{"id":3039,"date":"2013-07-13T01:45:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3039"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:45:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:34","slug":"63-a-postscript-chapter-vol-25-the-human-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/25-the-human-cycle\/63-a-postscript-chapter-vol-25-the-human-cycle","title":{"rendered":"-63_A Postscript Chapter.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA Postscript Chapter
\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA<\/font>T THE<\/b> time when this book was being brought to its close, the first attempt at the foundation of some initial
\nhesitating beginning of the new world-order, which both governments and peoples had begun to envisage as a permanent
\nnecessity if there was to be any order in the world at all, was under debate and consideration but had not yet been given a
\nconcrete and practical form; but this had to come and eventually a momentous beginning was made. It took the name and
\nappearance of what was called a League of Nations. It was not happy in its conception, well-inspired in its formation or
\ndestined to any considerable longevity or a supremely successful career. But that such an organised endeavour should be launched
\nat all and proceed on its way for some time without an early breakdown was in itself an event of capital importance and
\nmeant the initiation of a new era in world history; especially, it was an initiative which, even if it failed, could not be allowed
\nto remain without a sequel but had to be taken up again until a successful solution has safeguarded the future of mankind,
\nnot only against continued disorder and lethal peril but against destructive possibilities which could easily prepare the collapse
\nof civilisation and perhaps eventually something even that could be described as the suicide of the human race. Accordingly, the
\nLeague of Nations disappeared but was replaced by the United Nations Organisation which now stands in the forefront of the
\nworld and struggles towards some kind of secure permanence and success in the great and far-reaching endeavour on which
\ndepends the world’s future. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis is the capital event, the crucial and decisive outcome of the
\n\t\t\tworld-wide tendencies which Nature has set in motion for her
\n\t\t\tdestined purpose. In spite of the constant shortcomings of human
\n\t\t\teffort and its stumbling mentality, in spite of adverse
\npossibilities that may baulk or delay for a time the success of this great adventure, it is in this event that lies the determination
\nof what must be. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 579<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll the catastrophes that have attended this course of events and seem to arise of purpose in order to prevent
\nthe working out of her intention have not prevented, and even further catastrophes will not prevent, the successful emergence
\nand development of an enterprise which has become a necessity for the progress and perhaps the very existence of the race. Two
\nstupendous and world-devastating wars have swept over the globe and have been accompanied or followed by revolutions
\nwith far-reaching consequences which have altered the political map of the earth and the international balance, the once fairly
\nstable equilibrium of five continents, and changed the whole future. A third still more disastrous war with a prospect of
\nthe use of weapons and other scientific means of destruction far more fatal and of wider reach than any ever yet invented,
\nweapons whose far-spread use might bring down civilisation with a crash and whose effects might tend towards something
\nlike extermination on a large scale, looms in prospect; the constant apprehension of it weighs upon the mind of the nations
\nand stimulates them towards further preparations for war and creates an atmosphere of prolonged antagonism, if not yet of
\nconflict, extending to what is called “cold war” even in times of peace. But the two wars that have come and gone have not
\nprevented the formation of the first and second considerable efforts towards the beginning of an attempt at union and the
\npractical formation of a concrete body, an organised instrument with that object: rather they have caused and hastened this new
\ncreation. The League of Nations came into being as a direct consequence of the first war, the U.N.O. similarly as a consequence of the second world-wide conflict. If the third war which is regarded by many if not by most as inevitable does come, it
\nis likely to precipitate as inevitably a further step and perhaps the final outcome of this great world-endeavour. Nature uses
\nsuch means, apparently opposed and dangerous to her intended purpose, to bring about the fruition of that purpose. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 580<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAs in the practice of the spiritual science and art of Yoga one has
\n\t\t\tto raise
\nup the psychological possibilities which are there in the nature and stand in the way of its spiritual perfection and fulfilment so
\nas to eliminate them, even, it may be, the sleeping possibilities which might arise in future to break the work that has been
\ndone, so too Nature acts with the world-forces that meet her on her way, not only calling up those which will assist her but
\nraising too, so as to finish with them, those that she knows to be the normal or even the unavoidable obstacles which cannot
\nbut start up to impede her secret will. This one has often seen in the history of mankind; one sees it exampled today with an
\nenormous force commensurable with the magnitude of the thing that has to be done. But always these resistances turn out to have
\nassisted by the resistance much more than they have impeded the intention of the great Creatrix and her Mover. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe may then look with a legitimate optimism on what has been
\n\t\t\thitherto achieved and on the prospects of further achievement in the
\n\t\t\tfuture. This optimism need not and should not blind us to
\n\t\t\tundesirable features, perilous tendencies and the possibilities of
\n\t\t\tserious interruptions in the work and even disorders in the human
\n\t\t\tworld that might possibly subvert the work done. As regards the
\n\t\t\tactual conditions of the moment it may even be admitted that most
\n\t\t\tmen nowadays look with dissatisfaction on the defects of the United
\n\t\t\tNations Organisation and its blunders and the malignancies that
\n\t\t\tendanger its existence and many feel a growing pessimism and regard
\n\t\t\twith doubt the possibility of its final success. This pessimism it
\n\t\t\tis unnecessary and unwise to share; for such a psychology tends to
\n\t\t\tbring about or to make possible the results which it predicts but
\n\t\t\twhich need not at all ensue. At the same time, we must not ignore
\n\t\t\tthe danger. The leaders of the nations, who have the will to succeed
\n\t\t\tand who will be held responsible by posterity for any avoidable
\n\t\t\tfailure, must be on guard against unwise policies or fatal errors;
\n\t\t\tthe deficiencies that exist in the organisation or its constitution
\n\t\t\thave to be quickly remedied or slowly and cautiously eliminated; if
\n\t\t\tthere are obstinate oppositions to necessary change, they have
\n\t\t\tsomehow to be overcome or circumvented without breaking the
\n\t\t\tinstitution; progress towards its perfection, even if it cannot be
\neasily or swiftly made, must yet be undertaken and the frustration of the world’s hope prevented at any cost. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 581<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere is no other
\nway for mankind than this, unless indeed a greater way is laid open to it by the Power that guides through some delivering
\nturn or change in human will or human nature or some sudden evolutionary progress, a not easily foreseeable leap,
\nsaltus<\/i>, which
\nwill make another and greater solution of our human destiny feasible. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the first idea and form of a beginning of world-union which took the shape of the League of Nations, although there
\nwere errors in the structure such as the insistence on unanimity which tended to sterilise, to limit or to obstruct the practical
\naction and effectuality of the League, the main defect was inherent in its conception and in its general build, and that again
\narose naturally and as a direct consequence from the condition of the world at that time. The League of Nations was in fact
\nan oligarchy of big Powers each drawing behind it a retinue of small States and using the general body so far as possible for
\nthe furtherance of its own policy much more than for the general interest and the good of the world at large. This character
\ncame out most in the political sphere, and the manoeuvres and discords, accommodations and compromises inevitable in this
\ncondition of things did not help to make the action of the League beneficial or effective as it purposed or set out to be. The absence
\nof America and the position of Russia had helped to make the final ill-success of this first venture a natural consequence, if
\nnot indeed unavoidable. In the constitution of the U.N.O. an attempt was made,
\n\t\t\tin principle at least, to escape from these errors; but the attempt
\n\t\t\twas not thoroughgoing and not altogether successful. A strong
\n\t\t\tsurviving element of oligarchy remained in the preponderant place
\n\t\t\tassigned to the five great Powers in the Security Council and was
\n\t\t\tclinched by the device of the veto; these were concessions to a
\n\t\t\tsense of realism and the necessity of recognising the actual
\n\t\t\tcondition of things and the results of the second great war and
\n\t\t\tcould not perhaps have been avoided, but they have done more to
\n\t\t\tcreate trouble, hamper the action and diminish the success of the
\n\t\t\tnew institution than anything else in
\nits make-up or the way of action forced upon it by the world situation or the difficulties of a combined working inherent in
\nits very structure. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 582<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA too hasty or radical endeavour to get rid of these defects might lead to a crash of the whole edifice; to leave
\nthem unmodified prolongs a malaise, an absence of harmony and smooth working and a consequent discredit and a sense of
\nlimited and abortive action, cause of the wide-spread feeling of futility and regard of doubt the world at large has begun to cast
\non this great and necessary institution which was founded with such high hopes and without which world conditions would be
\ninfinitely worse and more dangerous, even perhaps irremediable. A third attempt, the substitution of a differently constituted
\nbody, could only come if this institution collapsed as the result of a new catastrophe: if certain dubious portents fulfil their
\nmenace, it might emerge into being and might even this time be more successful because of an increased and a more general
\ndetermination not to allow such a calamity to occur again; but it would be after a third cataclysmal struggle which might shake
\nto its foundations the international structure now holding together after two upheavals with so much difficulty and unease.
\nYet, even in such a contingency, the intention in the working of Nature is likely to overcome the obstacles she has herself raised
\nup and they may be got rid of once and for all. But for that it will be necessary to build, eventually at least, a true WorldState without exclusions and on a principle of equality into which considerations of size and strength will not enter. These
\nmay be left to exercise whatever influence is natural to them in a well-ordered harmony of the world’s peoples safeguarded by the
\nlaw of a new international order. A sure justice, a fundamental equality and combination of rights and interests must be the law
\nof this World-State and the basis of its entire edifice. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe real danger at the present second stage of the progress
\ntowards unity lies not in any faults, however serious, in the building of the United Nations Assembly but in the division
\nof the peoples into two camps which tend to be natural opponents and might at any moment become declared enemies
\nirreconcilable and even their common existence incompatible. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 583<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis is because the so-called Communism of Bolshevist Russia came to birth as the result, not of a rapid evolution, but of
\nan unprecedentedly fierce and prolonged revolution sanguinary in the extreme and created an autocratic and intolerant State
\nsystem founded upon a war of classes in which all others except the proletariat were crushed out of existence, “liquidated”, upon
\na “dictatorship of the proletariat” or rather of a narrow but allpowerful party system acting in its name, a Police State, and
\na mortal struggle with the outside world: the fierceness of this struggle generated in the minds of the organisers of the new
\nState a fixed idea of the necessity not only of survival but of continued struggle and the spread of its domination until the
\nnew order had destroyed the old or evicted it, if not from the whole earth, yet from the greater part of it and the imposition
\nof a new political and social gospel or its general acceptance by the world’s peoples. But this condition of things might change,
\nlose its acrimony and full consequence, as it has done to some degree, with the arrival of security and the cessation of the first
\nferocity, bitterness and exasperation of the conflict; the most intolerant and oppressive elements of the new order might have
\nbeen moderated and the sense of incompatibility or inability to live together or side by side would then have disappeared and a
\nmore secure modus vivendi <\/i>been made possible. If much of the unease, the
\n\t\t\tsense of inevitable struggle, the difficulty of mutual toleration
\n\t\t\tand economic accommodation still exists, it is rather because the
\n\t\t\tidea of using the ideological struggle as a means for world
\n\t\t\tdomination is there and keeps the nations in a position of mutual
\n\t\t\tapprehension and preparation for armed defence and attack than
\n\t\t\tbecause the coexistence of the two ideologies is impossible. If this
\n\t\t\telement is eliminated, a world in which these two ideologies could
\n\t\t\tlive together, arrive at an economic interchange, draw closer
\n\t\t\ttogether, need not be at all out of the question; for the world is
\n\t\t\tmoving towards a greater development of the principle of State
\n\t\t\tcontrol over the life of the community, and a congeries of
\n\t\t\tsocialistic States on the one hand, and on the other, of States
\n\t\t\tcoordinating and controlling a modified Capitalism might well come
\n\t\t\tto exist side by side and develop
\nfriendly relations with each other. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 584<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven a World-State in which both could keep their own institutions and sit in a common
\nassembly might come into being and a single world-union on this foundation would not be impossible. This development is
\nindeed the final outcome which the foundation of the U.N.O. presupposes; for the present organisation cannot be itself final, it
\nis only an imperfect beginning useful and necessary as a primary nucleus of that larger institution in which all the peoples of the
\nearth can meet each other in a single international unity: the creation of a World-State is, in a movement of this kind, the one
\nlogical and inevitable ultimate outcome. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis view of the future may under present circumstances be
\nstigmatised as a too facile optimism, but this turn of things is quite as possible as the more disastrous turn expected by the
\npessimists, since the cataclysm and crash of civilisation sometimes predicted by them need not at all be the result of a new
\nwar. Mankind has a habit of surviving the worst catastrophes created by its own errors or by the violent turns of Nature
\nand it must be so if there is any meaning in its existence, if its long history and continuous survival is not the accident of a
\nfortuitously self-organising Chance, which it must be in a purely materialistic view of the nature of the world. If man is intended
\nto survive and carry forward the evolution of which he is at present the head and, to some extent, a half-conscious leader of
\nits march, he must come out of his present chaotic international life and arrive at a beginning of organised united action; some
\nkind of World-State, unitary or federal, or a confederacy or a coalition he must arrive at in the end; no smaller or looser
\nexpedient would adequately serve the purpose. In that case, the general thesis advanced in this book would stand justified and we
\ncan foreshadow with some confidence the main line of advance which the course of events is likely to take, at least the main
\ntrend of the future history of the human peoples. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe question now put by evolving Nature to mankind is whether its
\n\t\t\texisting international system, if system it can be called, a sort of
\n\t\t\tprovisional order maintained with constant evolutionary or
\n\t\t\trevolutionary changes, cannot be replaced by
\na willed and thought-out fixed arrangement, a true system, eventually a real unity serving all the common interests of the
\nearth’s peoples.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 585<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAn original welter and chaos with its jumble of forces forming, wherever it could, larger or smaller masses
\nof civilisation and order which were in danger of crumbling or being shaken to pieces by attacks from the outer chaos was
\nthe first attempt at cosmos successfully arrived at by the genius of humanity. This was finally replaced by something like an
\ninternational system with the elements of what could be called international law or fixed habits of intercommunication and
\ninterchange which allowed the nations to live together in spite of antagonisms and conflicts, a security alternating with precariousness and peril and permitting of too many ugly features, however local, of oppression, bloodshed, revolt and disorder,
\nnot to speak of wars which sometimes devastated large areas of the globe. The indwelling deity who presides over the destiny of
\nthe race has raised in man’s mind and heart the idea, the hope of a new order which will replace the old unsatisfactory order
\nand substitute for it conditions of the world’s life which will in the end have a reasonable chance of establishing permanent
\npeace and well-being. This would for the first time turn into an assured fact the ideal of human unity which, cherished by a few,
\nseemed for so long a noble chimera; then might be created a firm ground of peace and harmony and even a free room for the
\nrealisation of the highest human dreams, for the perfectibility of the race, a perfect society, a higher upward evolution of
\nthe human soul and human nature. It is for the men of our day and, at the most, of tomorrow to give the answer. For, too
\nlong a postponement or too continued a failure will open the way to a series of increasing catastrophes which might create
\na too prolonged and disastrous confusion and chaos and render a solution too difficult or impossible; it might even end in
\nsomething like an irremediable crash not only of the present world-civilisation but of all civilisation. A new, a difficult and
\nuncertain beginning might have to be made in the midst of the chaos and ruin after perhaps an extermination on a large scale,
\nand a more successful creation could be predicted only if a way was found to develop a better humanity or perhaps a greater, a
\nsuperhuman race.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 586<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe central question is whether the nation, the largest natural unit which humanity has been able to create and maintain for its collective living, is also its last and ultimate unit or whether
\na greater aggregate can be formed which will englobe many and even most nations and finally all in its united totality. The
\nimpulse to build more largely, the push towards the creation of considerable and even very vast supra-national aggregates has
\nnot been wanting; it has even been a permanent feature in the life-instincts of the race. But the form it took was the desire of
\na strong nation for mastery over others, permanent possession of their territories, subjugation of their peoples, exploitation of
\ntheir resources: there was also an attempt at quasi-assimilation, an imposition of the culture of a dominant race and, in general,
\na system of absorption wholesale or as complete as possible. The Roman Empire was the classic example of this kind of
\nendeavour and the Graeco-Roman unity of a single way of life and culture in a vast framework of political and administrative
\nunity was the nearest approach within the geographical limits reached by this civilisation to something one might regard as
\na first figure or an incomplete suggestion of a figure of human unity. Other similar attempts have been made though not on
\nso large a scale and with a less consummate ability throughout the course of history, but nothing has endured for more than a
\nsmall number of centuries. The method used was fundamentally unsound in as much as it contradicted other life-instincts which
\nwere necessary to the vitality and healthy evolution of mankind and the denial of which must end in some kind of stagnation
\nand arrested progress. The imperial aggregate could not acquire the unconquerable vitality and power of survival of the nationunit.
\n\t\t\tThe only enduring empire-units have been in reality large
\n\t\t\tnation-units which took that name like Germany and China and these
\n\t\t\twere not forms of the supra-national State and need not be reckoned
\n\t\t\tin the history of the formation of the imperial aggregate. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 587<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo, although the tendency to the creation of empire testifies to an
\n\t\t\turge in Nature towards larger unities of human
\nlife, \u2014 and we can see concealed in it a will to unite the disparate masses of humanity on a larger scale into a single coalescing or
\ncombined life-unit, \u2014 it must be regarded as an unsuccessful formation without a sequel and unserviceable for any further
\nprogress in this direction. In actual fact a new attempt of worldwide domination could succeed only by a new instrumentation
\nor under novel circumstances in englobing all the nations of the earth or persuading or forcing them into some kind of union.
\nAn ideology, a successful combination of peoples with one aim and a powerful head like Communist Russia, might have a temporary success in bringing about such an objective. But such an outcome, not very desirable in itself, would not be likely to
\nensure the creation of an enduring World-State. There would be tendencies, resistances, urges towards other developments which
\nwould sooner or later bring about its collapse or some revolutionary change which would mean its disappearance. Finally,
\nany such stage would have to be overpassed; only the formation of a true World-State, either of a unitary but still elastic kind,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 for a rigidly unitary State might bring about stagnation and decay of the springs of life,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 or a union of free peoples could
\nopen the prospect of a sound and lasting world-order. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is not necessary to repeat or review, except in certain
\ndirections, the considerations and conclusions set forward in this book with regard to the means and methods or the lines of
\ndivergence or successive development which the actual realisation of human unity may take. But still on some sides possibilities
\nhave arisen which call for some modification of what has been written or the conclusions arrived at in these chapters. It had
\nbeen concluded, for instance, that there was no likelihood of the conquest and unification of the world by a single dominant
\npeople or empire. This is no longer altogether so certain, for we have just had to admit the possibility of such an attempt under
\ncertain circumstances. A dominant Power may be able to group round itself strong allies subordinated to it but still considerable
\nin strength and resources and throw them into a world struggle with other Powers and peoples.    <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 588<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis possibility would be increased if the dominating Power managed to procure,
\neven if
\nonly for the time being, a monopoly of an overwhelming superiority in the use of some of the tremendous means of aggressive
\nmilitary action which Science has set out to discover and effectively utilise. The terror of destruction and even of large-scale
\nextermination created by these ominous discoveries may bring about a will in the governments and peoples to ban and prevent
\nthe military use of these inventions, but, so long as the nature of mankind has not changed, this prevention must remain uncertain and precarious and an unscrupulous ambition may even get by it a chance of secrecy and surprise and the utilisation
\nof a decisive moment which might conceivably give it victory and it might risk the tremendous chance. It may be argued that
\nthe history of the last war runs counter to this possibility, for in conditions not quite realising but approximating to such a
\ncombination of circumstances the aggressive Powers failed in their attempt and underwent the disastrous consequences of a
\nterrible defeat. But after all, they came for a time within a hair’s breadth of success and there might not be the same good fortune
\nfor the world in some later and more sagaciously conducted and organised adventure. At least, the possibility has to be noted and
\nguarded against by those who have the power of prevention and the welfare of the race in their charge. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOne of the possibilities suggested at the time was the growth of
\n\t\t\tcontinental agglomerates, a united Europe, some kind of a combine of
\n\t\t\tthe peoples of the American continent under the leadership of the
\n\t\t\tUnited States, even possibly in the resurgence of Asia and its drive
\n\t\t\ttowards independence from the dominance of the European peoples, a
\n\t\t\tdrawing together for self-defensive combination of the nations of
\n\t\t\tthis continent; such an eventuality of large continental
\n\t\t\tcombinations might even be a stage in the final formation of a
\n\t\t\tworld-union. This possibility has tended to take shape to a certain
\n\t\t\textent with a celerity that could not then be anticipated. In the
\n\t\t\ttwo American continents it has actually assumed a predominating and
\n\t\t\tpractical form, though not in its totality. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t<\/i>Page \u2013 589<\/p>\n

\n

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\nThe idea of a United States of Europe has also actually taken shape and is
\nassuming a formal existence, but is not yet able to develop into a completed and
\nfully realised possibility
\nbecause of the antagonism based on conflicting ideologies which cuts off from each other Russia and her satellites behind their
\niron curtain and Western Europe. This separation has gone so far that it is difficult to envisage its cessation at any foreseeable time in a predictable future. Under other circumstances a tendency towards such combinations might have created the
\napprehension of huge continental clashes such as the collision, at one time imagined as possible, between a resurgent Asia and
\nthe Occident. The acceptance by Europe and America of the Asiatic resurgence and the eventual total liberation of the Oriental peoples, as also the downfall of Japan which figured at one time and indeed actually presented itself to the world as
\nthe liberator and leader of a free Asia against the domination of the West, have removed this dangerous possibility. Here again,
\nas elsewhere, the actual danger presents itself rather as a clash between two opposing ideologies, one led by Russia and Red
\nChina and trying to impose the Communistic extreme partly by military and partly by forceful political means on a reluctant
\nor at least an infected but not altogether willing Asia and Europe, and on the other side a combination of peoples, partly
\ncapitalist, partly moderate socialist who still cling with some attachment to the idea of liberty,
\n\t\t\t\u2014 to freedom of thought and
\nsome remnant of the free life of the individual. In America there seems to be a push, especially in the Latin peoples, towards
\na rather intolerant completeness of the Americanisation of the whole continent and the adjacent islands, a sort of extended
\nMonroe Doctrine, which might create friction with the European Powers still holding possessions in the northern part of the
\ncontinent. But this could only generate minor difficulties and disagreements and not the possibility of any serious collision, a
\ncase perhaps for arbitration or arrangement by the U.N.O., not any more serious consequence. In Asia a more perilous situation
\nhas arisen, standing sharply across the way to any possibility of a continental unity of the peoples of this part of the world,
\nin the emergence of Communist China. This creates a gigantic bloc which could easily englobe the whole of Northern Asia
\nin a combination between two enormous Communist Powers,   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 590<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nRussia and China, and would overshadow with a threat of absorption South-Western Asia and Tibet and might be pushed
\nto overrun all up to the whole frontier of India, menacing her security and that of Western Asia with the possibility of an
\ninvasion and an overrunning and subjection by penetration or even by overwhelming military force to an unwanted ideology,
\npolitical and social institutions and dominance of this militant mass of Communism whose push might easily prove irresistible.
\nIn any case, the continent would be divided between two huge blocs which might enter into active mutual opposition and the
\npossibility of a stupendous world-conflict would arise dwarfing anything previously experienced: the possibility of any worldunion might, even without any actual outbreak of hostilities, be indefinitely postponed by the incompatibility of interests and
\nideologies on a scale which would render their inclusion in a single body hardly realisable. The possibility of a coming into
\nbeing of three or four continental unions, which might subsequently coalesce into a single unity, would then be very remote
\nand, except after a world-shaking struggle, hardly feasible. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAt one time it was possible to regard as an eventual possibility the
\n\t\t\textension of Socialism to all the nations; an international unity
\n\t\t\tcould then have been created by its innate tendencies which turned
\n\t\t\tnaturally towards an overcoming of the dividing force of the
\n\t\t\tnation-idea with its separatism and its turn towards competitions
\n\t\t\tand rivalries often culminating in open strife; this could have been
\n\t\t\tregarded as the natural road and could have turned in fact into the
\n\t\t\teventual way towards world-union. But, in the first place, Socialism
\n\t\t\thas under certain stresses proved to be by no means immune against
\n\t\t\tinfection by the dividing national spirit and its international
\n\t\t\ttendency might not survive its coming into power in separate
\n\t\t\tnational States and a resulting inheritance of competing national
\n\t\t\tinterests and necessities: the old spirit might very well survive in
\n\t\t\tthe new socialist bodies. But also there might not be or not for a
\n\t\t\tlong time to come an inevitable tide of the spread of Socialism to
\n\t\t\tall the peoples of the earth: other forces might arise which would
\n\t\t\tdispute what seemed at one time and perhaps still seems the most
\n\t\t\tlikely outcome of
\n\t\t\texisting world tendencies; the conflict between Communism and the
\n\t\t\tless extreme socialistic idea which still respects the principle of
\n\t\t\tliberty, even though a restricted liberty, and the freedom of
\n\t\t\tconscience, of thought, of personality of the individual, if this
\n\t\t\tdifference perpetuated itself, might create a serious difficulty in
\n\t\t\tthe formation of a World-State.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 591<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t It would not be easy to build a
\nconstitution, a harmonised State-law and practice in which any modicum of genuine freedom for the individual or any continued
\nexistence of him except as a cell in the working of a rigidly determined automatism of the body of the collectivist State or a
\npart of a machine would be possible or conceivable. It is not that the principle of Communism necessitates any such results or that
\nits system must lead to a termite civilisation or the suppression of the individual; it could well be, on the contrary, a means at
\nonce of the fulfilment of the individual and the perfect harmony of a collective being. The already developed systems which go
\nby the name are not really Communism but constructions of an inordinately rigid State Socialism. But Socialism itself might
\nwell develop away from the Marxist groove and evolve less rigid modes; a cooperative Socialism, for instance, without any
\nbureaucratic rigour of a coercive administration, of a Police State, might one day come into existence, but the generalisation
\nof Socialism throughout the world is not under existing circumstances easily foreseeable, hardly even a predominant possibility:
\nin spite of certain possibilities or tendencies created by recent events in the Far East, a division of the earth between the two
\nsystems, capitalistic and socialistic, seems for the present a more likely issue. In America the attachment to individualism and the
\ncapitalistic system of society and a strong antagonism not only to Communism but to even a moderate Socialism remains complete and one can foresee little possibility of any abatement in its intensity. The extreme success of Communism creeping over
\nthe continents of the Old World, which we have had to envisage as a possibility, is yet, if we consider existing circumstances and
\nthe balance of opposing Powers, highly improbable and, even if it occurred, some accommodation would still be necessary,
\nunless one of the two forces gained an overwhelming eventual  victory over
\n\t\t\tits opponent.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 592<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA successful accommodation would demand the creation of a body in which all questions of possible
\ndispute could be solved as they arose without any breaking out of open conflict, and this would be a successor of the League
\nof Nations and the U.N.O. and move in the same direction. As Russia and America, in spite of the constant opposition of policy
\nand ideology, have avoided so far any step that would make the preservation of the U.N.O. too difficult or impossible, this third
\nbody would be preserved by the same necessity or imperative utility of its continued existence. The same forces would work
\nin the same direction and a creation of an effective world-union would still be possible; in the end the mass of general needs of
\nthe race and its need of self-preservation could well be relied on to make it inevitable. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere is nothing then in the development of events since the
\n\t\t\testablishment of the United Nations Organisation, in the sequel to
\n\t\t\tthe great initiation at San Francisco of the decisive step towards
\n\t\t\tthe creation of a world-body which might end in the establishment of
\n\t\t\ta true world-unity, that need discourage us in the expectation of an
\n\t\t\tultimate success of this great enterprise. There are dangers and
\n\t\t\tdifficulties, there can be an apprehension of conflicts, even of
\n\t\t\tcolossal conflicts that might jeopardise the future, but total
\n\t\t\tfailure need not be envisaged unless we are disposed to predict the
\n\t\t\tfailure of the race. The thesis we have undertaken to establish of
\n\t\t\tthe drive of Nature towards larger agglomerations and the final
\n\t\t\testablishment of the largest of all and the ultimate union of the
\n\t\t\tworld’s peoples still remains unaltered: this is evidently the line
\n\t\t\twhich the future of the human race demands and which conflicts and
\n\t\t\tperturbations, however immense, may delay, even as they may modify
\n\t\t\tgreatly the forms it now promises to take, but are not likely to
\n\t\t\tprevent; for a general destruction would be the only alternative
\n\t\t\tdestiny of mankind. But such a destruction, whatever the
\n\t\t\tcatastrophic possibilities balancing the almost certain beneficial
\n\t\t\tresults, hardly limitable in their extent, of the recent discoveries
\n\t\t\tand inventions of Science, has every chance of being as chimerical
\n\t\t\tas any early expectation of final peace and felicity or a perfected
\n\t\t\tsociety of the human peoples.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 593<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe may rely, if on nothing else, on the evolutionary urge and, if on no other greater hidden Power, on the manifest
\nworking and drift or intention in the World-Energy we call Nature to carry mankind at least as far as the necessary next step
\nto be taken, a self-preserving next step: for the necessity is there, at least some general recognition of it has been achieved and
\nof the thing to which it must eventually lead the idea has been born and the body of it is already calling for its creation. We
\nhave indicated in this book the conditions, possibilities, forms which this new creation may take and those which seem to be
\nmost desirable without dogmatising or giving prominence to personal opinion; an impartial consideration of the forces that
\nwork and the results that are likely to ensue was the object of this study. The rest will depend on the intellectual and moral
\ncapacity of humanity to carry out what is evidently now the one thing needful. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe conclude then that in the conditions of the world at present, even taking into consideration its most disparaging
\nfeatures and dangerous possibilities, there is nothing that need alter the view we have taken of the necessity and inevitability of
\nsome kind of world-union; the drive of Nature, the compulsion of circumstances and the present and future need of mankind
\nmake it inevitable. The general conclusions we have arrived at will stand and the consideration of the modalities and possible
\nforms or lines of alternative or successive development it may take. The ultimate result must be the formation of a WorldState and the most desirable form of it would be a federation of free nationalities in which all subjection or forced inequality
\nand subordination of one to another would have disappeared and, though some might preserve a greater natural influence,
\nall would have an equal status. A confederacy would give the greatest freedom to the nations constituting the World-State,
\nbut this might give too much room for fissiparous or centrifugal tendencies to operate; a federal order would then be the most
\ndesirable. All else would be determined by the course of events and by general agreement or the shape given by the ideas and
\nnecessities that may grow up in the future. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 594<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA world-union of this
\nkind would have the greatest chances of long survival or permanent existence. This is a mutable world and uncertainties and
\ndangers might assail or trouble for a time; the formed structure might be subjected to revolutionary tendencies as new ideas and
\nforces emerged and produced their effect on the general mind of humanity, but the essential step would have been taken and
\nthe future of the race assured or at least the present era overpassed in which it is threatened and disturbed by unsolved needs
\nand difficulties, precarious conditions, immense upheavals, huge and sanguinary world-wide conflicts and the threat of others to
\ncome. would be no longer an unfulfilled ideal but an accomplished fact and its preservation given
\ninto the charge of the united human peoples. Its future destiny would lie on the knees of the gods and, if the gods have a use
\nfor the continued existence of the race, may be left to lie there safe.
\n  
\n   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 595<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Postscript Chapter   AT THE time when this book was being brought to its close, the first attempt at the foundation of some initial…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-25-the-human-cycle","wpcat-58-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}