HISTORICAL CYCLES — CRAWFORD 457 



existence a body of knowledge, collected by workers in this universal 

 intelligence department, for the use of future directors of operations. 

 Unfortunately (as we think) thought has outstripped the means of 

 action. The existing forms of political organization, though already 

 out of date, make use of this knowledge not for the general good but 

 for lower and more immediate ends, including that of mutual exter- 

 mination. Still more unfortunately they are aided and abetted in 

 this task by men of science themselves who should know better. 

 Perhaps, however, the new phase can only arise from the chaos of 

 the old one when it crashes; so that the sooner this happens, the 

 sooner the next phase w^ill begin. 



If this new cycle of evolution is to return spirally like the rest to 

 a point immediately above its starting point, the world state will be 

 equivalent to the human being in organic evolution; just as the pres- 

 ent states were equivalent to some earlier animal. This must follow 

 logically from the recapitulatory process now in progress, and may 

 even be forecasted as its inevitable goal. The work of integration 

 and reintegration of " individuals " persists and follows recognizable 

 " laws." What the cell is to the human body, the human body is to 

 the world state. What is to be the next integration, in which the 

 world state will be merely the single unit, cell, or, as Prof. Julian 

 Huxley would call it, " third grade individual " ? Is there going to 

 be another? If there is it can hardly be of this world alone, since 

 the whole world will be its body. 



Can we extend the analogy backwards and detect the unit which is 

 to the cell what the cell is to the human body ? 



We can at least see that, if the analogy here sketched is sound, 

 the evolution of life proceeds upon an orderly plan, intelligible and 

 possibly predictable. We see that the very large is explicable in 

 terms of the very small, just as in physics. In the probability 

 waves which determine the emergence of certain features of civi- 

 lized life, we catch an elusive, perhaps delusive, yet fascinating 

 glimpse of behavior which seems to resemble the behavior of the 

 constituent ultimate elements of matter. Sometimes we think we 

 can see some meaning in the dance of shadows upon the wall of the 

 cave ; and then we lose it again. Was it really there ? Or was it 

 only our own shadows that we saw ? 



NOTE I 



No attempt has been made in the above article either to anticipate 

 objections to the theory propounded in it, or to deal with criticisms 

 which have been made about the cyclical view of history. It seemed 

 better to set down the writer's own ideas as clearly and as briefly as 

 possible. Any other course would confuse the issue and expand the 



