The Human Cycle


The Ideal of Human Unity


War and Self-Determination

 

CONTENTS

 

 

Pre-Content

 

Post-Content

 

 

THE HUMAN CYCLE

 

Chapter I

The Cycle of Society

 

Chapter II

The Age of Individualism and Reason

 

Chapter III

The Coming of the Subjective Age

 

Chapter IV

The Discovery of the Nation-Soul

 

Chapter V

True and False Subjectivism

 

Chapter VI

The Objective and Subjective Views of Life

 

Chapter VII

The Ideal Law of Social Development

 

Chapter VIII

Civilisation and Barbarism

 

Chapter IX

Civilisation and Culture

 

Chapter X

Aesthetic and Ethical Culture

 

Chapter XI

The Reason as Governor of Life

 

Chapter XII

The Office and Limitations of the Reason

 

Chapter XIII

Reason and Religion

 

Chapter XIV
The Suprarational Beauty

 

Chapter XV

The Suprarational Good

 

Chapter XVI

The Suprarational Ultimate of Life

 

Chapter XVII

Religion as the Law of Life

 

Chapter XVIII

The Infrarational Age of the Cycl

 

Chapter XIX

The Curve of the Rational Age

 

Chapter XX

The End of the Curve of Reason

 

Chapter XXI

The Spiritual Aim and Life

 

Chapter XXII

The Necessity of the Spiritual Transformation

 

Chapter XXIII

Conditions for the Coming of a Spiritual Age

 

Chapter XXIV

The Advent and Progress of the Spiritual Age

 

  THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY
 

PART - I

 

Chapter I

The Turn towards Unity: Its Necessity and Dangers

 

Chapter II

The Imperfection of Past Aggregates

 

Chapter III

The Group and the Individual

 

Chapter IV

The Inadequacy of the State Idea

 

Chapter V

Nation and Empire: Real and Political Unities

 

Chapter VI

Ancient and Modern Methods of Empire

 

Chapter VII

The Creation of the Heterogeneous Nation

 

Chapter VIII

The Problem of a Federated Heterogeneous Empire

 

Chapter IX

The Possibility of a World-Empire

 

Chapter X

The United States of Europe

 

Chapter XI

The Small Free Unit and the Larger Concentrated Unity

 

Chapter XII

The Ancient Cycle of Prenational Empire-Building —

The Modern Cycle of Nation-Building

 

Chapter XIII

The Formation of the Nation-Unit — The Three Stages

 

Chapter XIV

The Possibility of a First Step towards International Unity —

Its Enormous Difficulties

 

Chapter XV

Some Lines of Fulfilment

 

Chapter XVI

The Problem of Uniformity and Liberty

 

  THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY
  PART II
 

Chapter XVII

 Nature's Law in Our Progress —

Unity in Diversity, Law and Liberty

 

Chapter XVIII

The Ideal Solution — A Free Grouping of Mankind

 

Chapter XIX

The Drive towards Centralisation and Uniformity —

 Administration and Control of Foreign Affairs

 

Chapter XX

The Drive towards Economic Centralisation

 

Chapter XXI

The Drive towards Legislative and Social

Centralisation and Uniformity

 

Chapter XXII

World-Union or World-State

 

Chapter XXIII

Forms of Government

 

Chapter XXIV

The Need of Military Unification

 

Chapter XXV

War and the Need of Economic Unity

 

Chapter XXVI

The Need of Administrative Unity

 

Chapter XXVII

The Peril of the World-State

 

Chapter XXVIII

Diversity in Oneness

 

Chapter XXIX

The Idea of a League of Nations

 

Chapter XXX

The Principle of Free Confederation

 

Chapter XXXI

The Conditions of a Free World-Union

 

Chapter XXXII

Internationalism

 

Chapter XXXIII

Internationalism and Human Unity

 

Chapter XXXIV

The Religion of Humanity

 

Chapter XXXV

Summary and Conclusion

 

A Postscript Chapter

 

  WAR AND SELF-DETERMINATION
 

The Passing of War?

 

The Unseen Power

 

Self-Determination

 

A League of Nations

  1919
 

After the War

 

APPENDIXES

Appendix I

Appendix II

Note on the Texts

 

Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry


 

A page of the Arya with changes made in the 1930s


 

The Human Cycle

 


Publisher's Note to the First Edition

 

The chapters constituting this book were written under the title "The Psychology of Social Development" from month to month in the philosophical monthly, "Arya", from August 15, 1916 to July 15, 1918 and used recent and contemporary events as well as illustrations from the history of the past in explanation of the theory of social evolution put forward in these pages. The reader has therefore to go back in his mind to the events of that period in order to follow the line of thought and the atmosphere in which it developed. At one time there suggested itself the necessity of bringing this part up to date, especially by some reference to later developments in Nazi Germany and the development of a totalitarian Communist regime in Russia. But afterwards it was felt that there was sufficient prevision and allusion to these events and more elaborate description or criticism of them was not essential; there was already without them an adequate working out and elucidation of this theory of the social cycle. November, 1949