{"id":3086,"date":"2013-07-13T01:45:50","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3086"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:45:50","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:50","slug":"69-1919-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\/69-1919-vol-25-the-human-cycle","title":{"rendered":"-69_1919.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t1919<\/font><\/b> <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tT<\/font>HE YEAR 1919<\/b> comes to us with the appearance of one of the most
\n\t\t\tpregnant and historic dates of the modern world. It has ended the
\n\t\t\tgreatest war in history, begotten a new thing in the history of
\n\t\t\tmankind, a League of Nations which claims to be the foundation-stone
\n\t\t\tfor the future united life of the human race, and cleared the stage
\n\t\t\tfor fresh and momentous other constructions or destructions, which
\n\t\t\twill bring us into another structure of society and of the framework
\n\t\t\tof human life than has yet been known in the recorded memory of the
\n\t\t\tearth’s peoples. This is record enough for a single year and it
\n\t\t\tlooks as if there were already sufficient to give this date an
\n\t\t\tundisputed pre-eminence in the twentieth century. But it is possible
\n\t\t\tthat things are not quite what they look to the contemporary eye and
\n\t\t\tthat posterity may see them in a very different focus. 1815 must
\n\t\t\thave seemed the date of dates to the men of the day whose minds were
\n\t\t\tfilled with the view of the long struggle between the ancient
\n\t\t\tregimes and revolutionary France and then between Europe and
\n\t\t\tNapoleon. But when we look back at present, we see that it was only
\n\t\t\ta stage, the end of the acutest phase of struggle, the commencement
\n\t\t\tof a breathing-time, the date of a makeshift which could not endure.
\n\t\t\tWe look back from it to 1789 which began the destruction of an old
\n\t\t\torder and the birth of a new ideal and beyond it to later dates
\n\t\t\twhich mark the progress of that ideal towards its broadening
\n\t\t\trealisation. So too posterity may look back beyond this year 1919 to
\n\t\t\tthe beginning of the catastrophe which marks the first collapse of
\n\t\t\tthe former European order and forward beyond it to dates yet in the
\n\t\t\twomb of the future which will mark the progress towards realisation
\n\t\t\tof whatever order and ideal is destined to replace it. This year too
\n\t\t\tmay be only the end of an acute phase of a first struggle, the
\n\t\t\tcommencement of a breathing-time, the year of a makeshift, the
\n\t\t\ttemporary halt of a flood in motion. <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tThat is so because it has not
\n\t\t\trealised the deeper mind of humanity nor answered to the
\n\t\t\tfar-reaching intention of the Time-Spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the enthusiasm of the struggle a hope arose
\n\t\t\tthat it would sweep away all the piled-up obstacles to human
\n\t\t\tprogress and usher in with a miraculous immediateness a new age. A
\n\t\t\tvague ideal also syllabled eloquently of peace, of brotherhood, of
\n\t\t\tfreedom, of unity, which for the moment partly enlightened and
\n\t\t\tkindled the soul of the race and gave its intellect a broader vista.
\n\t\t\tMen spoke of the powers of good and evil separated on opposite sides
\n\t\t\tand locked in a decisive conflict. These ideas were the
\n\t\t\texaggerations of sentiment and idealistic reason and in their
\n\t\t\texcessive and blinding light many things took covert which were of a
\n\t\t\tvery different nature. The hope could not but be an illusion, a halo
\n\t\t\tscene of the dream mind when it sees a future possibility in its own
\n\t\t\tlight apart from existing conditions. Human mind and action are too
\n\t\t\tmuch of a tangled coil to admit of such miraculous suddennesses; the
\n\t\t\tphysical shock of war and revolution can break down stifling
\n\t\t\tobstructions, but they cannot of themselves create either the
\n\t\t\tkingdom of good or the kingdom of God; for that a mental and
\n\t\t\tspiritual change is needed to which our slowly moving human nature
\n\t\t\ttakes time to shape its customary being. The ideal, a thing of the
\n\t\t\tintellect and the sentiment only, cannot so easily bring about its
\n\t\t\town effectuation; force of circumstance, the will to survive of
\n\t\t\texisting actualities, the insistent past of our own nature are not
\n\t\t\tso easily blown away by the eager shouting of a few high and great
\n\t\t\twords or even by the breath of the thought behind them, however
\n\t\t\tloudly blare the trumpets of the ideal. Nor was the war itself
\n\t\t\tprecisely a definite issue between pure good and pure evil, -such
\n\t\t\tdistinctions belong to the world of the idealistic reason of which
\n\t\t\tour actual intricate existence in whose net opposites are very
\n\t\t\tbafflingly fused together, is as yet at least no faithful
\n\t\t\treproduction, -but a very confused clash and catastrophe of the
\n\t\t\tintertangled powers of the past, present and future. The result
\n\t\t\tactually realised is only such as might have been expected from the
\n\t\t\tbalance of the forces at work. <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tIt is not the last result nor the end of the whole matter, but it 
\n\t\t\trepresents the first sum of things that was ready for working out in
\n\t\t\tthe immediateness of the moment’s potency. More was involved which
\n\t\t\twill now press for its reign, but belongs to the future. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe cataclysm of the last five years had a Janus
\n\t\t\tface, one side turned towards the past, one turned towards the
\n\t\t\tfuture. In its dealings with the past it was a conflict between two
\n\t\t\tforces, one represented by Germany and the central Powers, the other
\n\t\t\tby America and the western nations of Europe. Outwardly, imperial
\n\t\t\tGermany represented a very nakedly brutal imperialism and militarism
\n\t\t\tsatisfied of its own rightful claim and perfection and opposed to
\n\t\t\tthe broader middle-class democracy -but democracy tainted with a
\n\t\t\thalf-hearted, uneasy, unwilling militarism and a liberalised,
\n\t\t\tcomfortably half-idealistic imperialism -of western Europe. But this
\n\t\t\twas only the outside of the matter, in itself it would not have been
\n\t\t\ta sufficient occasion for so great a catastrophe. Imperial Germany
\n\t\t\tand all it represented had to go because it was the worst side of
\n\t\t\tEuropean civilisation enthroned in all the glory of a perfect
\n\t\t\tmechanical and scientific efficiency. Its figure was a composite
\n\t\t\tgodhead of Moloch and Mammon seated between the guardian figures of
\n\t\t\tIntelligence and Science. It had its ideal, a singular combination
\n\t\t\tof the remnants of the old spirit of monarchy and feudalism now
\n\t\t\tstripped of all its past justification, of a very modern burdensome
\n\t\t\torganised aggressive commercialism and industrialism and of a
\n\t\t\tmechanised State socialism administered by an empire and a
\n\t\t\tbureaucracy, all guided by an expert intelligence and power of
\n\t\t\tscience. This triple-headed caricature of a future ideal for the
\n\t\t\tworld with its claim to take possession of the race and mechanise
\n\t\t\tits life for it had to be broken, and with it passed away almost all
\n\t\t\tthe old phantoms of aristocracy and survivals of aristocratic
\n\t\t\tmonarchy which still lived on in an increasingly democratic Europe.
\n\t\t\tSo much the war has swept away; but its more important and positive
\n\t\t\tresult is not the destruction of the past, but a shaking even of the
\n\t\t\tpresent bases and a clearing of the field for the forces of the
\n\t\t\tfuture. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe future does not belong to that hybrid thing, a middle-class <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 666<\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\tdemocracy infected with the old theory of international
\n\t\t\trelations, however modified by concessions to a new broader spirit
\n\t\t\tof idealism. The peace which closes the war is evidently in part a
\n\t\t\tprolongation of the past and a thing of the moment, its only
\n\t\t\timportance for the future is its association with the plan for a
\n\t\t\tleague of nations. But this league also is a makeshift, a temporary
\n\t\t\tdevice awaiting the possibility of a more perfect formation. Its
\n\t\t\tinsecurity lies in the degree to which it is a concession to the
\n\t\t\tpast and founded on a present which is indeed still dominant, but
\n\t\t\tvery evidently doomed to a rapid passing. The future destined to
\n\t\t\treplace this present is evident enough in some of its main outward
\n\t\t\ttendencies, in society away from plutocracy and middle-class
\n\t\t\tdemocracy to some completeness of socialism and attempt at a broad
\n\t\t\tand equal commonalty of social living, in the relations of the
\n\t\t\tpeoples away from aggressive nationalism and balances of power to
\n\t\t\tsome closer international comity. But these are only symptoms,
\n\t\t\tfeelings out, mechanical tendencies, not likely by themselves,
\n\t\t\twhatever changes they bring, to satisfy for long the soul of
\n\t\t\thumanity. Behind them lies a greater question of the spirit and
\n\t\t\tideal which are to govern the relations of man with man and people
\n\t\t\twith people in the age that is opening, the most critical because
\n\t\t\tthe most far-reaching in its hopes of all the historic ages of
\n\t\t\thumanity. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMeanwhile much is gone that had to go, though
\n\t\t\trelics and dregs of it remain for destruction, and the agony of a
\n\t\t\tsanguinary struggle is ended, and for that there may well be
\n\t\t\trejoicing. But if something is ended, all has yet to be begun. The
\n\t\t\thuman spirit has still to find itself, its idea and its greater
\n\t\t\torientation.   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 667<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1919   THE YEAR 1919 comes to us with the appearance of one of the most pregnant and historic dates of the modern world. It…<\/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-3086","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\/3086","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=3086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}