{"id":3155,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:21","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3155"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:21","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:21","slug":"15-the-formation-of-the-nation-unit-the-three-stages-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/the-ideal-of-human-unity\/15-the-formation-of-the-nation-unit-the-three-stages-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-15_The Formation of The Nation-Unit-The Three Stages.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nCHAPTER XIII<\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE FORMATION OF THE NATION
\nUNIT\u2014THE THREE STAGES<\/b><\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nT<\/font>HE<\/font> three stages of development which have marked
\nthe mediaeval and modern evolution of the nation-type may be
\nregarded as the natural process where a new form of unity has to be created out
\nof complex conditions and heterogeneous materials by an external rather than an internal process. The external
\nmethod tries always to mould the psychological condition of men into changed
\nforms and habits under the pressure of circumstances and institutions rather than by the direct creation
\nof a new psychological condition which would, on the contrary,
\ndevelop freely and flexibly its own appropriate and serviceable
\nsocial forms. In such a process there must be in the nature of
\nthings first, some kind of looser yet sufficiently compelling order of society
\nand common type of civilisation to serve as a frame
\nwork or scaffolding within which the new edifice shall arise. Next, there must
\ncome naturally a period of stringent organisation directed towards unity and centrality of control and perhaps
\na general levelling and uniformity under that central direction.
\nLast, if the new organism is not to fossilise and stereotype life, if
\nit is to be still a living and vigorous creation of Nature, there
\nroust come a period of free internal development as soon as
\nme formation is assured and unity has become a mental and vital habit. This freer internal activity assured in its heart and
\nat its basis by the formed needs, ideas, and instincts of the community will no
\nlonger bring with it the peril of disorder, disruption or arrest of the secure growth and formation of the
\norganism. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-115<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nThe form and principle of the first looser system
\nmust depend upon the past history and present conditions of the elements that have to be welded into the new unity. But it is
\nnoticeable that both in Europe and Asia there was a common
\ntendency, which we cannot trace to any close interchange of
\nideas and must therefore attribute to the operation of the same
\nnatural cause and necessity, towards the evolution of a social
\nhierarchy based on a division according to four different social
\nactivities,\u2014spiritual function, political domination and the double economic
\nfunction of mercantile production and inter
\nchange and dependent labour or service. The spirit, form and
\nequipoise worked out were very different in different parts of the world
\naccording to the bent of the community and its circumstances, but the initial principle was almost identical. The
\nmotive-force everywhere was the necessity of a large effective
\nform of common social life marked by fixity of status through
\nwhich individual and small communal interests might be brought
\nunder the yoke of a sufficient religious, political and economic
\nunity and likeness. It is notable that Islamic civilisation, with its
\ndominant principle of equality and brotherhood in the faith and
\nits curious institution of a slavery which did not prevent the
\nslave from rising even to the throne, was never able to evolve
\nsuch a form of society and failed in spite of its close contact with
\npolitical and progressive Europe to develop strong and living
\nwell-organised and conscious nation-units even after the disruption of the
\nempire of the Caliphs; it is only now under the pres
\nsure of modern ideas and ambitions that this is being done. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut even where this preparatory stage was effectively
\nbrought into existence, the subsequent stages did not necessarily
\nfollow. The feudal period of Europe with its four orders of the clergy, the king
\nand the nobles, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat has a sufficiently close resemblance to the Indian fourfold
\norder of the sacerdotal, military and mercantile classes and the
\nShudras. The Indian system took its characteristic stamp from a
\ndifferent order of ideas more prominently religious and ethical than political,
\nsocial or economic; but still, practically, the dominant <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-116<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nfunction of the system was social and economic and there
\nseems at first sight to be no reason why it should not have followed, with
\nwhatever differences of detail, the common evolution. Japan with its great feudal order under the spiritual and
\nsecular headship of the Mikado and afterwards the double
\nheadship of the Mikado and the Shogun evolved one of the
\nmost vigorous and self-conscious nation-units the world has seen. China with its
\ngreat learned class uniting in one the Brahmin and Kshatriya functions of spiritual and secular knowledge
\nand executive rule and its Emperor and Son of Heaven for head
\nand type of the national unity succeeded in becoming a united
\nnation. The different result in India, apart from other causes, was due to the
\ndifferent evolution of the social order. Else where that evolution turned in the
\ndirection of a secular organisation and headship; and it created within the nation itself a
\nclear political self-consciousness and as a consequence either the subordination
\nof the sacerdotal class to the military and administrative or else their equality or even their fusion under a
\ncommon spiritual and secular head. In mediaeval India, on the
\ncontrary, it turned towards the social dominance of the sacerdotal
\nclass and the substitution of a common spiritual for a common
\npolitical consciousness as the basis of the national feeling. No
\nlasting secular centre was evolved, no great imperial or kingly head which by
\nits prestige, power, antiquity and claim to general reverence and obedience could overbalance or even merely
\nbalance this sacerdotal prestige and predominance and create a
\nsense of political as well as spiritual and cultural oneness. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe struggle between the Church and the monarchical
\nState is one of the most important and vital features of the history of Europe. Had that conflict ended in an opposite result,
\nthe whole future of humanity would have been in jeopardy. As it was, the Church
\nwas obliged to renounce its claim to independence and dominance over the temporal power. Even in
\ne nations which remained Catholic, a real independence and dominance of the
\ntemporal authority was successfully vindicated; for the King of France exercised a control over the Gallican <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-117<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nChurch and clergy which rendered all effective interference of
\nthe Pope in French affairs impossible. In Spain, in spite of the close alliance
\nbetween Pope and King and the theoretical admission of the former’s complete spiritual authority, it was really
\nthe temporal head who decided the ecclesiastical policy and commanded the
\nterrors of the Inquisition. In Italy, the immediate presence of the spiritual head of Catholicism in Rome was
\na great moral obstacle to the development of a politically united
\nnation; the passionate determination of the liberated Italian
\npeople to establish its King in Rome was really a symbol of the
\nlaw that a self-conscious and politically organised nation can
\nhave only one supreme and central authority admitted in its
\nmidst and that must be the secular power. The nation which
\nhas reached or is reaching this stage must either separate the religious and
\nspiritual claim from its common secular and political life by individualising religion or else it must unite the two
\nby the alliance of the State and the Church to uphold the single
\nauthority of the temporal head or combine the spiritual and
\ntemporal headship in one authority as was done in Japan and
\nChina and in England of the Reformation. Even in India the
\npeople which first developed some national self-consciousness
\nnot of a predominantly spiritual character, were the Rajputs,
\nespecially of Mewar, to whom the Rajah was in every way the
\nhead of society and of the nation; and the people which having
\nachieved national self-consciousness came nearest to achieving
\nalso organised political unity were the Sikhs for whom Guru
\nGovind Singh deliberately devised a common secular and spiritual
\ncentre in the Khalsa, and the Mahrattas who not only established
\na secular head, representative of the conscious nation, but so secularised
\nthemselves that, as it were, the whole people indiscriminately, Brahmin and
\nShudra, became for a time potentially a people of soldiers, politicians and administrators. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn other words, the institution of a fixed social hierarchy,
\nwhile it seems to have been a necessary stage for the first tendencies of national formation, needed to modify itself and prepare its own dissolution if the later stages were to be renders <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-118<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\npossible An instrument good for
\na certain work and set of conditions, it is still retained when other work has to be done
\nand conditions change, becomes necessarily an obstacle. The
\ndirection needed was a change from the spiritual authority of
\none class and the political authority of another to a centralisation
\nof the common life of the evolving nation under a secular rather
\nthan a religious head or, if the religious tendency in the people
\nbe too strong to separate things spiritual and temporal, under a
\nnational head who shall be the fountain of authority in both
\ndepartments. Especially was it necessary for the creation of a
\npolitical self-consciousness, without which no separate nation
\nunit can be successfully formed, that the sentiments, activities,
\ninstruments proper to its creation should for a time take the
\nlead and all others stand behind and support them. A Church or a dominant
\nsacerdotal caste remaining within its own function cannot form the organised political unity of a nation; for it
\nis governed by other than political and administrative considerations and cannot be expected to subordinate to them its own
\ncharacteristic feelings and interests. It can only be otherwise if
\nthe religious caste or sacerdotal class become also as in Tibet
\nthe actually ruling political class of the country. In India, the
\ndominance of a caste governed by sacerdotal, religious and partly by spiritual
\ninterests and considerations, a caste which dominated thought and society and determined the principles of the
\nnational life but did not actually rule and administer, has always stood in the
\nway of the development followed by the more secular-minded European and Mongolian peoples. It is only now
\nafter the advent of European civilisation when the Brahmin
\ncaste has not only lost the best part of its exclusive hold on the
\nnational life but has largely secularised itself, that political and
\nocular considerations have come into the forefront, a pervading
\npolitical self-consciousness has been awakened and the organised
\nunity of the nation, as distinct from the spiritual and cultural oneness, made
\npossible in fact and not only as an unshaped subconscious tendency. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe second stage of the development of the nation-unit <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-119<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nhas been, then, the modification of the social structure so as to
\nmake room for a powerful and visible centre of political and
\nadministrative unity. This stage is necessarily attended by a
\nstrong tendency to the abrogation of even such liberties as a fixed
\nsocial hierarchy provides and the concentration of power in the hands, usually,
\nof a dominant if not always an absolute monarchical government. By modern democratic ideas kingship is only
\ntolerated either as an inoperative figurehead or a servant of the
\nState life or a convenient centre of the executive administration,
\nit is no longer indispensable as a real control; but the historical importance
\nof a powerful kingship in the evolution of the nation
\ntype, as it actually developed in the mediaeval times, cannot
\nbe exaggerated. Even in liberty-loving, insular and individualistic England, the Plantagenets and Tudors were the real and
\nactive nucleus round which the nation grew into firm form and
\ninto adult strength; and in Continental countries the part
\nplayed by the Capets and their successors in France, by the House
\nof Castile in Spain and by the Romanoffs and their predecessors
\nin Russia is still more prominent. In the last of these instances, one might
\nalmost say that without the Ivans, Peters and Catherines there would have been no Russia. And even in modern
\ntimes, the almost mediaeval role played by the Hohenzollerns in
\nthe unification and growth of Germany was watched with an
\nuneasy astonishment by the democratic peoples to whom such
\na phenomenon was no longer intelligible and seemed hardly to
\nbe serious. But we may note also the same phenomenon in the
\nfirst period of formation of the new nations of the Balkans. The
\nseeking for a king to centralise and assist their growth, despite all
\nthe strange comedies and tragedies which have accompanied it,
\nbecomes perfectly intelligible as a manifestation of the sense or the old
\nnecessity, not so truly necessary now* but felt in the subconscious minds of these peoples. In the new formation of Japan
\ninto a nation of the modern type the Mikado played a similar <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* Now replaced by the spiritual-political headship of an almost semi-divine
\nLeader in a Fuhrer who incarnates in himself, as it were, the personality 
\nof 
\nthe race. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-120<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nrole the instinct of the renovators brought him out of his helpless
\nocclusion to meet this inner need. The attempt of a brief dictatorship in
\nrevolutionary China to convert itself into a new national monarchy may be attributed quite as much to the same
\nfeeling In a practical mind as to mere personal ambition.* It is
\na sense of this great role played by the kingship in centralising
\nand shaping national life at the most critical stage of its growth which
\nexplains the tendency common in the East and not altogether absent from the history of the West to invest it with an
\nalmost sacred character; it explains also the passionate loyalty
\nwith which great national dynasties or their successors have been
\nserved even in the moment of their degeneration and downfall. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut this movement of national development, however
\nsalutary in its peculiar role, is almost fatally attended with that suppression of the internal liberties of the people which makes the
\nmodern mind so naturally, though unscientifically, harsh in its
\njudgment of the old monarchical absolutism and its tendencies.
\nFor always this is a movement of concentration, stringency,
\nuniformity, strong control and one-pointed direction; to universalise one law, one rule, one central authority is the need it has
\nto meet, and therefore its spirit must be to enforce and centralise
\nauthority, to narrow or quite suppress liberty and free variation.
\nIn England, the period of the New Monarchy from Edward IV
\nto Elizabeth, in France the great Bourbon period from Henry IV to Louis XIV, in
\nSpain the epoch which extends from Ferdinand to Philip II, in Russia the rule of Peter the Great and
\nCatherine were the time in which these nations reached their
\nmaturity, formed fully and confirmed their spirit and attained to
\na robust organisation. And all these were periods of absolutism or of movement
\nto absolutism and a certain foundation of uniformity or attempt to found it. This absolutism clothed already
\nIn its more primitive garb the reviving idea of the State and its right to impose its will on the life and thought and conscience of <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n*It should be noted that even the democratic idealism of the modern mind
\nin china has been obliged to crystallise itself round the "leader," a Sun Yat
\nSen or Chiang Kai-shek and the force of inspiration has depended on the power
\nof this living centre.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-121<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe people so as to make it one, single, undivided,
\nperfectly efficient and perfectly directed mind and body.* <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIt is from this point of view that we shall most intelligently
\nunderstand the attempt of the Tudors and the Stuarts to impose both monarchical
\nauthority and religious uniformity on the people and seize the real sense of the religious wars in France, the
\nCatholic monarchical rule in Spain with its atrocious method of
\nthe Inquisition and the oppressive will of the absolute Czars in
\nRussia to impose also an absolute national Church. The efforts
\nfailed in England, because, after Elizabeth, it no longer answered
\nto any genuine need; for the nation was already well-formed,
\nstrong and secure against disruption from without. Elsewhere it
\nsucceeded both in Protestant and Catholic countries, or in the
\nrare cases, as in Poland, where this movement could not take place or failed,
\nthe result was disastrous. Certainly, it was every
\nwhere an outrage on the human soul, but it was not merely due
\nto any natural wickedness of the rulers; it was an inevitable stage
\nin the formation of the nation-unit by political and mechanical means. If it
\nleft England the sole country in Europe where liberty could progress by natural gradations, that was due, no doubt,
\nlargely to the strong qualities of the people but still more to its
\nfortunate history and insular circumstances. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe monarchical State in this evolution crushed or
\nsubordinated the religious liberties of men and made a subservient or
\nconciliated ecclesiastical order the priest of its divine right, Religion the
\nhandmaid of a secular throne. It destroyed the liberties of the aristocracy and left it its privileges and those even
\nwere allowed only that it might support and buttress the power
\nof the king. After using the bourgeoisie against the nobles, it
\ndestroyed, where it could, its real and living civil liberties and permitted
\nonly some outward form and its parts of special right and privilege. As for the
\npeople they had no liberties to be destroyed. Thus the monarchical State concentrated in its own activities the whole national life. The Church served it with its <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* Now illustrated with an interesting
\ncompleteness in Russia, Germany and Italy\u2014the totalitarian idea. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-122<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nmoral influence the nobles with their military traditions and
\nability the bourgeoisie with the talent or chicane of its lawyers
\nand the literary genius or administrative power of its scholars,
\nthinkers and men of inborn business capacity; the people gave taxes and served
\nwith their blood the personal and national ambitions of the monarchy. But all this powerful structure and
\nclosely knit order of things was doomed by its very triumph and predestined to come down either with a crash or by a more or
\nless unwilling gradual abdication before new necessities and
\nagencies. It was tolerated and supported so long as the nation
\nfelt consciously or subconsciously its need and justification; once that was fulfilled and ceased, there came inevitably the old
\nquestioning which, now grown fully self-conscious, could no
\nlonger be suppressed or permanently resisted. By changing the
\nold order into a mere simulacrum the monarchy had destroyed its own base. The
\nsacerdotal authority of the Church, once questioned on spiritual grounds, could not be long maintained by
\ntemporal means, by the sword and the law; the aristocracy keep
\ning its privileges but losing its real functions became odious and
\nquestionable to the classes below it; the bourgeoisie conscious of
\nits talent, irritated by its social and political inferiority, awakened by the
\nvoice of its thinkers, led the movement of revolt and appealed to the help of the populace; the masses, dumb, oppressed,
\nsuffering rose with this new support which had been denied to
\nthem before and overturned the whole social hierarchy. Hence
\nthe collapse of the old world and the birth of a new age. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nWe have already seen the inner justification of this great
\nrevolutionary movement. The nation-unit is not formed and
\ndoes not exist merely for the sake of existing; its purpose <\/b> is to
\nprovide a larger mould of human aggregation in which the race,
\nand not only classes and individuals, may move towards its full human
\ndevelopment. So long as the labour of formation continues, this larger development may be held back and authority
\nand order be accepted as the first consideration, but not when the aggregate is sure of its existence and feels the need of an inner
\nexpansion. Then the old bonds have to be burst; the means of <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-123<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nformation have to be discarded as obstacles to growth. Liberty
\nthen becomes the watchword of the race. The ecclesiastical order
\nwhich suppressed liberty of thought and new ethical and social
\ndevelopment has to be dispossessed of its despotic authority, so
\nthat man may be mentally and spiritually free. The monopolies
\nand privileges of the king and aristocracy have to be destroyed
\nso that all may take their share of the national power, prosperity
\nand activity. Finally, bourgeois capitalism has to be induced or forced to
\nconsent to an economic order in which suffering, poverty and exploitation shall be eliminated and the wealth of the
\ncommunity be more equally shared by all who help to create it.
\nIn all directions, men have to come into their own, realise the
\ndignity and freedom of the manhood within them and give play
\nto their utmost capacity. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nFor liberty is insufficient, justice also is
\nnecessary and be
\ncomes a pressing demand; the cry for equality arises. Certainly,
\nabsolute equality is nonexistent in this world; but the word
\nwas aimed against the unjust and unnecessary inequalities of
\nthe old social order. Under a just social order, there must be an
\nequal opportunity, an equal training for all to develop their
\nfaculties and to use them, and, so far as may be, an equal share in the
\nadvantages of the aggregate life as the right of all who con
\ntribute to the existence, vigour and development of that life by
\nthe use of their capacities. As we have noted, this need might
\nhave taken the form of an ideal of free cooperation guided and
\nhelped by a wise and liberal central authority expressing the
\ncommon will, but it has actually reverted to the old notion of an absolute and
\nefficient State,\u2014no longer monarchical, ecclesiastical, aristocratic but secular, democratic and socialistic\u2014with
\nliberty sacrificed to the need of equality and aggregate efficiency.
\nThe psychological causes of this reversion we shall not now consider. Perhaps liberty and equality, liberty and authority,
\nliberty and organised efficiency can never be quite satisfactorily
\nreconciled so long as man individual and aggregate lives by egoism, so long as
\nhe cannot undergo a great spiritual and psychological change and rise beyond
\nmere communal association to <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-124<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthat third ideal which some vague inner sense made
\nthe revolutionary thinkers of France add to their watchwords of liberty
\nand equality, the greatest of all the three, though till now only an empty word
\non man’s lips, the ideal of fraternity or, less sentimentally and more truly expressed, an inner oneness. That
\nno mechanism social, political, religious has ever created or can
\ncreate; it must take birth in the soul and rise from hidden and
\ndivine depths within. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-125<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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