Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



ble, but it affords, at any moment in man's history, 

 the axiomatic ground on which his thought- 

 structures, scientific and other, are built. Thus 

 the axioms of Euclid are part of our present sys- 

 temic knowledge, and afford the ground of all 

 our geometry structures. But as the systemic 

 consciousness grows, the ground shifts and the 

 structures reared upon it fall. All our modern 

 science, for instance, is founded on the accepta- 

 tion of mechanical cause and effect as a basic 

 fact of consciousness ; but when that base gives 

 way the entire structure will cave in, and a new 

 edifice will have to be reared. Similarly, when 

 the human form becomes distinctly visible to us 

 in the animals as an unavoidable part of our 

 consciousness this consciousness will form a new 

 base or axiom for all our thought on the subject, 

 and the theory of evolution, as hitherto con- 

 ceived by science, will be entirely transformed. 



Thus, although the experimental investigatory 

 coral-reef accretion method of modern science 

 is very valuable within its range, it must not be 

 forgotten that the human mind does not progress 

 more than temporarily by this method that its 

 progression is a matter of growth from within, 

 and involves a continual breaking away of the 

 bases of all thought-structures ; so that, while 

 this latter i.e., the progression of the systemic 

 consciousness of man is necessary and continuous, 

 the rise and fall of his thought-systems is accidental, 

 so to speak, and discontinuous. 



It is then finally in Man in our own deepest 

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