................................4051. The effect of unification on the springs of human life and progress........................................405

• Not in its first loose formation, but as it develops and becomes more complete.............405• Whether a considerable overriding of the liberties, individual and collective.................405• A period of loose formation – Followed by a period of restriction and constriction.......405

2. The principle of order, of uniformity is the natural tendency...................................................406a) If there is a domination by one or by two or three great imperial nations............................406

(1) A more rigid unification would be inevitable...............................................................406(2) The habit of preferring the principle of authority to the principle of liberty................406(3) Unification would proceed practically by the use of force and compulsion................407• In the process individual liberty would be destroyed in the parts of humanity coerced. .407• Individual liberty would be destroyed by reaction in the imperial nation or nations.......407

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b) With a combination of free nations and empires or a principle of free grouping.................408• The principle of liberty offers a natural obstacle to the growth of uniformity.................408• Although easily coexistent with an order already established..........................................408• It is not so easily reconciled with a new order which demands new sacrifices................408

3. A double process of constriction and mechanisation...............................................................409a) In the unifying process – The struggle of order and uniformity against liberty...................409

• Both national and individual liberty are likely to go to the wall......................................409b) Within each constituting unit – The shadow of the State idea.............................................410

• The ideal of individual liberty is destined to an entire eclipse.........................................410• The only hope of healthy progress would lie in a new formulation of liberty.................410• To reconcile individual liberty with the collective ideal of a communal life...................410• To reconcile the liberty of the group-unit with the necessity of a more united life.........410

4. Meanwhile, we can only speculate and lay down principles....................................................410a) Three questions about the principle of unification in outward and mechanical aspects......410

• How far that will favour or retard the true progress of the race to its perfection.............410• How far the principle of nationality itself is likely to be affected....................................410• How far uniformity is either healthful to the race or necessary to unity..........................410

b) Always two extreme possibilities with a number of compromises......................................411(1) The principle of nationality and the persistence of the nation-unit..............................411• The nation-unit – An eventual dissolution in a larger principle of aggregation...............411• The nation-idea may persist in full vitality or may assert its life.....................................411• It may persist, but as a convenience – A starting-point for a subsequent dissolution......411(2) The ideal of uniformity – Three possibilities...............................................................412• The uniformity of mankind is not an impossible eventuality...........................................412• Then, the one barrier left would be the difference of language........................................412• But the need already felt of a universal language.............................................................412• On the other hand, a revival of the principle of free variation and refusal of uniformity 412• A dominant uniformity – Minor variations as a starting-point for the dissolution...........412(3) With the governing organisation – The ideal of regimentation....................................413• It may be a rigid regimentation under a central authority................................................413• On the other hand, a period more inspired by the principles of philosophic Anarchism. 413• A dominant regimentation – Freedom as a starting-point for the dissolution..................413

c) It is impossible here to consider these large questions with any thoroughness....................414The Ideal of Human Unity.........................................................................................................................415Part II...........................................................................................................................................................415

Chapter XVII..........................................................................................................................................417Nature's Law in Our Progress –............................................................................................................417Unity in Diversity, Law and Liberty.....................................................................................................417

A. There are certain eternal principles or truths of being – The law of Nature.............................417B. A framework for our progress and perfection..............................................................................417

1. The law of our actualities and the law of our potentialities......................................................417a) Man is subjected to a mental conflict and capable of an inner evolution.............................417b) This evolution takes place at present by a conflict and progress of ideas............................418

(1) Man's ideas about life – From a primary aspect to a second process...........................418• In their primary aspect human ideas of life are simply a mental translation....................418• Second character – A regulated valuation of the forces and tendencies...........................418• Two aspects – The rule of what is and the rule of what may or ought to be....................418(2) The evolutionary idea of Nature and life brings us to a profounder view....................419

(a) Our ideal can be no more than a progressive expression of the eternal ideal..............419• Our intellect tends to mistake present law and form for the eternal law of our nature... .419• Or else to mistake some future and potential law and form for our ideal rule of life.......419

(b) Our mentality represents the conscious part of the movement of Nature....................419• Actually, because our mentality is imperfect, we catch only a glimpse...........................419• Each glimpse we get we erect into an absolute principle or ideal theory.........................419• The facts and powers of our existence as opposing principles and forces.......................419• A conflict towards a mutual knowledge and the sense of their mutual necessity............419

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2. Unity in diversity......................................................................................................................421a) The three constant factors, individuals, communities of various sorts and mankind...........421

(1) A development not independently but in relation with each other...............................421(2) Nature works through these three terms and none of them can be abolished...............421• It would seem that the ideal aim of Nature must be a fee and harmonious mutuality......421

b) The quarrel between unity and diversity – The solution of the conflict...............................422(1) As a matter of fact, not mutuality, but a strife and disorders of growth.......................422• There is a struggle, an opposition of ideas, impulses and interests..................................422• The arbitrary rigidity of the intellectual reason – Order and regimentation.....................422• To remove freedom in order to get rid of disorder...........................................................422• To remove diversity in order to get rid of separatism......................................................422(2) Man is tempted always to substitute uniformity for real unity.....................................423• But freedom is as necessary to life as law and regime.....................................................423• Diversity is as necessary as unity to our true completeness.............................................423(3) Harmony between unity and diversity – A real spiritual and psychological unity.......424• The real aim of Nature is a true unity supporting a rich diversity....................................424• A real spiritual and psychological unity can allow a free diversity..................................424• Until we can arrive at that perfection, the method of uniformity has to be applied.........424

3. The quarrel between law and liberty moves to the same solution............................................425• The diversity, the variation must be a free variation........................................................425• By liberty we mean the freedom to obey the law of our being.........................................425• The dangers and disadvantages of liberty – From a defect of the sense of unity.............425• A spiritual and psychological unity – Liberty would have no perils and disadvantages..425• Because of our present imperfection, law and regimentation have to be called in..........425

Chapter XVIII.........................................................................................................................................427The Ideal Solution –................................................................................................................................427A Free Grouping of Mankind................................................................................................................427

A. It is well to know the best method of unification even if it cannot be employed.....................4271. How the unification of the human race is likely to be attempted – The effective force...........427

• Not any intelligent principle, but necessity and convenience...........................................427• Not urgent light, but urgent power...................................................................................427• In any political, administrative and economic unification of the race..............................427

2. The ideal unification of mankind would be a system of free and natural groupings................427• The artificial arrangements would no longer have any reason for existence...................427

B. The basic principle adopted must be a free and natural grouping of peoples...............................4291. The principle must be the eventual conclusion, the final and perfect basis.............................429

a) Otherwise the system would be condemned to transience...................................................429b) The principal weakness of a settlement on the basis of the actual status quo......................429c) A psychological unity could only be assured by a free assent of nations.............................430

• The power of free assent would imply a power of free dissent and separation................4302. What decides must be a dominant psychological element that makes for union.....................432

a) The natural unit in such a grouping is the nation..................................................................432• Race still counts and would enter in as an element, but only as a subordinate element...432• Cultural unity would count, but need not in all cases prevail...........................................432

b) Race, language, local relations and economic convenience are powerful factors................432c) Systems of rational convenience – The actual sentiments of the peoples............................433

• The state of the world is at present far removed from any such ideal correspondence....433C. For the present, the settlement of the world on any such ideal principle must wait.....................435

1. A name was given to this new principle – The idea of self-determination..............................435• The ideal of a rearrangement of the world on the basis of free national groupings.........435

2. Considerable forces against it – National and imperial egoism is the first..............................435Chapter XIX............................................................................................................................................437The Drive towards Centralisation.........................................................................................................437and Uniformity – Administration.........................................................................................................437and Control of Foreign Affairs..............................................................................................................437

A. The next question – The status of the nation-units in the unity of mankind............................437

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• Whether a centralised world-state or a world-union of free nationalities........................437• If the former dominated – A period of negation of liberties.............................................437

1. The process ending, if entirely successful, in a centralised world-government.......................4372. Such a state of things may very well be a not immeasurably far-off possibility......................4373. Significant examples of the power of this trend towards uniformity in modern times............438

• Everywhere unity seems to call for and strive to create a greater or less uniformity.......438B. A centralised government to create and ensure a uniform administration...................................440

1. A central government tends to concentrate power – Even in the United States.......................4402. The growth of national centralisation is due to two primary needs..........................................441

a) The necessity of concentrated action against other nations..................................................441(1) The centralising effect of war and militarism – A commonplace of history................441(2) Wherever peace is insecure or the struggle of life difficult and menacing..................442• The pressure of peril from without and the need of expansion create centralisation.......442• The growth of uniformity arises from the need of a close internal organisation..............442

b) The advantages of uniformity for a well-ordered social and economic life.........................442(1) The human intelligence aims naturally at unity and uniformity of administration......442(2) The stages of the process indicated in the political history of France..........................443

C. The study of that evolution is of considerable importance for the future.....................................444• Everywhere in Europe, even in Germany and Russia, the trend has been the same........444

Chapter XX.............................................................................................................................................445The Drive towards..................................................................................................................................445Economic Centralisation........................................................................................................................445

A. The society getting ready to be a consciously self-regulating organism..................................445• A national unity is not yet complete when it has administrative functions......................445• The legislative and the judicial function – Equally important..........................................445• It enables the society at last to perfect its life consciously by means of the State............445• That is the importance of democracy, also of socialism – A first crude attempt.............445

B. The gathering of the essential powers of administration..............................................................4461. The early stage of society – A different stage of human development....................................446

a) Binding habits and customary law – No single and fixed legislative authority...................446b) The customary law was often attributed to an original legislator.........................................447

• In the tradition of India, Manu is more a symbol than anything else...............................447• Mahomed only developed the existing customs of the Arab people................................447

2. The rational development consists in the creation of a central authority.................................448a) At first the central authority was the king – In his original character a war-leader.............448b) The authority takes over the specialised and separated parts of the social activity..............448

(1) Supremacy in the conduct of external affairs – The control of foreign policy.............448• The demand for real parliamentary control of foreign policy – One more step...............448• A transformation far from complete in spite of the modern boast of democracy.............448(2) The internal functionings, financial, executive and judicial – A more diffcult task... .449• The financial power carries with it the control of the public purse..................................449• The question of taxation as the first vital point in a conflict for the power of the purse..449• Questions, not of taxation, but of the economic life – The revolutions of the future.......449

Chapter XXI............................................................................................................................................451The Drive towards Legislative and.......................................................................................................451Social Centralisation and Uniformity...................................................................................................451

A. Unity and uniformity of judicial administration – The criminal and the civil side..................4511. The gathering of the essential powers of administration is completed.....................................451

• When there is unity and uniformity of judicial administration.........................................451a) Unity of jurisdiction – The criminal jurisdiction is first absorbed.......................................451b) The tendency to unification and State authority – Against it, a religious sense...................451

• Sometimes this religious sense develops a theocratical element in the society...............451• Thus the State becomes the head of the law.....................................................................453

c) Subordinating the judiciary to an executive – The independence of the tribunals...............4532. Uniformity of the law from the unity and uniformity of judicial administration.....................453

a) In its beginnings, law is always customary – A considerable variety of custom.................453

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b) Code and constitution prevailing over custom – The sign of a rational evolution...............454• On one side, a fixed and uniform constitution..................................................................454• On the other, a uniform and intelligently structural civil and criminal law.....................454• The society is ready for the second stage – The self-conscious, uniform ordering..........454

B. A great question must be settled, who is to be the State?.............................................................4541. The whole course of constitutional history has turned upon this question...............................4542. The pressure of a necessity debouching in a democratic form of government........................455

a) The mark of the absolutism of the monarch – The subordination of the other powers........455• The monarchical system has fulfilled its positive part in the social evolution.................455

b) The development towards a democratic State – Not likely to be the last stage....................456(1) The monarchy has exceeded the right law of its being.................................................456

(a) Only the society itself can determine the development of its own dharma..................456(b) Laws and institutions of a society are the framework it builds for its dharma............457

• An attempt to regulate self-consciously its whole social and cultural life.......................457(2) The attempt to determine the social, economic, religious life, the national culture.....457

(a) No executive individual or succession of executive individuals can determine it.......457• Only the rare Manu, Avatar or prophet can speak truly of his divine right......................457

(b) An inevitable attempt – The rationale of absolutism, aristocracy and theocracy........458• This transitional instrument represented the first idea of the human reason and will......458

(c) Two principal devices employed, negative and positive – Both foredoomed to failure..........................................................................................................................................459

• Negative – It worked by an oppression on the life and soul of the community...............459• Positive – A control over the religion and the priest as the helper of the king.................459• State religions are an expression of this endeavour – An artificial monstrosity..............459• An inevitable stage – The father of the modern idea of the absolutist socialistic State.. .459

3. The democratic State – Unity and uniformity are its principal trend.......................................460• To attempt the rational order and self-governed perfectioning of a developed society. . .460• That is the idea and, however imperfectly, the attempt of modern life............................460• Socialism is the complete expression of this idea............................................................460• Uniformity of the social and economic principles and processes.....................................460• Uniformity of culture by the process of a State education...............................................460

Chapter XXII..........................................................................................................................................462World-Union or World-State................................................................................................................462

A. The evolution to a rational and mechanically organised state of society.................................462• This, then, in principle is the history of the growth of the State.......................................462• The development of a central authority and of a growing uniformity..............................462• A rational, ordered, strict uniformity replaces a loose oneness........................................462• The State is the masterful but arbitrary and intolerant science and reason of man..........462

B. The idea of a World-State or world-union....................................................................................4631. The natural organic unity already exists – A process of subtle unification..............................4632. Two alternative possibilities – A World-State or a world-union..............................................463

• These two ideals and possibilities we have successively to consider...............................463Chapter XXIII.........................................................................................................................................465Forms of Government............................................................................................................................465

A. A World-State implies a unification of powers and uniformity...............................................4651. The possible conversion of a loose union into the form of a World-State...............................465

• A world-union seems at first sight the most practicable form of political unity..............465• On the other hand, it is the State idea which is now dominant.........................................465

2. The difficulties in the way are perhaps not so great as they seem............................................465• A World-State implies a strong central organ of power...................................................465• There would be an increasing uniformity, even perhaps a universal language................465

B. The first difficulty would be the character and composition of the governing body...................4661. The absolutist and monarchical solution..................................................................................466

a) That resource is no longer as easily open to us....................................................................466• The monarchical idea itself is beginning to pass away.....................................................466

b) Europe becoming in time as universally republican as the two Americas...........................467

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c) In Asia no less than in Europe, monarchy is subject to disappearance................................467(1) A fundamental democratic trend and a theocratic spirit...............................................467(2) A newly-created intelligentsia in Asia – Asia may well preserve its ancient spirituality. .

......................................................................................................................................468• That spirituality will be determined by the mentality of this new intelligentsia..............468

d) As a convenient symbol – A democratic kingship as opposed to a passive figure..............469• The modern world has not succeeded in evolving a democratic kingship.......................469

2. The modern conditions and the form of a World-State............................................................470a) Internationalism may revive – A world-wide Republic or a bourgeois World-State...........470b) A bourgeois World-State is not a probable consummation..................................................471

• The dominance of the middle class is threatened on two sides........................................471• The dissatisfaction of the intellectuals and of Labour......................................................471• It may lead to a new form of oligarchy with a democratic basis – Two directions..........471• The rule of a sort of intellectual bureaucracy...................................................................471• A sort of guild socialism, a guild aristocracy of Labour..................................................471

c) The great factor of nationalism – How to overcome the conflicting interests......................472(1) The best way is supposedly to evolve a sort of world Parliament................................472• Parliamentarism is a necessary stage in the evolution of democracy...............................472• But Parliamentarism – Not the modern trend towards a more democratic democracy....472• Above all, a Parliament of the nations could not well come into successful being..........472(2) A more feasible form would be a supreme council of the nations – Its difficulties.....473• In fact an oligarchy of a few strong imperial nations.......................................................473• A peaceful evolution to a more just and ideal system......................................................473

C. The form of a World-State – Doubts and difficulties for the moment insoluble..........................474• For the rest, the form of government is not of supreme importance................................474• The real problem is that of the unification of powers and the uniformity........................474

Chapter XXIV.........................................................................................................................................475The Need of Military Unification..........................................................................................................475

A. The largest part played by military necessity...........................................................................4751. In the process of centralisation of national formations.............................................................475

• This necessity was both external and internal..................................................................475• The governing body must have always the greatest military force at its command.........475• It cannot be done absolutely except by an effective disarmament...................................475

2. In the trend to the formation of the World-State – The same large visible part.......................476• A means of keeping international peace had somehow or other to be found or created. .476

B. Various ideas as to the necessary conditions of international peace............................................4771. The foolish notion that the destruction of German militarism was sufficient..........................477

• Every national ego desires a double self-fulfilment, intensive and expansive.................477• Germany had not the monopoly of this expansive instinct and egoism...........................477• So long as national egoisms live and are held sacred, war will be always a possibility. .477

2. A league of free and democratic nations which would keep the peace....................................478a) No voluntary league can be permanent in its nature.............................................................478b) What are called democracies are bourgeois States – The middle class................................478

• Continuity seems to have been a natural law of the mentality of the ruling class............478• A stupendous military organisation tends to make sure the final advent of large wars. . .478

3. The recognition of the right of nations and a greater democratisation.....................................480• The right of nations to dispose of their own destinies – Not really recognised................480• The greater democratisation of the European peoples affords no sure guarantee............480• The possession of power is the great test of all idealisms – Corruption...........................480

C. The creation of a real, efficient and powerful authority...............................................................4811. The only effective step possible for the preservation of peace.................................................481

• Whether created by agreement, by the growth of ideas, by the shock of forces..............4812. An authority of this nature would have to command the psychological assent........................482

• The psychological assent would depend on its constitution and character......................482• If defective, it would have to make up by a greater military force and striking services.482

3. The concentration of military power – The disarmament of the nations..................................483

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• Such a disarmament would be essential to the assured cessation of war.........................483• The sole trained military force in the world for the policing of the nations.....................483• The sole disposal of the means of manufacturing arms and implements of war..............483

D. The creation of a World-State – The source of law and the final power......................................483• The World-State would need the concentration of all force in its own hands..................483

Chapter XXV..........................................................................................................................................485War and the Need of...............................................................................................................................485Economic Unity.......................................................................................................................................485

A. The change to commercialism, the modern economic view of life..........................................485• The military necessity will most directly drive humanity towards international union.. .485• But there is behind it the necessity born of economic interdependence...........................485

1. The rise to power of the commercial and industrial classes.....................................................485a) In former times, the intellectual and political classes were leading.....................................485b) The rise of Capital and Labour – The ultimate triumph of Labour......................................486

• At present the Vaishya still predominates and his stamp is commercialism....................486c) The modern economic view – Religion, education, science, politics and culture................487

• The economic, commercial and industrial view of human life........................................4872. This great change is likely to affect the character of international relations............................487

a) There is no apparent probability of a turn in a new direction in the immediate future........487• The passing of the age of commercialism – It is not easy to see how..............................487• A development of commercialism itself or through a reawakening of spirituality..........487

b) As yet only slight signs – Moreover commercialism is aided by modern Socialism...........488• Socialism promises to be the master of the future............................................................488• Activities will be valued by the labour rather than by the wealth....................................488• One of the chief factors with which international unification will have to deal...............488

B. The ordering of the commercial, industrial, economic life of the race.........................................4891. Economic unity and political separativeness – War was only a matter of time.......................4892. If peace is still to be a covert war, how is the physical shock to be prevented?.......................490

a) The shock of war have been rendered intolerable – The prevention of war.........................490b) There is no other conclusion than the formation of a centralised World-State....................490

(1) Covert war and the weapon of commercial pressure, boycott or blockade, tariffs......490(2) These weapons need not be employed for commercial purposes or motives only.......491(3) The evolution of a firm authority must become an early and pressing need................492

Chapter XXVI.........................................................................................................................................494The Need of Administrative Unity........................................................................................................494

A. A first step would necessarily lead to others............................................................................4941. The principal motives impelling humanity from a looser to a closer union.............................4942. An arbiter changing into a legislative body and a standing executive power..........................495

• The international authority would start as an arbiter........................................................495• The legislative power, as it developed, would become more complex............................495• That would imply the growth also of its executive power................................................495

3. We are supposing that internationalism will subject to itself nationalism..............................496 • If the old natural device of an external unification by conquest is no longer possible.....496• Already there are at work not only ideas but forces which may succeed.........................496

4. There will be a centralisation of all control in the one international authority.........................497B. An inevitable development in each department of the communal activity..................................497

1. Military power – Economic matters and industrial production and distribution......................497• We have seen already that all military power must be concentrated................................497• A concentration of the final power of decision in economic matters – Inevitable...........497• The economic life of the world is becoming more and more one and indivisible............497• The ideal of a fit and proper share in the united economic life of the race......................497

2. The administration of the internal order – The political, social and cultural life.....................499a) Even here the World-State would demand a greater centralisation and uniformity.............499b) The struggle of society with the still ineradicable element of crime....................................499

(1) First necessity – The close observation and supervision of the corrupt human material.. .......................................................................................................................................499

3

• The phenomenon of international crime and the prevention of crime..............................499(2) Second necessity – The need to deal with crime at its roots and in its inception.........500• By a method of education and moral and temperamental training...................................500• By scientific methods of observation, treatment, isolation, perhaps sterilisation............500• By a humane and enlightened gaol system and penological method...............................500• The old juridical and judicial principles and methods would be felt intolerable..............500• The World-State would be led to standardise the new principles and the new methods..500

c) In the choice of the political system and in other spheres of the social life.........................500(1) The principle of political non-interference and the principle of interference...............500• The principle of political non-interference is likely to be much less admitted................500• The principle of interference erecting itself into a conscious rule of international life....500(2) The idea of the common interest of the race in the internal affairs of a nation............501• The great political question of the future is likely to be the challenge of Socialism........501• Socialism means the socialisation of the common life – An international Socialism......501

d) Questions of culture and race in the World-State.................................................................502• A common world-culture is a probable outcome.............................................................502• Race-sense may be removed by the closer intercourse....................................................502

e) Even a common language may become a reality..................................................................503• In any case, variety of language need be no insuperable obstacle to uniformity.............503

Chapter XXVII.......................................................................................................................................505The Peril of the World-State..................................................................................................................505

A. There would be a strict unification, a vast uniformity, a regulated socialisation.....................5051. The inevitable practical last end of unification by the principle of the State...........................505

• The State principle leads necessarily to uniformity, regulation, mechanisation..............505• The emergence of socialism was the inevitable result contained in the State idea..........505

2. This result can only be avoided if an opposite force interposes...............................................506• The races of Asia have always been peoples rather than nation-States............................506• Some such unity is possible in the place of an organised World-State............................506• The result would then be a single human people with a free association.........................506

B. The account of gain and loss which would result from a unified World-State............................5061. The results would be the same in essence as those in the ancient Roman Empire...................506

• There would be an unprecedented splendour, ease and amenity......................................506• But after a time, there would be a dying down, stagnation, decay, disintegration...........506

2. This result would come about for the same essential reasons as in the Roman example.........508• The conditions of a vigorous life would be lost, liberty, mobile variation.......................508

a) Democracy is by no means a sure preservative of liberty....................................................508(1) We see a march towards an organised annihilation of individual liberty.....................508(2) Legislators and administrators do not really represent their electors...........................509• The Power they represent is another, a formless and bodiless entity...............................509

b) The fundamental liberties – Freedom of speech, thought and association...........................510(1) It is a question whether these have been won by the race with an entire security........510• Freedom of thought would be the last human liberty directly attacked...........................510• The doctrine that the State is under no obligation to recognise the religious liberty.......510(2) Freedom of thought would mean a criticism taking the direction of anarchism..........511• It would preach as the ideal of society a free association or brotherhood........................511(3) What would the World-State do with this kind of free thought?..................................511• The regulation of the mental as well as the physical life of man.....................................511• A static order of society would be the necessary consequence........................................511

Chapter XXVIII......................................................................................................................................513Diversity in Oneness...............................................................................................................................513

A. It is essential to keep in view the fundamental powers and realities of life.............................5131. Unity is the very basis of existence – The race must one day realise unity.............................5132. But uniformity is not the law of life – The necessity of free natural groupings.......................513

• Life exists by diversity – Over-centralisation is not the healthy method of life...............513• Order is indeed the law of life, but not an artificial regulation.........................................513• The sound order is that which comes from within...........................................................513

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• The truest order is that which is founded on the greatest possible liberty........................513• It is an ideal which ought to be kept in view....................................................................513

B. The insistence of Nature on diversity of language.......................................................................5141. A real diversity of spirit and culture.........................................................................................514

• The legend of the Tower of Babel speaks of the diversity of tongues as a curse.............514• In former times diversity of language tended to a too rigid division................................514

2. The utmost value for a nation, a human group-soul, to preserve its language.........................515a) Two important ends – A use of unification and a use of national differentiation................515

• A nation or people which loses its language cannot live its whole life or its real life.....515b) How much a distinct human group loses by not possessing a separate tongue....................516

(1) The examples of the British colonies and the United States of America.....................516• The British colonies do not count in the culture of the world..........................................516• The life of the United States alone strives to become a great cultural existence..............516(2) The example of Ireland – A loss to humanity as well as to the Irish nation.................517(3) Modern India is another striking example – The resurgence of Bengal.......................517• The long overshadowing of the Indian tongues by the English language........................517• Bengal from the first refused to undergo this yoke – First recovered its soul..................517

3. It might be said that the unity of the human race demands unity of language.........................518• The history of universal tongues – They have tended to become dead tongues...............518• The natural language must be the expression of the higher life and thought...................518• A language that survives only as a patois or a provincial tongue languishes...................518

C. Diversity of cultures and differentiation of soul-groups are worth keeping.................................5191. A living oneness full of healthy freedom and variation is the ideal.........................................519

• The cultural brings about or increases the material progress...........................................519• Freedom and vigour of life can only be assured by variation and by the freedom...........519

2. But how is this difficult end to be secured?..............................................................................520a) It will not be enough to have a formal administrative and legislative separateness.............520

• Excessive uniformity and centralisation – Disappearance of variations and liberties......520• A vigorous diversity and strong group-individualism – The old separatism....................520

b) The unitarian idea may forcefully prevail............................................................................521• In that case the outraged need of life will have its revenge – Stagnation or revolt..........521• A gospel of Anarchism might enforce itself and break down the world-order................521• The question is whether there is not somewhere a principle of unity in diversity...........521

Chapter XXIX.........................................................................................................................................523The Idea of a League of Nations............................................................................................................523

A. A progressive world-union for unity in diversity – How is all this to be done?.......................5231. To balance centralisation and nationalism and cure separative sentiments..............................523

• We shall have to discourage the tendency of the evolution of the nation-State...............523• We shall have to encourage and revive the force of idealistic nationalism......................523• At the same time we shall have to find a cure for the separative sentiments...................523

2. Nature may develop a new grouping or balance the trend towards unification.......................523• Nature works by a balancing system of the interplay of opposite forces.........................523

B. It is this latter contingency that we have to consider....................................................................5241. Before the war, the separative force of nationalism seemed doomed......................................524

• The two forces in action before the war were imperialism and nationalism....................5242. War interfered with the march towards the expansion of imperialism.....................................5253. The war revived with a startling force the idea of free nationality...........................................526

a) Three positions – The allied nations of Western Europe, America and Russia...................526• The first based itself upon the present conditions – A certain practical rearrangement...526• The second tried to hasten a not entirely remote possibility of the future........................526• The third aimed at bringing by the alchemy of revolution a yet remote end....................526

b) Each position has some relation to the actually possible future of humanity.......................527(1) The position taken by England, France and Italy – A qualified principle....................527

(a) A political rearrangement, but not any radical change of the existing order...............527• Free nationality – Where their own imperial interests were not affected.........................527

(b) The consequences on the existing tendencies of nationalism and imperialism...........528

3

• The creation of a number of new independent nations.....................................................528• The expansion of the successful empires..........................................................................528

(c) Still, certain very important results must make in the end for a free world-union.......529[1] Four results could not but be gained.........................................................................529

• The result of the Russian Revolution – A congeries or a federation of free republics.....529• The second is the destruction of the German type of imperialism...................................529• The third is the multiplication of distinct nationalities with a claim to the recognition...529• The fourth is the definite recognition by the British nation of the qualified principle.....529

[2] The fourth would mean in the end a free and equal commonwealth of nations.......530• Two questions remained for the future.............................................................................530• What would be the effect of this experiment on the other empires..................................530• What of the relations between these empires and the many independent nations............530• It is here that the American idea of the League of free nations intervened......................530(2) The American idea of the League of free nations.........................................................531

(a) American idealism was always governed by a shrewd sense of American interests...531(b) Both an opportunist and an idealistic element – The need of the Russian ideal..........531

• The opportunist element – The legalisation of the political formation of the world........531• Its idealistic side – The increasing application of the democratic principle.....................531• The Russian ideal – The most important of the three anti-imperialistic influences.........531

Chapter XXX..........................................................................................................................................533The Principle of Free Confederation....................................................................................................533

A. A moral principle which belongs to the future, to be considered in itself................................533• The issues of the original Russian idea were greatly complicated...................................533• In Russia, the principle of government by force brought in a contradictory element......533

B. The idea of a confederation of free self-determining nationalities...............................................5341. A psychological principle overriding vital and physical grounds of grouping........................534

• The nation idea and the State idea do not everywhere coincide.......................................534• The former has been overridden by the latter on physical and vital grounds...................534

2. How the two rival principles work out, can be seen by the example of Russia itself..............535a) The psychological justification was deficient or only in process of creation.......................535b) The vital and physical case for a strictly united Russia was overwhelming........................536

• Even the assimilation of Finland was justified from this point of view...........................5363. Vital necessity is liable to abuse, for the vital and physical grounds always exist...................5374. The Russian principle belongs to a future of free world-union................................................538

a) When moral and psychological principles will have a real chance to dominate..................538• At present, it has to struggle against difficulties which may well be insuperable............538• Nevertheless, it has a greater meaning for the future.......................................................538

b) If the idea could work itself out, it would mean a new moral power in the world...............539Chapter XXXI.........................................................................................................................................540The Conditions of a.................................................................................................................................540Free World-Union...................................................................................................................................540

A. A complex unity based on a diversity based on free self-determination..................................540• A mechanical unitarian system would regard in its idea the geographical grouping.......540• In the opposite idea, not a mechanical division, but a living diversity.............................540

B. The condition of things in which alone a free world-union would be possible............................5411. The removal of war and the recognition of the right of self-determination.............................541

• The elimination of war and the settlement of differences by peaceful means..................541• The right of every people to a free voice and status in the world.....................................541

2. The arrangement of the economic life by mutual and common agreement.............................5423. The psychological question – Free development and friendly interchange.............................543

a) At present it may seem that this is better helped by a political State-union.........................543• Temporarily, this may be true to a certain extent, but let us see within what limits........543

b) The old principle of the forcible inclusion of a subject nation was wrong...........................543c) Still it may be said that the association itself leads eventually to a good result...................544

(1) There is a temporary apparent truth in this idea – Ireland and India............................544• The development of an Anglo-Celtic life and culture better for the world......................544

3

• India has been able to link herself to the life of the modern world..................................544(2) Only provided a free and equal union replaces the present relations – As a stage.......545• To the full flowering of the individual, local, regional, national mind and power...........545

B. What precise form the framework of a united humanity might take............................................5451. World-parliament, world-federation – Confederation as the right principle............................545

• A world-parliament could only be the instrument of a unitarian World-State.................545• A world-federation would be inappropriate to the greater diversity and freedom...........545

2. But what would prevent the spirit of separativeness – The religion of humanity....................546a) It may be pointed out that the unitarian system also could not be sure of durability...........546

• Once again local, regional, national egoism would reconstitute for itself fresh forms....546b) A new idea of group-aggregation – The growth of the religion of humanity.......................547

• Such an inner change could alone give some chance of durability to the unification......547Chapter XXXII.......................................................................................................................................548Internationalism......................................................................................................................................548

A. Internationalism in the European mentality..............................................................................5481. A single race of beings with a common life and a common general interest...........................548

• Out of the national idea and form in the interest of the larger synthesis of mankind.......5482. The alliance with the growing forces of socialism and anarchism...........................................548

• In its absolute form, it became the internationalism of the intellectuals..........................548• A basis of common human sympathy, aims, highest interests of the future....................548

B. The necessary psychological modification...................................................................................5491. The pure idea, though always a great power, is also afflicted by a great weakness.................549

a) The pure idea seems, until it is embodied in life, something abstract and remote...............549b) It hurries into action and allies itself with powers and movements with another aim..........550

• Thus when it realises itself at last, it does it in a mixed, impure and ineffective form....550c) The history of the socialistic and anarchistic internationalism.............................................550

(1) Many conditions at present are favourable to the progress of the internationalist idea...550• The strongest is the constant drawing closer of the knots of international life................550• Religion is beginning to realise that spirituality is the common bond of all religions.....550(2) But the internationalist adea allied itself with Socialism and Anarchism....................551• It is this alliance that most commonly went by the name of internationalism.................551

(a) It was recently put to the test of the War and it was found sadly wanting...................551(b) The real cause of the failure is that internationalism is merely an idea.......................552

• If Labour comes to power, will it keep or shed its internationalistic tendencies?............5522. Until man in his heart is ready, a profound change cannot come.............................................553

• It can only be brought about by force, physical force or else force of circumstances......553• A frame may have then been made, but the soul will have still to grow into that............553

Chapter XXXIII......................................................................................................................................554Internationalism and Human Unity......................................................................................................554

A. The idea of humanity must become a necessity of our psychological being............................5541. As the family idea or the national idea has become each a psychological motive...................554

a) The family idea – Growing outt of a primary vital need in our being..................................554b) The nation idea arose from a geographical and historical necessity....................................554

• It had to be created most commonly by force or by a reaction against force...................554• The psychological motive of patriotism arose in the form as the expression of its soul. .554

2. What is the compelling necessity behind the international unity.............................................555a) The necessity is much less direct and much less compelling...............................................555

(1) There is here no vital necessity – The thinkers, the idealists, are always a minority...555(2) The geographical necessity does not exist – A need for some framework...................556• It amounts mainly to a need for the removal of certain perils and inconveniences..........556

b) There is an internal necessity in the being, a will and a design in Nature itself...................556• There is another power than that of external circumstance..............................................556(1) We can see this truth everywhere in Nature down to her lowest forms.......................556(2) Man is driven to unify himself with others of his species – The international idea.....557(3) Let us have the body; the soul will grow in the body – A collective human ego.........557• That possibly is how the thing will happen, man being what he is..................................557

3

B. The main possibilities and powers which are shaping us towards such an end...........................5581. No immediate prospect of any form giving room for a psychological unity............................558

a) Conquest by a single great Power – A domination by a few empires..................................558• The conquest by a single great Power does not seem immediately possible....................558• A very strong possibility – A domination by three or four great empires........................558

b) The League of Nations would still mean the control by a few great Powers.......................5592. A formal unity by an idea, Socialist or other, seeking to organise humanity...........................559

a) A powerful party in all the advanced countries pledged to internationalism.......................559• A World-State or else a close confederation of democratic peoples might be created....559

b) How a real psychological unity can be created out of this purely formal unity...................560(1) Only the growth of a very powerful psychological factor can guarantee unity............560(2) There would be needed a religion of humanity or an equivalent sentiment.................561• There must be a psychological reality within as will persist............................................561

(a) Nations have that in a sort of collective national ego which persists – Its supports....561• First, there is the geographical body, the country.............................................................561• Secondly, the common interests of all who inhabit the same country..............................561• Thirdly, a common name, sentiment, culture...................................................................561• There is a deeper factor – There must be a sort of religion of country.............................561

(b) None of the external factors are in themselves sufficient to create the thing needed. .562(c) Certain psychological elements would have to be present in great strength................563

Chapter XXXIV......................................................................................................................................564The Religion of Humanity......................................................................................................................564

A. A religion of humanity may be intellectual and sentimental or else spiritual..........................564• The intellectual religion of humanity already to a certain extent exists...........................564• Humanitarianism has been its most prominent emotional result......................................564• Democracy, socialism, pacificism are to a great extent its by-products...........................564

B. The intellectual and sentimental religion of humanity.................................................................5651. Its idea and spirit – Man must be sacred to man regardless of all distinctions.........................565

• The body of man, the life of man, the mind of man are to be held sacred.......................5652. What it already accomplished and has to accomplish in the future..........................................566

a) How fruitful a work it has done – The humanisation of life................................................566• It accomplished rapidly many things which orthodox religion failed to do effectively...566• It to some degree humanised society, law and punishment, the outlook of man on man.566• It was a remarkable record for a century and a half or a little more.................................566

b) Still in order to accomplish all its future it has to make itself more imperative...................567(1) Love, mutual recognition of human brotherhood, a living sense of human oneness. . .567• The enemy of all real religion is human egoism, of the individual, of class and nation. .567• With that done, the one necessary psychological change will have been effected...........567(2) Whether a purely intellectual and sentimental religion of humanity will be sufficient568

(a) It had to appeal to the vital and physical mind of man rather than his inner being......568• The aim of the religion of humanity was formulated in the eighteenth century...............568• That aim – Human society in the image of liberty, equality and fraternity......................568• None of these has really been won in spite of all the progress that has been achieved....568• It has worked at the machinery of human life and on the outer mind..............................568

(b) When the ego claims liberty, equality – Fraternity is contrary to its nature................569• Freedom, equality, brotherhood are three godheads of the soul.......................................569

(c) When the soul claims freedom, equality, brotherhood – The inner meaning of religion.........................................................................................................................................570

Chapter XXXV.......................................................................................................................................571Summary and Conclusion......................................................................................................................571

A. The unity of the human race – Secured if the religion of humanity spiritualises itself............571B. An eventual unification or at least some formal organisation seems inevitable...........................571

1. The outward unity is the inevitable final trend of the working of Nature................................5712. This working of Nature depends for its means of fulfilment upon two forces.........................571

a) The community or interrelation of interests – The force of outward necessity....................571b) A common uniting sentiment – A psychological factor is indispensable.............................572

3

(1) The sentiment leads to seek after a form of union or results from the union...............572(2) The trend of forces towards some kind of international world-organisation................573• The pressure of need and environment, outward circumstances......................................573• A cosmopolitan, international sentiment – An insufficient cement.................................573• A sort of intellectual religion of humanity – To create the single nation of mankind......573

3. We may say, then, that this trend of forces must eventually realise itself................................573C. Two forms conceivable from the analogy of the past evolution of the nation.............................574

1. A world-State or a world-union which may be a federation or a confederacy.........................574• The last form is the most desirable – Sufficient scope for the principle of variation.......574• The World-State – The taking up and the regulation of the whole life of the peoples.....574• A federal system and a confederacy – The preservation of the national basis.................574

2. It may be questioned whether past analogies are a safe guide in this.......................................575• But mankind even in dealing with its new problems works upon past experience..........575

3. None of the three forms considered is free from serious objections........................................575• A centralised World-State would signify the triumph of the idea of uniformity..............575• A federal system also would tend inevitably to establish one general type.....................575• A loose confederation must end either in centralisation or at last by a break-up.............575

D. A spiritual religion of humanity is the hope of the future............................................................576• The saving power needed s a new psychological factor – The religion of humanity.......576

1. Its present intellectual form seems hardly sufficient................................................................576• It has to concede too much to the egoistic side of human nature.....................................576• It turns too readily to the mechanical solution..................................................................576

2. A spiritual religion of humanity – Not what is ordinarily called a universal religion..............577• The means of a fundamental, an inner, a complete, a real human unity..........................577

3. The hope – The men who will realise this truth and seek to develop it in themselves.............578• Until then, the attempt to bring it about by mechanical means must proceed..................578

A Postscript Chapter..............................................................................................................................579A. The League of Nations and the U.N.O. – The defects and the dangers....................................579

1. The League of Nations disappeared but was replaced..............................................................5792. Nature not only calls up possibilities which will assist her but raises too obstacles................579

a) But always these resistances turn out to have assisted by the resistance..............................579• If the third war does come, it is likely to precipitate as inevitably a further step.............579

b) We may then look with a legitimate optimism – We must not ignore the danger...............581• The deficiencies that exist have to be quickly remedied or cautiously eliminated..........581• There is no other way for mankind than this, unless a greater way is laid open..............581

c) The intention in the working of Nature is likely to overcome the obstacles........................582• The League of Nations was in fact an oligarchy of big Powers.......................................582• In the constitution of the U.N.O., a strong surviving element of oligarchy remained.....582• A third attempt could only come if this institution collapsed – A new catastrophe.........582• It will be necessary to build, eventually at least, a true World-State................................582

3. The real danger lies in the division of the peoples into two camps..........................................583• The condition of things might change, lose its acrimony and full consequence..............583• The idea of using the ideological struggle as a means for world domination..................583• If this element is eliminated, these two ideologies could live together............................583• Side by side, socialistic States and States controlling a modified Capitalism..................583• The creation of a World-State is the one logical and inevitable ultimate outcome..........583

B. The optimist view of the future – If man is intended to survive...................................................5851. Mankind has a habit of surviving the worst catastrophes.........................................................5852. The question now put by evolving Nature to mankind.............................................................585

a) Whether the existing international system cannot be replaced by a true system..................585• Too long a postponement or too continued a failure – Increasing catastrophes...............585• It might even end in something like an irremediable crash of all civilisation..................585• A more successful creation – Only if a better humanity or a superhuman race...............585

b) Whether the nation is the ultimate unit – A new attempt of world-wide domination..........587• The impulse to build more largely – The desire of a strong nation for mastery...............587• The method used was fundamentally unsound – It contradicted other life-instincts.......587

3

• A new attempt – Only by a new instrumentation or under novel circumstances.............587• Only a true elastic World-State or a union of free peoples – A sound world-order.........587

C. A review, in certain directions, of the conclusions set forward in this book................................5881. The possibility of the conquest by a single dominant people or empire..................................588

• The possibility of such an attempt has to be noted and guarded against..........................5882. Large continental combinations – A clash between two opposing ideologies.........................589

• Large continental combinations might be a stage in the formation of a world-union......589• The actual danger presents itself as a clash between two opposing ideologies................589• One led by Russia and Red China and on the other side a combination of peoples.........589• In Asia a perilous situation has arisen in the emergence of Communist China...............589• A gigantic bloc which could englobe Northern Asia, South-Western Asia and Tibet.....589• Asia would be divided between two huge blocs – The possibility of a world-conflict....589

3. For the present, a division between the two systems, capitalistic and socialistic.....................591• The extension of Socialism to all the nations – Perhaps still the most likely outcome....591• The conflict between Communism and the less extreme socialistic idea – A difficulty. .591• The already developed systems – Not really Communism but rigid State Socialism......591• But Socialism itself might evolve a cooperative Socialism..............................................591

D. The expectation of an ultimate success of a true world-unity......................................................5931. The drive of Nature towards larger agglomerations.................................................................593

• A general destruction would be the only alternative destiny of mankind........................593• But such a destruction has every chance of being chimerical..........................................593• We may rely on Nature to carry mankind at a self-preserving next step.........................593• The rest will depend on the intellectual and moral capacity of humanity........................593

2. The necessity and inevitability of some kind of world-union..................................................594• The ultimate result must be the formation of a World-State............................................594• The most desirable form of it would be a federation of free nationalities........................594• A confederacy might give too much room for centrifugal tendencies.............................594• A world-union of this kind would have the greatest chances of long survival.................594

WAR AND SELF-DETERMINATION.....................................................................................................597Foreword to the First Edition................................................................................................................599

A. The destiny of the race will depend much more on the spirit which we are.599Error: Reference source not found

• Much more than on the machinery we shall use...............................................................599B. The bearing of this truth in the present age of crisis and revolution............................................599

1. Man has to make his ideals an inner so that they may become an outer reality.......................599a) The ideals of the future – The obstacles come not from outside but from within................599

• The ideals of the future are demanding to be brought in the life of the race....................599• But banded against any such fulfilment there are powerful obstacles from within..........599• The one way out harped on by the modern mind – The salvation by machinery.............599

b) The elimination of war – The inner causes of war and the accumulating Karma................600• The elimination of war is one of the cherished ideals and expectations of the age..........600• War, it was hoped at one time, would eliminate itself by becoming impossible.............600• Now it is hoped, by the machinery of a league of victorious nations...............................600• War and violent revolution can be eliminated if we get rid of the causes........................600• The inner causes of war and the accumulating Karma of successful injustice.................600

c) A Universal Will – The truth of what man is and the real soul of what he does..................602• A Universal Will evolves out of the thing in being the thing that is to be.......................602• According to the truth of what man is and the real soul and meaning of what he does...602• That which will ultimately prevail – The truth and sincerity of our living......................602

2. There is an acknowledgment in the human mind, but not as yet any settled will....................603a) Perfectly clear ideals and conditions – The principle of self-determination........................603

• The principle of self-determination is the condition of the better order of the world......603• It has to be accepted as a leading factor of the problem to be worked out.......................603• But it is the very opposite method that has been adopted by the governments................603

b) The League of Nations sacrificing the principles behind its inception................................604c) The needed fidelity of the mind and will of man to the best that he sees.............................604

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• These ideals stand and they represent the greater aims of the spirit in man.....................604• Unobsessed by subjection to the circumstances he suffers and the machinery he uses.. .604

The Passing of War?...............................................................................................................................606A. Man cannot be saved by machinery but by an entire change in his being................................606

1. The progress of humanity – By a series of imaginations and a train of illusions.....................606• Human imaginations are often fulfilled to the letter.........................................................606• Our illusions find the truth behind them realised most unexpectedly..............................606

2. Man's illusions – The greatest are round the hope of a perfected society................................606• No sort of machinery internal or external can really bring about the great desire...........606• Man is himself not a machine nor a device, but a being and a most complex one...........606

B. One illusion incidental to this hope is the expectation of the passing of war...............................6071. The forms taken by the new gospel and the ironic replies of the gods.....................................607

a) That the extension of commerce would be the extinction of war.........................................607• Commercialism has been the cause of wars.....................................................................607

b) That the growth of democracy would mean the growth of pacifism and the end of war.....607• The story of old democracies ought to have been enough to prevent this illusion...........607

c) The power of Courts of Arbitration and Concerts of Europe to prevent war.......................608• The course that events immediately took was sufficiently ironic.....................................608

d) Ingenious minds have searched for a firmer and more rational ground of faith...................609(1) Science making war physically impossible – No commercial advantage by war........609• Science was to bring war to an end by making it physically impossible.........................609• The commercial advantage to be gained by war and conquest as an illusion..................609(2) These writers ignored human nature – Scientific warfare and adaptation to war........609• Scientific warfare has not made war impossible, it has only changed its character.........609• Isolating the economic motive – To ignore the human lust of dominion.........................609• The disturbance as a preventive – To forget the boundless power of self-adaptation......609• Science to make war impossible – We forget that Science means a series of surprises...609

2. The real remedy........................................................................................................................610a) So long as war does not become psychologically impossible, it will remain.......................610

• War is still a psychological necessity – What is within us must manifest outside...........610b) The necessity of a larger universal consciousness................................................................611

• Meanwhile that man should struggle even by illusions is an excellent sign....................611The Unseen Power..................................................................................................................................612

A. The question as to what Power or what Powers are at work and shall we serve......................612B. A Power is pressing towards the light of a greater ideal..............................................................613

1. An ascending series of changes to the creation of a greater humanity.....................................613• Human interests are only instruments which some Force breaks or uses.........................613

2. Immense Powers have been at work which nourish a vaster world-purpose...........................614a) This intuition of a greater Power and the vast sense of an unaccomplished aim.................614

• To prepare another era of humanity was the intention of the Force.................................614b) The kingdom of what Dharma is in preparation?.................................................................615

(1) The concluding message of the godhead – Enjoy a rich and happy kingdom..............615(a) Aware of the Power, the words of Arjuna on the field of Kurukshetra........................615(b) About the answer to Arjuna, “enjoy a rich and happy kingdom”................................616

• A dharmarājya of the half-penitent Vaishya is not to be the final consummation...........616• It is surely the kingdom of another and higher dharma that is in preparation..................616(2) What that dharma is we can only know if we know the Power at work.......................617

(a) A former humanity, later religions and modern thought – A greater Spirit.................617• A former humanity conceived of it as a creative Divinity or almighty Power.................617• Later religions proclaimed an ideal law as his word and scripture...................................617• Modern thought – The material law of Nature and the biological law of life..................617• A greater Spirit awaits to reveal his unseen form and his hidden purpose.......................617

(b) Three powers and forms to our vision of the Being at work in things.........................619[1] The Spirit in the universe, the invisible king in man, the ineffable Divine..............619

• There is first the form of him that we behold in the universe...........................................619• The next form is progressively revealing itself in man....................................................619

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• Something waits beyond which the human mind approaches in a shapeless aspiration. .619• Only when his race knows God and lives in the Divine – The kingdom founded...........619

[2] The Being meets us as Rudra or the Lord of Truth or the Master of Freedom........620• Our outer life in obedience to our ego – The unseen Power as insistent Rudra...............620• Shaping our life by the Ideal – Varuna, the severe Lord of Truth, meets us....................620• Only if we can see the Truth and live in it – Then it is the Master of Freedom...............620

[3] The question of the Master of Truth – Learning to live from within outward.........621• It is the wrath of Rudra that has swept over the earth......................................................621• There has come as a result upon the race the need of building according to an ideal......621• Two great words of the divine Truth are now the leading words – Freedom and unity...621• The one safety for man lies in learning to live from within outward...............................621• The future lies with the men and nations who first see and prepare themselves..............621

Self-Determination..................................................................................................................................623A. The idea of self-determination as the effective principle of liberty..........................................623

1. A sign of a growing clarity of conception and of an increasing subjectivity...........................6232. Liberty in its highest sense – What we practically come to mean by liberty...........................623

• Liberty is self living in itself and determining by its own energy what it shall be...........623• What we practically come to mean by liberty is a convenient elbow-room.....................623• That was at one time glorified under the name of the competitive system......................623• The opposite idea of State socialism – A very mechanical slavery of the individual......623

B. The real meaning of liberty has not yet been understood.............................................................6241. The results of the human attempt to arrive at a mechanical freedom.......................................624

a) A relative liberty enjoyed for the most part by some at the expense of others.....................624b) The results of modern liberty and democracy – The true turning-point...............................625

• They have made life a little more tolerable for the mass..................................................625• They have given larger space for the thought in man and its workings...........................625• The attempt to govern life by an increasing light of thought – A sign of advance..........625• The farther step – The attempt to govern life by the soul, the inner being.......................625

2. What the principle of self-determination really means.............................................................626• Within every living human creature and collectivity – A self has the right to grow........626

a) The first danger – Interpreted in the light of the ego towards self-satisfaction....................626b) A double self-assertion of the ego – Against other egos and by means of other egos.........627

• The first idea of our reason suggests a mechanical accommodation of interests.............627• Within a subtler form the principle of strife and exploitation continues..........................627

c) Ethics and altruism, the correctives resorted to, and a higher law to discover.....................627(1) Ethics and altruism – Rather a self-recognition and a higher law of our being............627• Not altruism, but rather a self-recognition based upon mutual recognition.....................627• Life is self-fulfilment which moves upon a ground of mutuality.....................................627• The whole question is whether this shall be done on the lower basis of the ego.............627(2) A right idea of self-determination may help to the discovery of this higher law.........628• Self-determination reconciles the ideas of liberty and the idea of law.............................628• The development of the law of one's own being determined from within.......................628• There remains the problem of relations............................................................................628• A meeting-place of the law of our self-determination with the law of mutuality............628• The discovery of an inner and larger self – For an increasing unity................................628

C. Self-determination viewed from the subjective standpoint..........................................................630• We have to start from the self-determination of the free individual.................................630

1. The right of property of man in man – The child, the woman, the individual.........................630• The child was in the ancient patriarchal idea the live property of the father....................630• In education the child was regarded as brute psychological stuff......................................63• So too the subjection of woman was once an axiom of social life...................................630• The right of property of the rulers in the ruled has perished............................................630• The right of property of the State in the individual threatened to take the place.............630

2. The old spiritual idea of the Being within – The key of the problem.......................................631• An egoistic self-determination or a modified individualism, is not the true solution......631• The basis can only be found within and not through any mechanical adjustment...........631

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• It is the recognition of the one self in all who fulfils himself variously in each..............6313. The ancient truth of the self is the eternal truth – In newer and fuller ways............................632

• The kingdom of God within and in the race is the basis on which man must come........632A League of Nations...............................................................................................................................634

A. The secular dream of a future golden or half-golden age.........................................................6341. The dream of the ideal past and a greater dream of the ideal future........................................634

• Ancient tradition believed in a golden age of mankind....................................................634• The tradition of a coming back to us of that golden perfection, perhaps even greater.....634

2. The dream of social and political meliorism may be accepted.................................................635• Science rejects the old traditions as dreams and poetic figments.....................................635• It has given us the future hope of a rational and mechanically perfectible society..........635• We cannot do without some kind of futurist idealism......................................................635

3. This secular dream – The form of a political and economic society of the nations.................636• What of the spirit and soul of man, which can alone support and give security..............636• The practical western mind does not trouble itself overmuch with these subtleties........636

B. An eye of scrutiny on this new infant phenomenon – The League of nations.............................6371. Good philosophical as well as practical justification may be put forward...............................637

• Form after all is an effective suggestion to the soul.........................................................6372. The indispensable conditions of success – The ideal and the reality.......................................638

a) The practical necessities of any system of yet loose unification..........................................638• The League must draw into its circle all the existing nations of the earth.......................638• That it must do on both just and agreeable terms – A principle of equity and justice.....638• Means for the solution of questions – A permanent, a central and a strong authority.....638

b) The circumstances of its inception – The ideal has been impinged upon............................639c) What chance the high original principles have of emerging from the forms.......................640

(1) To draw together all the existing nations of mankind..................................................640(a) An association of actual friends and allies – A door to enter and a door of egress......640(b) The beginnings of a council or an imperfect federation of the world's peoples..........641

(2) The democratic idealism of the human mind of today.................................................642(a) The three possibilities by which may proceed a unification of mankind.....................642

• By the military force or the political influence of some powerful king-state...................642• By an oligarchy or hegemony of great powers, leaders and masters of the herd.............642• By an equal, just and democratic federation of the peoples.............................................642

(b) The initial constitution of the League is almost frankly oligarchic.............................643• The new sovereign of the world will be the executive body of the League of Nations. . .643

(c) A realistic practical construction – A very minimum concession to the new idealism644• A concern to legalise the actual facts and organise the actual forces...............................644

(d) All existing forces are represented in just proportions in this constitution..................645(3) A solid central authority which all nations can accept.................................................646

(a) Considerations from the point of view of the practical possibilities of progress.........646(b) The importance of indicating the principles of the progress to be made.....................647

[1] We look in vain in the constitution for any such great guiding principles...............647[2] There is little actual foundation for a new and nobler world-order..........................648

3. The ominous seeds of the future mutability and perhaps dissolution of the new pact.............649a) A very limited and feeble enthusiasm on behalf of the League...........................................649b) An unequal balance – Never a security for a steady and peaceful world-system.................650c) This league seems also to stand for a perpetuation of a new status quo...............................651d) The approaching struggle for supremacy between Capital and Labour...............................652

(1) A league of instruments of a capitalistic system assailed by the tides of socialism.....652(2) The transference of the basis of society from wealth to labour is inevitable...............653• This change like the others cannot be accomplished without much strife.......................653(3) The new order of society would seem to demand a new system of government.........654• Parliamentarism is passing through a phase of considerable discredit.............................654• A new order of society – A system of a League of Nations is more likely to disappear..654

4. The parallel with what was founded in the unit of the nation centuries ago............................655a) A mass of peoples void of all living principle or urgent will of union.................................655

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b) The national society – An indivisible unity and a single homogeneous authority...............656• Here the work has to be done by an institution which represents no embodied unity.....656

c) Even the national society has not been able to eliminate the disease of strife.....................656(1) Law was often a system of legalised oppression and exploitation...............................656(2) A long struggle to get unjust law changed into justice of equality and equity.............657• In modern society strikes and lockouts are its form of civil war......................................657• The only remedy is a better, more equal and more equitable system of society..............657

d) The application to the present international attempt.............................................................658(1) The league must be cast in another mould and animated by another spirit..................658(2) A sound basis of international law and order – The principle of self-determination.. .659• How to develop it is a problem which will have to be attended to...................................659• To go on upon the present lines – Towards another and greater catastrophe...................659(3) A closer system of international life is inevitable – A better or a worse turn..............661• The change that humanity really needs – An inner and not an outer change...................661• But outer changes may prepare favourable conditions or lead to the sword of Kalki......661

C. Salvation for individual or community comes not by the Law but by the Spirit..........................662• The conditions of individual and social perfection are the same, freedom and unity......662• Real unity cannot come to the race, until man is one in heart and spirit with man..........662• Real freedom cannot be till he is free from his own lower nature....................................662

1919..........................................................................................................................................................664A. The year 1919 to the contemporary eye – Posterity may see in a different focus....................664

• This year has not answered to the far-reaching intention of the Time-Spirit...................664B. The intertangled powers of the past, present and future...............................................................665

1. A decisive conflict – The exaggerations of sentiment and idealistic reason............................665• A mental and spiritual change is needed – Human nature takes time..............................665• The result actually realised is not the end of the whole matter........................................665• More was involved which will now press for its reign, but belongs to the future............665

2. One side of the war turned towards the past, one turned towards the future............................666a) In its dealings with the past, what the war has swept away..................................................666

• A clearing of the field for the forces of the future............................................................666b) Outward tendencies of the future – The greater question of the spirit and ideal..................666

• Away from plutocracy and middle-class democracy to socialism...................................666• Away from aggressive nationalism to some closer international comity.........................666• Behind them lies a greater question of the spirit and ideal...............................................666

C. The human spirit has still to find itself, its idea and its greater orientation..................................667After the War..........................................................................................................................................668

A. The immediate results of the war and the questions of the immediate future..........................6681. The present situation.................................................................................................................668

a) The ideals during the collision are now discredited and silent.............................................668• Nowhere is there a guiding illumination or a just idea that is at all practicable...............668

b) Disappointment and disillusionment and the failure of great hopes and ideal.....................668• The principle of self-determination once so loudly asserted is now openly denied.........668

2. This is not the definite result of the great upheaval..................................................................669a) The expectation of an immediate and complete transformation was itself an error.............669

• It was an error to suppose that the war was or could be the salutary crisis......................669• It was an error to imagine that a political or other machinery is the sufficient panacea. .669• A spiritual change can alone be the sanction and the foundation.....................................669

b) The important matter – New things are struggling to assert themselves..............................670B. The growing struggle between Capital and Labour and the Asiatic question..............................671

1. The two living questions of the immediate future....................................................................671• The modern contest between Capital and Labour has entered into a new phase.............671• In Asia already – The claim to equality and independence..............................................671

2. The two predestined forces of the future, socialism and the Asiatic resurgence......................672a) An enormous increase in the strength of the socialistic idea................................................672

(1) The materials of an immense political, social and economic overturn.........................672• Socialism and Capitalism now look each other in the face all over Europe.....................672

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• Capitalism has lost its moral credit – It blocks the way to any other solution.................672(2) The Russian revolution – A certain sign of a new phase of civilisation.......................673• A great nation has taken a bold leap into the hidden gulfs of the future,.........................673(3) The capitalistic industrialism is condemned to perish – The issue of the future..........674• The accepted ideal is now the abolition of the capitalistic structure of society...............674• Between a labour industrialism and some socialistic or communistic society.................674• Or else the emergence of a new and as yet unforeseen principle.....................................674

b) The Asiatic unrest is the second prominent feature of the situation.....................................675(1) Two issues, a free action and existence and a spiritual and moral independence........675• The necessity of a double, an inner and an outer resistance.............................................675(2) The resurgence of Asia will surely prevail against whatever difficulties.....................676

3. A moral alliance for the moment between these forces............................................................677• These alliances, unless they find some more permanent support, are fragile...................677• The dominant governments of Europe – Menaced by the two great world forces...........677

4. The evolution of a socialistic society and the resurgence of Asia – The direction..................678a) They may not realise the larger human hope........................................................................678

• Socialism may bring in a greater equality and a closer association.................................678• If it is only a material change, it may aggravate the mechanical burden of humanity.....678• The resurgence of Asia, if it means only a redressing, will be a step in the old circle.....678

b) The two forces – The intellectual idealism of Europe and the soul of Asia.........................679(1) The mind of Europe – The difficulty is to make a real reality in practice....................679• The first equation, an individualistic democracy – The sordid reign of wealth...............679• Now another equation – An equal association in the labour............................................679• This equality can only be presently secured by strict regulation......................................679• Nothing can be real in life that is not made real in the spirit............................................679• This can come only by a spiritual change.........................................................................679(2) In Asia – The largest hope that can be formed for the human future...........................680• Her supreme effort was to discover not an external but a spiritual and inner freedom....680• Asia may reproduce or imitate industrialism, capitalism, socialism................................680• Or the two poles – Some sufficient equation of the highest ideals of each......................680• The inner and the outer freedom, equality, unity..............................................................680

C. There may be a greater unknown something concealed and in preparation.................................681Appendixes................................................................................................................................................683APPENDIX I................................................................................................................................................685APPENDIX II...............................................................................................................................................686Note on the Texts........................................................................................................................................687

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