PREFACE
When writing East and West a few years ago, we thought we had said all that was required, at least for the time being, concerning the questions dealt with in that book. Since then however events have succeeded one another at an ever increasing speed and, while this has not made it necessary to alter a single word of what we wrote at that time, it provides an opportunity for certain additional explanations and for the development of lines of thought that we did not feel called upon to stress in the first instance. These explanations have become all the more necessary because we have recently seen a distinctly aggressive reaffirmation of some of those very confusions we had already tried to dispel. For this reason, while carefully staying aloof from all controversy, it has seemed to us advisable to present matters once more in their true perspective. In this connection there are certain considerations, often of a quite elementary nature, which appear so alien to the vast majority of our contemporaries that in order to make them generally understood it is necessary to return to them again and again, presenting them in their various aspects and explaining more fully, as circumstances permit, any points likely to give rise to difficulties that could not always be foreseen from the outset.
The very title of the present volume calls for some initial explanation, if what it means is to be clearly understood and all misrepresentation prevented. Many no longer doubt the possibility of a world crisis, taking the latter word in its most usual acceptation, and this in itself marks a very noticeable change of outlook: by sheer force of circumstance certain illusions are beginning to vanish, and we cannot but rejoice that this is so, for it is at any rate a favorable symptom and a sign that a readjustment of the contemporary mentality is still possible-a glimmer of light as it were-in the midst of the present chaos. For example, the belief in a never-ending 'progress', which until recently was held as a sort of inviolable and
indisputable dogma, is no longer so widespread; there are those who perceive, though in a vague and confused manner, that the civilization of the West may not always go on developing in the same direction, but may some day reach a point where it will stop, or even be plunged in its entirety into some cataclysm. Such persons may not see clearly where the danger lies-the fantastic or puerile fears they sometimes express being proof enough that their minds still harbor many errors-but it is already something that they realize there is a danger, even if it is felt rather than understood; and it is also something that they can conceive that this civilization, with which the moderns are so infatuated, holds no privileged position in the history of the world, and may easily encounter the same fate as has befallen many others that have already disappeared at more or less remote periods, some of them having left traces so slight as to be hardly noticeable, let alone recognizable.
Consequently, when it is said that the modern world is in the throes of a crisis, this is usually taken to mean that it has reached a critical phase, or that a more or less complete transformation is imminent, and that a change of direction must soon ensuewhether voluntarily or no, whether suddenly or gradually, whether catastrophic or otherwise, remaining to be seen. This use of the word 'crisis' is perfectly legitimate, and indeed corresponds in part to what we think ourselves; but in part only, for our point of view is a more general one: for us it is the modern age in its entirety that is in a state of crisis, which is precisely why we entitled this book The Crisis of the Modern World. It seems however that the crisis is nearing its solution, and this has the effect of emphasizing still further the abnormality of the state of affairs that has already existed for some centuries, though the consequences were never before so apparent as they are now. This is also the reason for the increasing speed with which events are now unfolding: such a state of affairs may doubtless continue for some time longer, but not indefinitely, and, even without being able to assign a definite time-limit, one has the impression that it cannot last very much longer.
But the word 'crisis' also contains other implications making it an even more apt term for what we wish to express: indeed, its etymology-which is often lost from sight in current usage but
must be kept in mind if one wishes to restore to the word its full meaning and original value-makes it to some extent synonymous with the words 'judgement' and 'discrimination'. The phase that can properly be termed 'critical' in any order of things is the one immediately preceding a resolution, be this favorable or unfavorable-in other words, one in which a turn is taken either for the better or for the worse; it is therefore the phase in which it is possible to pass judgement on the results achieved, to balance the pros and the cons, and, to some extent, to classify the results (either positively or negatively) and to see which way the balance will swing in the end. We do not aim, of course, at giving a classification that will be totally complete; to do this would be premature, since the crisis is not yet ended and since it is perhaps impossible even to say exactly when, and in what manner, it will end. It is always preferable to refrain from prognostications that cannot be based on grounds clearly intelligible to all, and that therefore could be misinterpreted, adding to the confusion rather than relieving it. All we can undertake at the moment is to contribute, to a certain extent and as far as the means at our disposal allow, toward making those capable of it aware of some of the consequences that seem already fully established. By so doing we shall be preparing the ground, albeit in a partial and rather indirect manner, for those who must play their part in the future 'judgement', following which a new era will open in the history of mankind.
Certain of the expressions just used will doubtless awaken in the. minds of some the idea of what is called the Last Judgement, or Doomsday, and quite correctly, though whether this be understood literally or symbolically or in both ways (since in reality the two conceptions are not mutually exclusive) is here of little consequence; nor is this the place or time for a fuller explanation of this point. In any case, the reference to 'balancing pros and cons' and 'judging results either positively or negatively' may well have suggested the division of the 'chosen' and the 'damned' into two groups to be thus immutably fixed henceforward. Even if this is but an analogy, one must admit that it is valid, well-founded, and in conformity with the nature of things-a point that calls for further explanation.
It is certainly no accident that so many people today are haunted by the idea of the 'end of the world'; it may be regrettable in some respects, since the extravagances to which this idea when ill-understood gives rise, and the messianic vagaries that spring from it in certain circles-all of them manifestations of the mental disequilibrium of our time-only aggravate this same disequilibrium to an extent that is impossible altogether to overlook; nevertheless, this obsession with the 'end of the world' is a fact that one cannot ignore. No doubt the most convenient attitude when confronted with things of this kind is simply to dismiss them without further enquiry as errors or fantasies of no importance; we consider however that even if they are in fact errors, it is better, while denouncing them as such, to probe for the reasons that have given rise to them and to seek the modicum of truth-deformed though it may bethat they may nevertheless contain; for, since error has after all a purely negative manner of existence, absolute error cannot exist anywhere and is indeed a meaningless expression. If the matter is viewed in this way, it becomes easy to see that the preoccupation with the 'end of the world' is closely connected with the state of general mental unrest in which we are at present living: the vague foreboding of an end-which in fact is near-works uncontrollably on the imaginations of some people and quite naturally gives rise to wild and for the most part grossly materialized mental images that in their turn assume external form in the extravagances to which we have alluded. This explanation is however no excuse for such extravagances; at least, even if the persons who fall involuntarily into error, being predisposed to it by a mental state for which they are not responsible, are to be excused, it can never be a reason for excusing the error itself. For our part, we certainly cannot be accused of undue indulgence toward the 'pseudo-religious' manifestations of the contemporary world, any more than toward modern errors in general. Indeed, we know that there are those who would be inclined rather to reproach us with the opposite of tolerance, and it may be that what is said here will enable them to understand better our attitude in these matters, an attitude that consists in abiding always by the only point of view that concerns us-that of impartial and disinterested truth.
But this is not the whole question at issue: a purely psychological explanation of this idea of the 'end of the world' and of its current manifestations, accurate though it may be in its own order, could never be fully adequate; to accept it as such would be to yield to one of those modern illusions which we take every opportunity of condemning. As we have said, there are those who have a vague feeling that something is approaching its end, without being able to define exactly the nature or extent of the change they foresee; it is impossible to deny that this feeling is based on reality, even though it be vague and subject to false interpretations or imaginative deformations, for, whatever may be the nature of the end that is approaching, the crisis that must necessarily lead up to it is apparent enough, and there is no lack of unequivocal and easily perceptible signs all pointing with one accord to the same conclusion. This end is doubtless not the 'end of the world' in the complete sense in which some persons seek to interpret it, but it is at least the end of a world: and if it is Western civilization in its present form that is to end, it is understandable that those who are accustomed to see nothing beyond it, and for whom this is 'civilization' unqualified, should incline to the belief that everything will end with it and that its disappearance will in fact be 'the end of the world'.
It may then be said, in order to reduce the question to its true proportions, that we really do seem to be approaching the end of a world, in other words, the end of an epoch or a historical cycle, which may also correspond to the end of a cosmic cycle, in accor-$\cdot$dance with the teaching of all traditional doctrines on the subject. There have already been many occurrences of this sort in the past, and there will doubtless be others in the future; these occurrences are of varying importance, according to whether they terminate longer or shorter periods, and whether they affect the whole of mankind or merely one or another of its component parts-that is, some particular race or people. It is to be expected that, in the present state of the world, the impending change will be widespread and that, whatever form it may assume-a point we shall not attempt to determine-it will affect more or less the whole world. In any case, the laws governing such occurrences apply analogously at different levels, so that what is true of the 'end of the world' in the
most complete sense in which this can be conceived-it is usually taken to refer only to the terrestrial world-is also true on a proportionately lesser scale of some particular world in a much more restricted sense of the word.
These preliminary remarks should make it easier to understand the questions we are about to consider. We have already had occasion to refer fairly frequently in other works to the 'cyclic laws'; it would be difficult, perhaps, to give a complete exposition of them in a form easily comprehensible to Western minds, but one must at least have a certain amount of data on the subject to appreciate the true nature of the present age and to see its exact place in world history. We shall therefore begin by showing that the characteristic features of this age are in fact those that the traditional doctrines have from all time indicated for the cyclic period to which it corresponds; and in so doing we shall make it clear that what is anomaly and disorder from one point of view is nevertheless a necessary element of a vaster order, and an inevitable consequence of the laws governing the development of all manifestation. Let it be said at once however that this is no reason to submit passively to the disorder and obscurity that seem to be triumphing at the moment, for were it so we should have nothing better to do than to remain silent; on the contrary, it is a reason for striving to the utmost to prepare the way out of this 'dark age', for there are many signs that its end is already relatively near, if not imminent. This also is a part of the appointed order of things, for equilibrium is the result of the simultaneous action of two contrary tendencies; if the one or the other could cease to act entirely, equilibrium would never be restored and the world itself would disappear; but this supposition has no possibility of realization, for the two terms of an opposition have no meaning apart from each other, and whatever the appearances may be, one may be sure that all partial and transitory disequilibriums contribute in the end toward realizing the total equilibrium.