I have plotted this curve, or series of curves, after a rough and ready fashion (Diagram No. 2) and though the personal equation must, in any subjective proposition such as this, enter largely into account, I think the diagram will be accepted in principle if not in details, and not wholly in its relationships. I have made no effort to estimate or indicate comparative heights and depths, giving to each five-hundred year epoch a similar level of rise and depth of fall. Perhaps the actual difference here would, rightly estimated, be less than we have been led to believe, though certainly few would lift the Carolingian crest to the level of that of Hellenism or of the Middle Ages, nor assign to the end of this latter period as low a fall as that accomplished during the tenth century in continental Europe.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM No. 2. The rise and fall of the line of civilization; showing also the nodal points at the Christian Era and at the years 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 (?)]
In a third cut (Diagram No. 3) I have roughly indicated in conventional form a phenomenon which seems to me to show itself around the nodal point when a descending curve of energy meets and crosses the descending line. As the élan vital that has made and characterized any period declines, it throws off reactions, the object of which is if possible to arrest, or at least delay, the fatal glissade. These are, in intent and in fact, reforms; conscious efforts at saving a desperate situation by regenerative methods. Trace back their lines of procedure, and in every case they will be found to issue out of the very force which is even then in process of degeneration, therefore they are poisoned at the source and no true or vital reforms, for the sudden energy that urges them is, after all, in no respect different from that which is already a failing force.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM No. 3. The reactions thrown off by (a) the descending line of vital force, (b) by the ascending line.]
This, I conceive, is why today the multitudinous and specious "reforms," which beat upon us from all sides, and find such ready acceptance in the enactments of law, are really no reforms at all, since each one of them is but an exaggeration or distortion of the very principles and methods that already are bending downward the curve of our progression until it disappears in the nether-world of failure, as did those of every preceding epoch of equal duration. An example of what I mean is the astute saying, frequently heard nowadays: "The cure for democracy is more democracy."
Now while one curve descends and throws off its reformative reactions in the process, the other is ascending, preparatory to determining the coming era for its allotted space of five centuries. In this process it also throws off its own reactions, but these are for the purpose of lifting the line more rapidly, bringing its force into play before its determined time. These also are exaggerations, over-emphasized qualities that are inherent in the ascending force, and they are no more to be accepted as authoritative than are the others. They have their value however, for they are prophetic, and even in their exaggeration there is the clear forecast of things to be. Trace them in turn to the source. What is their source? The new power issues out of obscurity and its character is veiled, but we can estimate it from the very nature of the exaggerated reactions we can see. If something shows itself, in sociology, economics, politics, religion, art, what you will, that is especially a denial of what has been a controlling agency during the past four or five hundred years: if it is by common consent impractical and "outside the current of manifest evolutionary development," then, shorn of its exaggerations, reduced to its essential quality, it is very probably a clear showing forth of what is about to come to birth and condition human life for the next five hundred years. This, I suppose, explains the comprehensive return to Medievalism that, to the scorn of biologists, sociologists and professors of political economy, is flaunting itself before us today, at the hands of a very small minority, in all the categories I have named, as well as in many others besides.
A glance at the diagram will show a curious pattern round about the nodal point. One may say that the reactions are somewhat mixed. Quite so. At this moment we are beaten upon by numberless reforms, both "radical" and "reactionary." Materialism, democracy, rationalism, anarchy contending against Medievalism of twenty sorts, and strange mysticisms out of the East. Which shall we choose, if we choose, and do not content ourselves with an easier inertia that allows nature to take its course? It is simply the question; On which wave will you ride; that which is descending to oblivion or that which has within itself the power and potency to control man's destiny for the next five hundred years?
APPENDIX B
CERTAIN BOOKS SUGGESTED FOR COLLATERAL READING
ADAMS, HENRY Mont Saint-Michel and Chartres.