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Crystals and organisms have this in common: in both the universal formative tendency is unmistakable. But in crystals the tendency is fully realized in the formation of static symmetrical structures, while in organisms the tendency is sustained in a complex system of processes which never attain perfect symmetry, but continue to develop complex process forms. There are thus two ways in which form may persist: by relative isolation from the environment in the stabilization of static form, as in the crystal, and by the development of a characteristic process form in the balance between a complex system and its environment, as in organic processes. Static form persists in crystals, and inside organisms in genes; process form persists in individual organisms and in organic species. The elasticity of the crystal, which tends to restore a distortion, and the self-regulating and regenerative processes of the organism, which tend to compensate any disturbance of the organic process equilibrium, both express the restorative effect of the formative tendency.

The simplicity of the crystal form makes possible complete separation and the establishment of static structures, in certain circumstances; the complexity of the organic hierarchy implies that its characteristic form cannot be separated out in a static symmetry, the organism must remain set in its environment, and can never, while still organic, display complete development of its own formative tendencies. This contrast between crystal growth and organic growth reveals an important difference: the crystal is a separate entity, which so long as it persists, can be considered in relative isolation; the term, crystal, begs no questions, so long as we remember its environment. But the organism is not, while it persists, separable from its environment; its life consists in that inseparability. The terms, organism, organic processes, organic tendencies, beg important questions, and beg them wrongly. Organic tendencies and processes are local and transient components of processes which, if isolated, lead straight back to inorganic, static forms. Life is not autonomous; it is maintained by the influence of the environment.

Anything which facilitates the development of characteristic organic form is called 'proper' to the organism. Organic processes continually acquire forms which are not proper to the organism; organisms develop distortions, fall out of balance, and die. In the case of man, it is evident that organisms may even follow an inner isolating tendency and destroy or damage their own lives, either by suicide or by accepting the dominance of some tendency, altruistic, creative, or maniac, which upsets their own organic balance. In all these cases where the proper developing balance of environment and organism is progressively damaged certain separate processes in the organism develop their own form in a manner prejudicial to the life of the organism. If any separate process in the organism is developed too far, that is, in accordance with the universal form of process towards the static perfection of its own separate form, then it damages life. Such processes are never proper, but this recognition does not imply a moral valuation. Situations can occur in which the only possibility may be a process which is not proper. Death, suicide, madness, and the extreme forms of heroism and genius, are not proper; they express the revolt of the system from the limitations of life, the fulfillment of inner tendencies of the organism at the expense of the vital balance with the environment. The chief task of unitary thought in the organic world is the study of the failure of proper organic development and its interpretation as the consequence of some other overriding process of development. But this can only be approached when unitary thought has already identified some of the proper forms of organic development.

We have already defined structure as an internally developed, symmetrical, static form. 'Organic structure' is a partially developed structure, forming part of the hierarchy of an organism and facilitating a process called its function. 'Organic function' is the process which an organic structure facilitates, and is often also the process by which the structure was developed. Function develops structure, and structure facilitates function, thus furthering its own development. But the use of these terms, and the interpretation of the relation of structure to function, are limited by the fact that they are not sharp or static classifications, but unitary concepts representing local and temporary situations within the whole system of organism and environment. Organic structures are never perfectly symmetrical but are distorted to conform to the system of the organism, just as organic processes are timed to conform to the general process which develops the organic form within its environment.

The partial development of a local organic structure (or process) facilitating a process proper to the organism is called 'differentiation,' and the arrangement of such structures (or processes) so that organic form is developed is called 'integration.' These terms represent two aspects of the 'organization' of organic systems; organization is integrated differentiation. The organization results from the existence in the organism of the ordered system of dominance relations which we have called the hierarchy of the organism.

The organization of every organism is thus largely, if not entirely, hierarchical in form. This hierarchical pattern is most clearly evident in the animal nervous system. The cell nucleus is probably dominant in relation to the processes of the cell, such as cell-division, etc., but definitive knowledge may here be lacking. In the nervous system the brain is dominant in relation to the subordinate nerve ganglia, and these in turn are dominant in relation to the efferent, or outgoing, nerves. Each dominant center in the nervous system is a structure which at appropriate moments facilitates the processes of the parts of the system subordinate to it. Within the whole hierarchy there is at any one time a single dominant process (or system of processes), and this is called the 'organizing process.' In man, the main controlling organ may be the thalamus which directs attention to the processes either of the cortex or of the hypothalamus. The organizing process is the process in the human system which at any moment actually molds the general pattern of behavior and thought. The term, organizing process, is elastic in its application, and may be used either to refer to potentially dominant processes (e.g. of conscious thought in a man walking), or the processes actually dominant in the sense of controlling behavior at a particular moment (e.g. the unconscious neuro-muscular responses).

When the form of any stimulus (either external or internal) is conveyed to and impressed on the dominant organizing processes of an organism, then the 'attention' of the organism is said to be directed to that stimulus. Unitary thought uses the term "attention" where it is necessary to avoid the dualistic implications of "consciousness." Attention is not a unique condition or a form of reality, but a particular relation either between the organism and a part of its environment or between the organism and a process internal to itself. Attention is a relation which implies receptivity in the organism.

In the evolution of the higher mammals, one dominant structure has been of special importance, the 'brain' or superficial cortex. The brain is important because it constitutes a record of the forms of past organizing processes, which facilitates the formation of delayed responses to the environment. The other parts of the central nervous system may be adequate for the repetition of earlier responses, but the operation of the brain, and hence some delay, is necessary for the co-ordination of present stimulus and past experience into a new response. The development of the brain represents the differentiation of a new center of dominance, i.e. of a new controlling organ, not directly related to motor activity but capable of retaining a record of its own states of polarization (i.e. of the forms of past organizing processes) and of forming new responses to new stimuli. The special features of the human brain, which distinguish it from all other systems, are its highly differentiated unity, its great retentivity, and its extensive facilitation of the development of the forms characteristic of the species. These three features are commonly described as the unity of thought, the faculty of memory, and the formative tendency of thought.

We are now in a position to approach the main dualism of European and western thought: the antithesis of matter and mind. In unitary thought these are regarded as names given to aspects of process and the relation of the two has to be found through a unitary interpretation, not of these abstracted nouns, but of the adjectives 'material' and 'mental.' These terms, as used in unitary thought, do not imply any general dualism, because they are defined in relation to one universal form of process. Unitary thought defines "material" as "related to the permanent aspects of process," and "mental" as "related to the facilitation (by a brain) of the formative aspects of process." The essence of "material phenomena" is that they are concerned with conservation or permanence, and of "mental phenomena" that they are concerned with the formative process itself, in those situations where it is facilitated by a brain. Matter is static, self-identical permanence; mind is the formative tendency, highly facilitated by appropriate structures.

But the two terms, material and mental, are not on a par. "Material" refers, in effect, to all the unchanging aspects of process; "mental" does not refer to all the formative aspects, but only to the formative aspects of organic processes in the particular cases where a brain facilitates a delayed response. The instantaneous nervous reaction of a lower ganglion is not a true mental process; the essential marks of a mental process are that it requires time and involves memory. Mental responses are delayed, because the stimulus has to be digested in the brain, i.e. the form of the stimulus has to become part of the record of past organizing processes, and the brain system has to develop the form of the new response. Without this delay and without the operation of the records of the past, no organic process can appropriately be called mental. But mental processes, so defined, include all the processes of emotion, will, and intellect, as well as the unconscious processes which contribute to the general organization of behavior.

We now come to three terms which will be of special importance in our consideration of man, corresponding to animal instinct, animal intelligence, and human intellect. Processes (and behavior) are called 'instinctive' when they are formed by organizing processes resulting from stabilized hereditary forms. In each generation certain hereditary structures and processes are matured as the individual develops, and these result in instinctive forms of behavior. In contrast to these forms, behavior will be called 'intelligent' (in the sense of animal intelligence) when it involves the facilitation by a brain of non-stabilized, i.e. individually learnt, responses to particular situations. The mammals, for example, are capable of learning new methods as the result of the individual finding himself in a new situation. The human intellect is a further development of this faculty of learning, which finally led to the establishment of a social tradition using language. A 'word' is a part of speech, either formal in character or associated with some situation or thing and acting as a symbol for it, and a 'concept' is a generalized verbal symbol. 'Intellectual' will be used to mean "involving verbal symbols" (either spoken, written, or operating without immediate motor activity).

An organizing process in conceptual form is called an 'organizing principle.' When an organizing process in man acquires conceptual form, i.e. is represented in words, it becomes an organizing principle. An organizing principle, being in symbolic conceptual form, can operate either as a silent mental process or as the spoken or written word. The efficacy of organizing principles is determined by their general form, not by their literal content or symbolic meaning. The literal content of a principle may be invalid or meaningless, and yet the principle may be effective if its form corresponds to the form of the organizing processes appropriate in a given situation.

The only other unitary terms necessary for our argument are 'time,' 'space' and 'quantity'; and 'static' and 'process concepts.' The time sequence is the continuity of asymmetrical relations (before and after, earlier and later, etc.) derived from process. The space frame is the field of symmetrical relations derived from persisting structures (relations of physical objects). Quantity is what is measured. Static concepts are timeless concepts, i.e. those not including the asymmetrical time sequence in their reference, and process concepts are time-like concepts, which refer to the time sequence. The poverty of language in process concepts compels unitary thought to use "process" both as noun and adjective. Formation, growth, development, destruction, decay are process concepts; god, idea, number, matter, energy, are static concepts lacking the asymmetry of the time sequence and implying permanence.

At the first hearing of a work by a new composer the strange idiom may disturb or stimulate our emotions, but neither the unity nor the detail can be clear at once. At most we may have the vague sense of a new language seeking to communicate a fresh experience of truth. This brief outline of unitary thought is intended to promote this first stirring of a new order within the brain. If we change the metaphor to present another aspect, the thirty years war of '14-'44 has been the insulin shock applied to the split mind of western man, the fever is now subsiding, and here is one of the many forms of the regenerative process: the growth of a form of thought adapted to give man mastery of himself, by restoring the unity of thought and nature.

Mental processes are a part of nature, the part in which, above all, nature facilitates her own development. In the processes of thought certain components of the processes of nature work out their own development at lightning speed, far more swiftly than the corresponding, but more complex, processes in the rest of nature. In the symbolic processes of thought, that is, in the changing states of polarization in the brain, nature in man is at work facilitating the development of her own processes in man. But nature is no sovereign or arbitrary power, no goddess created by man to compensate his own ignorance. Nature, in unitary thought, is the comprehensive unity of process. To say that nature is at work in man means only that there is no division between subject and object or between thought and matter. As we have seen, process has a self-developing property; structures are formed which facilitate the further development of process. The human mind is the sensitive, elastic, and formative organ through which the organic processes in man record and facilitate their own development.

But while thought is a part of nature, a system of thought is also like a pattern through which nature is viewed. If the general scheme of the pattern is wrong, we see confusion in place of the general scheme of nature, even though the pattern may reveal some special regularities. But if the pattern is right the general scheme of nature is then unmistakable, though close attention may be necessary to discern the fine detail. Even if the pattern is only right in certain respects, it will to that extent bring out the true form of nature. The unitary method of thought has this natural magic; it throws immediate light on certain aspects of the general arrangement of nature. It leads at once to simple universal principles, as relevant to man as to the rest of nature. Three of these refer to economy, waste, and novelty.

Nature is as sparing in the use of general forms as she is wasteful of individual forms: from one universal tendency she produces all the world's variety. From this profound economy arises the conservatism of nature. This is expressed in the conservation of matter and energy, which are thus licensed to masquerade as the basis of the general order; in the unchanging persistence of the tendencies and forms of systems, until circumstance intervenes. Economy, conservation, inertia, and conservatism mark the dominance of the one tendency.

But circumstance is arbitrary in the sense that it bears no necessary relation to the system whose fate it determines. Nature is a unity in its form of process, but it is not a coherent unity. The general order which exists does not ensure the permanence of harmony. Man, in his immaturity, demanded this comforting coherence and called it god. But there is no god. The individual is at the mercy of what he calls chance; a meaningless clash may frustrate the culmination of long-developed tendencies. The fate of every individual is unknown. Nature has no piety towards herself; in the relentless play of circumstance, what has been perfect does not remain so. Perpetual wastage marks the dominance of circumstance.

Yet when neither tendency nor circumstance is dominant but the two are in balance, novelty is born from their interplay. Tendency is conservative of past forms, and circumstance may appear to be formless, but their balanced interplay is an inexhaustible source of novel forms. When circumstance modifies a system without destroying it, the result is a new system revealing the same universal tendency in a new pattern. Novelty always has this dual character: as a modification of the old it echoes the tested forms of the past, but as a response to a new situation it is alien to the past. The novelty inherent in the separation of unitary thought out of the earlier tradition is thus like a watershed linking and separating the climates of two worlds.

Unitary thought postulates a unity of the general form of process, but it emphasizes the uncertainty of any particular development. It asserts: form develops, when circumstances permit. It is appropriate that a fundamental postulate should consist of two parts, the first claiming knowledge, the second admitting ignorance. When thought passes from universal to particular facts, knowledge becomes conditional. It has to distinguish this system here, whose tendency may be known, from the rest of nature, whose complexity is beyond knowledge. In doing so it creates the cardinal duality of thought which became a virulent dualism distorting knowledge and issuing finally in the destructive dissociation of western man.

It is necessary to distinguish between the duality which is inherent in the arrangement of things, and the dualism of behavior and thought which so easily results from it. In unitary thought the term "duality" is used for all dual aspects of nature, and "dualism" for a duality whose two aspects are incompatible. Nature everywhere has the same general form, but dual aspects arise as soon as distinctions are made. The primary duality from which all others spring is the separation of this system here and the rest of nature, of this particular process and its whole environment. There is nothing incompatible about this duality, which is inherent in any world which can be conceived. But from it arise all the harsh intellectual dualisms which separate what is not separated in nature. The most important of these are the separation of absolute time and space, of the preservation of forms through time and the extension of forms in space, of organic process forms and static material forms, and of mental and material processes. None of these categories are absolute; each refers merely to an aspect of a unitary process.

One example is of special importance. The cardinal duality expresses itself in a dual development of the central nervous system which, in intellectual man, has broken out as a damaging dualism. We have seen that the formative process has the property of forming structures which facilitate the development of the process. Such structures tend to fall into two classes, corresponding to the preservation of forms through time and the extension of forms in space. In the development of the central nervous system, the organic structures in question are the retentive nerve masses of the brain and the conducting fibers of the sensorimotor system. The brain retains records of form, while the nerves transmit the forms of stimuli through space. This differentiation of contrasted structures, each facilitating one aspect of development, has far-going consequences. As the nervous system developed in the higher mammals, the nerves conducted more quickly and the brain became more retentive, the organism being thus better linked both to environment and to its own past. This specialization of function was controlled by the formative tendencies of the dominant organizing processes (in the brain and elsewhere) so that the two types of structure co-operated, the interaction of past records and present stimuli producing new responses.

But the divergent tendency of the specialized structures constituted an organic weakness, which sooner or later was bound to make trouble, as it did finally in intellectual man. Each structure tended to dominate the system. The higher brain, with its organized record of the past, tended to organize behavior by facilitating the deliberate repetition of processes which had successfully organized behavior in the past. But the afferent nerves, perpetually drawing the attention of the individual to present stimuli, tended to produce swift responses and to challenge the control of the deliberating head. A proper differentiation of the nervous system thus was converted into the conflict of cortex and hypothalamus, of reason and instinct, of slow deliberate responses based on continuity with the rationally organized experience of the past and immediate instinctive responses to present situations. Yet in man instinct plays a reduced role. If certain special conditions had not prejudiced the integrity of the organizing processes, this duality in the nervous system might never have become the dualism which lies so deep in the experience of European man. The chapters which follow tell the story of the appearance, persistence, and final disappearance of those conditions, and of the resulting emergence, dominance, and disintegration of European and western man.




III

The Characteristics of Man

The aim of unitary thought is not only to aid the discovery of new truth but also to reorganize existing knowledge so as to increase understanding. The unitary view of nature leads at once to a unitary conception of man. From the fact that man is an organic species unitary thought can draw conclusions which go beyond the uncertainties of contemporary thought. Moreover, the fact that man is distinguished from all other species in certain ways permits further conclusions which throw light on the place of man in nature.

The most general features of the unitary conception of man arise from the general nature of unitary thought. As a unitary system, the normal state of man is one of integration marked by the development of one characteristic form, and the breakdown of this integration is to be interpreted as the result of special circumstances. I shall therefore develop the unitary picture of man by considering first the most general characteristics of homo sapiens, as a species displaying normal organic integration. The purpose of this general description is to provide a frame within which the various special types of man may find their place. Here there is only occasion to consider one such type. I shall not refer to the different primitive civilizations, or the types that developed in Asia, Africa, and the Americas before Europe became the leader of all. The only type dealt with here is European man. This is not an arbitrary choice; Europe and the West, in spite of all their failures, hold the clue to the further development of man. The structure which marks European man, though developed furthest in Europe owing to special geographical conditions, is the expression of an organic and physiological tendency common to all types of man. More can be gained from a study of the strength and weakness of European man than from any other sub-species of the race.

This chapter therefore deals with the characteristics of man in two parts: first, the normal or general integration, and second, the special tendency to disintegration or dissociation, which is furthest developed in European man. A study of the basis and limits of harmony is followed by an analysis of the most common form of disharmony. Organic integration is the dominant fact, disintegration can only be temporary if a species is to survive. Unitary thought uses the general postulate of integration to draw attention to the special factors which gave rise to the dissociation of European man.

In regarding man as an organic species we imply that the human race is continuous with organic nature and that it is nevertheless distinguished from other organisms. The continuity means that there has been an unbroken chain of descent from earlier and simpler organisms. On the other hand the fact that man is a species distinct from other species means that fertilization with neighboring types of animals has ceased for some time and that the human group has established itself as a separate developing entity with its own distinguishing characteristics.

This much is implied in the current conception of man as an organic species, but unitary thought can go further. The continuity of man with organic nature is not merely one of descent. Man shares the special form of the universal formative process which is common to all organisms, and herein lies the root of his unity with the rest of organic nature. While life is maintained, the component processes in man never attain the relative isolation and static perfection of inorganic processes; the human process consists in the continued development of process forms. The individual may seek, or believe that he seeks, independence, permanence, or perfection, but that is only through his failure to recognize and accept his actual situation. As an organic system man can never achieve more than a continuing development in response to his environment. The factor which stabilizes and harmonizes all the component processes in the individual and in society is not permanence but development.

An organic system is like a fountain balanced upon a pyramid of fountains; if the process of development ceases at any point, the stability of the whole is prejudiced. The ideal of perfection is an impostor; to claim it is to deny further growth. Man's yearning for the absolute expresses itself in the approach to perfection of his greatest achievements in thought and art, in which the formative tendency transcends the processes of organic adaptation. In old age the individual may seek to live in a world of eternal truth, but this withdrawn harmony is a transition back to the inanimate. Human personality cannot in general be integrated through the ideal of a static perfection, for organic systems are limited to the development of process forms. We have seen that these process forms are not restricted to the maintenance and development of life. They may result in a development that carries with it the denial or destruction of life. But they can never separate themselves from the environment and so achieve the appearance of a static perfection without forfeiting the organic balance which can only be maintained as the accompaniment of continued development.

These conclusions follow from the unitary conception of the organism. But the human species is distinguished by certain special capacities. We must now examine these and see what additional light is thrown on them by unitary thought.

Homo saplens is a member of the higher primates in which certain special faculties, such as high manual dexterity combined with gregarious habits, have made possible the use of tools and a unique development of the art of communication by means of speech and script. The gradual separation of the symbolism of language from the organic situations which it represents, and the subsequent refinement of conceptual thought, have enabled the human individual to communicate not only with his contemporaries, but also with subsequent generations. Animals call to one another, and mammals communicate to their young a tradition of forms of behavior which are not instinctive and have to be learnt. From such origins in the intelligence and mimicry of mammals man has developed the technique of speech and the silent symbolisms of script and of thought, which in turn have made possible the progressive accumulation of a conceptually organized social tradition and the ability to reason and to predict. Man dominates nature because he has developed a brain which can not only preserve and organize his experience but also communicate it to his kin.

These faculties arise from a special development of the central nervous system in man. We have referred to the fact that the mammalian nervous system developed in two directions, the nerves and the brain being adapted respectively to the transmission and the recording of forms, though this dual specialization remained subject to dominant processes which co-ordinated behavior as a whole. This specialization is already marked in the other mammals, but in man it is carried further by the greatly increased retentive power of the brain which allows the dominant organizing process more time in which to develop new fusions of past and present experience. The retentivity and the plasticity of the human brain respectively enable it to record stimuli and to mold from them new patterns of response to an extent far surpassing the elementary adaptations of animal intelligence. Moreover, the high sensitiveness of the human system, the slow maturing of the young, and the gregarious habits of the species gave the art of communication a unique status in man.

The key to this development of human faculties lay in the perfecting and stabilizing of the forms of speech and thought by a process of separation and clarification, followed by the spreading of the stabilized forms. Primitive cries were gradually separated from their context and became symbols for particular situations. The spoken word was eventually recorded in script and so developed into a concept whose form guided the unspoken processes of thought. The formative processes in the brain are often slow compared with the transmissive processes of the nerves, and the cerebral cortex developed as a new organ through which the residues left over from immediate responses could be gradually absorbed into the organized record of the brain and so finally lead to a more complete delayed response. The extension of this slow process, in which the forms of experience are assimilated, is a novel development in man. Nerve signals are transmitted in a fraction of a second; mammalian intelligence operates in seconds at most; but in the human system hours or even years may pass before the fusion of some unusual stimulus with the conceptually organized record of the past is completed and prepared for expression in action. The extension of the time component of human mental processes is of great importance. In his immediate reactions to physical stimuli and quick instinctive responses one man may be much like another, and even behave like his close neighbors in the animal world. It is only in the long-delayed deliberate responses that there is scope for the immense elaboration and variety of individual behavior characteristic of man.

The original appearance of man was made possible by gradual evolutionary changes in the hereditary constitution. But the relatively rapid development of man during, say, the last ten thousand years has been due to a cumulative modification of the social environment of each maturing generation rather than to evolutionary changes in the hereditary constitution. Every feature in an adult is the product of a particular heredity matured in a particular environment, and neither heredity nor environment can be treated as the sole cause of a given adult feature. But differences in adult types may be ascribed to differences in heredity, or in environment, or in both. The rapid development of adult man in recent millennia has been due mainly to the influence of a progressively changing social environment on the young of each successive generation, rather than to changes in heredity.

Ten thousand years represents only some four hundred generations, a small fraction of the evolutionary history of most species measured in generations, and the greater part of human history lies within the last half of this period. It is improbable that selective evolution, even under the special conditions of civilized life, has greatly modified the average hereditary constitution in so short a time. This means that the environment of the embryo has almost certainly also changed little, the physiology of the womb having remained practically constant during these five thousand years. The climatic or other changes which have occurred in the postnatal physical environment cannot be regarded as responsible for the rapid progressive changes in the speech and thought of adult man. We are therefore left with the changes in the human environment of the developing child as the progressive factor responsible for the intellectual development of man.

There is little doubt that the source of human development in this period has been the steady accumulation of a social tradition of modes of behavior, and of speech, script, and thought. New forms of behavior and new methods of organizing behavior are perpetually arising in individuals; some of them become stabilized and enrich the social tradition. The community thus brings to each successive generation a progressive inheritance expressed in habit, speech, and script. These three elements make up a developing environment which brings out further capacities in successive generations from a relatively constant heredity. Though there have been local reversals and periods of regression, the potentialities of each successive generation have in general been matured by a further-developed social environment; the novelties produced by each generation thus tend to surpass those of the last and the tradition is further enriched. This steady accumulation of new patterns of behavior and thought may at any time be interrupted, but man is what he is today because this process has been maintained through at least the last five thousand years. The cycles of past civilizations have been set within this general trend which has made man supreme and will maintain his supremacy as long as it continues.

There are two aspects, the formative and the conservative, to this process of the self-development of man, and these correspond broadly to the roles of the individual and of the community. The first step in the development of new forms occurs in the individual, for though the inner tendency of the individual man is conservative, novelty arises from his response to fresh circumstances, new forms of thought and behavior being developed to their final expression in single brains. The individual is formative, but his life is short. On the other hand the community tradition is conservative and retains for long periods the records of all that it has absorbed from individuals. Social development thus depends on the interplay of the two. The individual forms the new and enriches the tradition; the tradition molds and matures the individual and enables him to carry the process further. The failure of the individual to maintain and further the tradition, or of the tradition of any community to organize the life of its members, represents an aberration from the proper relation which ultimately spells the collapse of the community.

This social development of man is supported by a special characteristic in which he surpasses all other species, the extreme variability of the individual members of the species. This characteristic lies so deep in the development of man that it cannot be treated as either cause or effect. It is evidenced in the wide range of intermarriage between the different geographical branches of the species; in the considerable lack of uniformity in man's hereditary constitution; in the varying influences of a rapidly changing and cumulative social tradition; in his glandular, neural, and mental plasticity; and finally, in his love of travel. The great diversity of heredity and environment which man enjoys is the source of his rapid development.

Such is the orthodox conception of the human species. Unitary thought accepts this conception and strengthens it by giving precision to the vague idea of development. The long-term evolution of the species by selective modification of the hereditary constitution is separated from the more rapid process of the development of the potentialities of human heredity by a developing social tradition. The former process is set on one side for later consideration, while the latter is treated as an example of the universal formative process. Moreover we saw that all formative processes are self-developing in the sense that within an appropriate environment they tend to form structures which facilitate the further development of the process. This property of self-development (in a suitable environment) finds its fullest expression in man. By recognizing this supreme human characteristic as the furthest development of a property potentially present in all processes, unitary thought establishes man in his correct place in the system of nature. In man the formative property of all process finds its fullest development; therein lies the secret of his dominance.

The dominance of man over the rest of nature is a direct expression of the characteristics of the process of development, as it has been here defined. The human system contains a special organ, the brain, which facilitates the development of organic process forms to a greater degree than any other organ or structure in the whole of organic nature. In the case of man the organic process forms in question are all the forms of human life, the entire system of behavior and communication which make up the social tradition. The human brain facilitates the development of the forms of human life, firstly, by separating them out and clarifying them in the symbolic forms of thought (which, however, being organic can never be wholly isolated from their matrix); secondly, by preserving them more efficiently through an improved faculty of memory; and thirdly, by extending them further, both in more comprehensive delayed responses to the environment and through their symbolic communication to others. Facilitation consists in the furthering of the development and extension of forms, and the facilitation of the proper forms of human life implies the heightening of the dominance of man over his environment. Man dominates nature because his brain is the most powerful facilitating structure yet developed.

Unitary thought thus leads to conclusions concerning man, which follow from its postulate regarding nature as a whole. If the method is now appropriate, then certain truths can be recognized, and mankind cannot any more neglect them without thwarting its own development than it can prematurely go beyond them without loss of continuity with its past. The importance of these conclusions justifies their repetition here.

Man is one with nature as an expression of the universal formative process, and one with organic nature as an expression of a formative process continually developing its own process forms but never attaining static perfection. Man is supreme in nature because his organic structure permits the highest facilitation of the development of form, and therefore gives him the greatest dominance over the environment. Man is unitary as the expression of a form of process which is not subject to any fundamental division which must disrupt organic integration. Man is transient; for the individual nothing is certain but his ultimate death. Man exists and develops as part of a wider system; when the environment is no longer appropriate, the internal processes of his system follow out their own courses and lead back to the static structures of the inanimate world. Man is inseparable from nature, and can only be understood as part of the whole system of nature. Both the behavior of the individual and the trend of history have to be interpreted, not as the consequence of special agencies, but as particular examples of the universal formative process.



Hitherto we have been concerned with the unitary conception of man in general. But this picture must be supplemented by a description of European man, who reveals in a marked form a general tendency latent in all groups of the species. This is the tendency to lose proper organic integration, and its presence in the organism man is a paradox calling for explanation.

In the next chapter I shall deal with the historical process by which this came about. Here we must consider how such loss of integration is possible. Unitary thought starts with the positive affirmation that every system tends to develop its characteristic form. Within that single form there may be dual aspects, and so long as these do not disturb the single form they will be called a duality. But if the characteristic form fails to develop the duality has become a dualism. In every dualism unitary thought looks for the original duality. The problem is simple: if there is continuity in nature, the dualism in contemporary civilized man must be the result of some duality which can be traced back to its ultimate source.

In the previous chapter we saw that the tendency of systems to preserve their form through time and to extend it through space is reflected in the dual development of the nervous system to preserve records of form and transmit signals of form. The recording faculties of the brain tend to emphasize the records of the past, while the transmissive processes of the nerves link the organism with the challenges of its present environment. There thus develops a tendency for systems of deliberate behavior, which make greater use of the organized records of the past, to separate themselves from the immediate responses in which the higher faculties of the brain are not involved. This dual specialization is useful and does not damage the integrity of the organism, so long as the operation of these two partial functions is kept in balance by the regulative processes. So long as the self-regulation of the organism allows the influence of past records and of present stimuli to operate only at the appropriate moments, the organic balance is maintained and the dual specialization assists the development of characteristic form.

In the early stages of the development of this dual specialization the contrast between the two modes was not excessive and the balance was adequately maintained. But the two aspects of the functioning of the nervous system express tendencies which, though not incompatible, tend to diverge when circumstances lessen the efficacy of the process which should co-ordinate them. The first period of the development of the human intellect was marked by such an adverse circumstance. While the nerves kept man in contact with the changing processes around him, the organized record in the brain retained clearest impressions of static or recurrent situations, or of the static aspects of changing situations. Though nature is organized as a system of formative processes, systematic thought had first to be organized as a system of static concepts. Gradually the contrast of the two functions produced an organic lesion; deliberate behavior was organized by the use of static concepts, while spontaneous behavior continued to express a formative process; that special part of nature which we call thought thus became alien in form to the rest of nature; there grew up a disjunction between the organization of thought and the organization of nature. Nature displays everywhere the asymmetry of a process in which earlier and later states show characteristic differences, but the earliest systematically organized sets of verbal symbols lacked this asymmetry and referred to static properties which remain unchanged or recur in an unchanged form, as though isolated from the process around them.

This is the curse laid on homo sapiens: as intellectual man he could not escape this dualism until it had exhausted itself. The history of European man is the working out of this fate. The curse has fallen most heavily on the male, for the special functions of woman link her thought more closely to those organic processes which maintain the animal harmony. Woman tends to think in terms of the individual process, man at first in terms of static abstractions. Intellectual man had no choice but to follow the path which facilitated the development of his faculty of thought, and thought could only clarify itself by separating out static concepts which, in becoming static, ceased to conform either to their organic matrix or to the forms of nature. This tendency to develop sharp static concepts was necessary for the recording and organizing intellect at that stage, and yet the separation of static forms corresponds to the development of non-organic forms and is essentially alien to organic development. In life, development is primary and permanence secondary, but in the history of thought permanence has to be understood before development. From this paradox arises the metaphysical confusion and the spiritual tragedy of intellectual man. Like a new limb which has to grow through an initial phase of fundamental maladjustment, thought had to develop first along a path in conformity with inorganic rather than with organic processes, a path which it must retrace if organic harmony is to be restored.

In the evolution of thought the conception of persisting things took root long before the conception of a process of development could acquire any clear meaning. As language developed and primitive cries and chants gradually shaped themselves into the grammar of words, the noun, first as the symbol of a situation and later as the name of a persisting thing or class of things, became the sovereign part of speech. Moreover we shall see that as man's attention was increasingly drawn to the processes occurring in his own person, he began in his thought to separate himself, the persisting subject, from the changing world around. These two developments are aspects of a single situation. The separation of the noun from the matrix of sounds which preceded grammatical speech, and of the subject from the changing pattern of relations which make up its life, marked a decisive step along the path which led to dominance over nature at the cost of an inner maladaptation. The separation of the static concept and of the persisting subject facilitated the development of man and therefore was itself facilitated and developed further until that inner lesion could be tolerated no longer.

Unitary thought regards this condition as a dislocation of the dominant organizing processes in the human system, necessarily affecting in some degree all the internal processes and the external behavior of the individual. But until the unitary language is more mature this dislocation can best be discussed in terms of the separate aspects through which it is revealed: thought, emotion, and behavior. Of these three it is in thought that the disintegration is most evident.

The noun is not necessarily static. The terms: process, development, decay, birth, and death, represent forms of change which contain the asymmetry of earlier and later states, and do not, like static concepts, refer to the persistence of an unchanging property. Yet at the beginnings of systematic thought a vague idea could only be developed into a precise concept if a noun could be formed which did not involve this asymmetry. Time-like conceptions remained vague and general, while static or space-like nouns became reliable tools for systematic thought. But the latter could not represent the organization of nature as a system of processes.

Thus when primitive man began to develop rational systematic thought, static nouns formed the primary tools of thought, while the characteristics of process were represented only by vague implications. But any particular group of static nouns could represent only the apparently permanent aspects of a particular process and had to be supplemented by a complementary group referring to the process aspects. For example, at one stage of thought, the group of inert material things had to be supplemented by a group of conscious spirits capable of purposive action. Similarly during the development of scientific thought the permanent spatial frame had to be supplemented by pure duration.

These considerations are essential to the understanding of any type of highly developed civilized man, and in particular of European man. Intellectual dualisms constitute a biological maladaptation, and their roots lie in an organic situation beneath the level of systematic thought and influence every aspect of behavior. This separation of static and process concepts is the source of all intellectual dualisms. On the one hand there are the static concepts, developed first and capable of systematic and precise formulation. On the other hand the process concepts, remaining relatively vague and formless, but accepted as referring to the asymmetry of the time sequence and therefore expressing a fact central to all human experience though relatively neglected by systematic thought.

The 'object set' in 'space' and formed of 'matter' follows the 'necessity' of 'quantitative law.' Here is the world of permanence, precision, and clarity. With these instruments man emancipates himself from his treacherous subjectivity. He hypostatizes, or establishes as real entities, the permanent features which he has abstracted from process, dividing nature in order to master it.

But man cannot think by these alone. The 'subject' experiences 'memory' in 'time' and the 'freedom' of his 'purposive will.' In these conceptions man struggles to express the central fact neglected in the static picture. He fails because a dualistic language cannot express the true form of his unity with the processes of nature.

The first set of concepts is symbolized in the concept of 'quantity.' This represents the extreme of conceptual precision, the complete separation of symmetry and permanence from the general process, or the isolation of a closed cycle. The complementary set is epitomized in the concept of 'conscious purpose,' in which man's thought -- still betraying its secret desire for permanence -- seeks to cast a net of preconceived aims and permanent ideals over the elusive process of development. Thus the immature mind, unable to escape its own prejudice in favor of permanence even in approaching the neglected process aspect of experience, fails to recognize the actual form of the process of development and is condemned to struggle in the strait jacket of its dualisms: subject/object, time/space, spirit/matter, freedom/necessity, free will/law. The truth, which must be single, is ridden with contradiction. Man cannot think where he is, for he has created two worlds from one.

Static concepts describe forms which can be exactly defined because they are either unchanging or periodic, while the complementary set attempts to represent aspects of process, but fails to identify their specific form. Each set is degenerate, in the sense that it represents only one aspect of the phenomenon: precise form without the asymmetry of process, or the asymmetry of process without specific form. This division of the proper unity of thought into two incompatible tendencies, neither of which is adequate, runs through European history from the beginnings of systematic thought to the present frustration of the proper development of man. The paradox of a mechanical civilization lacking a co-ordinating tendency, with the sense of a great potential development ahead but without any clear conception of its form, reflects this basic dichotomy of thought.

We must now turn to consider how the inner dislocation which is expressed in this intellectual dualism reveals itself in behavior. If a stimulus calls out from an animal a particular instinctive pattern of behavior, such as that of sex, hunger, or attack, this pattern tends to inhibit attention to other stimuli, so that one instinct dominates at a time and co-ordination is maintained. This general co-ordination is evidenced in the higher animals by intelligent adaptations to novel situations, and by forms of behavior which are learnt by mimicry and form part of an animal tradition handed down from parent to offspring. Such behavior is co-ordinated by the dominance of general tendencies which, by facilitation and inhibition, control all the local processes and functions of the organism.

But in thinking man, as we have already seen, the specialization of the recording brain and the development of long-delayed deliberate responses presents a definite challenge to the demands of neutrally transmitted stimuli on the attention of the organism. Two general types of behavior gradually separate out. On the one hand the retention of records in the cerebral cortex permits the slow digestion of experience; the establishment of systems of long-delayed responses; the development of verbal symbols, of deliberate behavior, and of the intellectual life. On the other hand the nervous transmission of stimuli maintains a perpetual call to action, stimulates immediate responses and the patterns of instinctive and spontaneous behavior. The more plastic human behavior becomes and the less absolute the dominance of specialized instincts, the greater the likelihood of clash between the two tendencies leading respectively to deliberate action and to immediate response. Moreover as the intellect extends its scope it tends to dominate the entire system and to force to one side, and in doing so to distort, the forms of spontaneous behavior. Because the immature intellect has a static prejudice and is therefore partially divorced from the processes of the organism, it cannot itself provide a general co-ordination capable of uniting deliberate and spontaneous behavior. Conscious and unconscious, reason and instinct, are divorced, with consequent mutual distortion.

It is important to see this process in its true biological proportions. It had little or nothing to do with changes in the hereditary constitution. The process expressed a dual tendency latent in the physiological organization of every individual, a tendency which was likely ultimately to endanger the integrity of the organism, though it was temporarily favorable to physical survival. But it was the influence of an immature and dualistic tradition which developed this divergent tendency into the dislocation which ultimately became the dominant characteristic of European civilization. The conflict between spontaneous and deliberate behavior would never have represented more than a normal difficulty of choice had the influence of the social tradition been favorable to the maintenance of the overriding co-ordination.

But the trouble had penetrated the social tradition in the form of the fundamental dualism of thought which we have just analyzed, and each maturing generation, instead of being helped by the social tradition to maintain its integrity, had impressed on it the doctrine of an absolute division running through nature and human nature. The accumulated results of this dual tendency of thought had hardened into a metaphysical dualism which reinforced the tendency for conflict to develop between deliberate and spontaneous behavior. In the more superficial aspects of religion and morals, the dualistic influence of the social tradition has been obvious in Europe and the West. But more important is the pervasive influence of this double fact: in every young person there are latent the dual tendencies of the deliberate and the spontaneous life, and in a civilization using static concepts this duality, harmless in itself, tends to be aggravated by the corresponding dualism in the tradition into a conflict of incompatibles. This division runs far beyond the field of conscious ethics, since it affects the entire organization of behavior in a civilized society suffering from this condition. In order to emphasize both the organic root of this disharmony and the fact that it is not characteristic of all types of men, or even of all civilizations, I shall call this condition the 'European dissociation.'

The term dissociation is here used for a condition in which the organizing processes in an individual fail to develop one characteristic form, and two or more mutually incompatible systems of behavior compete for control. The criterion which distinguishes dissociated from integrated behavior is that the former tends to stabilize two or more incompatible and distorted forms of behavior, while the latter tends to develop a unitary form. A developed dissociation implies disorganization of behavior, emotional conflict, and intellectual dualism. If a dissociation becomes part of the social tradition of a civilization it tends to impress itself on all individuals and thus becomes a characteristic mark of a given type of adult man. In less robust individuals it reveals the main features of a civilization in psychopathic forms such as obsessions and compulsion neuroses. In healthy individuals who are little affected by the tradition it may be scarcely noticeable. But none wholly escape its influence.

It is not possible to consider here the degree to which other civilizations have maintained a proper organic harmony, or the form of their dissociation; we are concerned only with the European dissociation. This is a particular form of disintegration of the organizing processes in the individual which, though arising from a tendency latent in a physiological characteristic common to all races, attained its most marked form in the European and western peoples during the period from around 500 B.C. until the present time. During these two and a half millennia this dissociation became a permanent element in the European tradition and the distinguishing mark of European and western man. Its origin lay deep in the nature of the art of communication through which alone the human stock has realized something of its potentialities. The demands of communication led man first to emphasize permanent elements, but man, like nature, is a system of processes. This inescapable contrast prejudiced organic harmony. The whole-natured behavior of primitive and ancient man broke up into two ultimately incompatible systems, neither of which could employ the entire human being: the system of spontaneous behavior, of immediate responses to present situations, relatively unaffected by the rational organization of past experience; and the system of deliberate behavior, of delayed responses based on the systematized experience of the past to the relative neglect of present stimuli. Both modes are distortions of properly integrated behavior; the one integrates present stimuli but neglects the past, while the other integrates past records but is relatively blind to the present. They respectively express the physiological dominance of the instinctive centers connected with the hypothalamus and of the organizing records of the cerebral cortex. In the European dissociation reason and instinct are at war.

The existence of this conflict, not the dominance of either tendency, is the mark of the European dissociation. From a limited point of view the European tradition expresses the claim of reason to supremacy over man's instinctive tendencies. But the claim was only partially realized, and the determining factor in the tradition, beneath its apparent content, is the form of the conscious conflict, and beneath the conscious conflict, the form of the underlying dualism in the organizing processes. Different communities worked this out in different manners: by the temporary dominance of religious, moral, or ethical disciplines over the instinctive tendencies, interrupted often by reversals into the opposite state; by a relatively balanced dualistic mode distorted by the repressed conflict; or by a continual oscillation from religious, rational, or merely industrious asceticism to the extreme of an equally distorted sensuality. These different modes are all evidence of the same underlying dissociation.

It is not possible here to contrast European man and other types, though this description would acquire more significance as part of a comparative anthropology. The characteristics just described may not be evident in the lives of the majority of Europeans unless a standard has been set by the examination of the startlingly different characteristics displayed by other societies. The concept "human nature" is a trap set by the unconscious in its attempt to resist change, and only a study of the contrasted patterns of culture of different past and present communities can reveal the varied potentialities of the human stock. Against such a background European and western man stands out as a highly developed but bizarre distortion of the human animal. But it is not necessary even to go beyond Europe to learn what Europe is. Genius is a blend of poverty and riches; lacking the satisfying adaptation of the common man, genius explores to the limit some aspect of the tradition in order to compensate his need. Often genius is the tradition-obsessed man, and his emotions, his thought, and his behavior sometimes present -- in Europe at least -- an exaggeration of the general dissociation to the point of parody. European genius, religious, intellectual, artistic, or practical, provides ample evidence of the dissociation. The exceptions are not representative Europeans; they stand for some more permanent or universal kind of man.

But the dissociation is held in check by the far-reaching regenerative capacity of the human system. The regulative processes in every organism tend to restore damaged organic forms, and the capacity for healing extends also to distortions of the specifically human faculties. The tendency to dissociation is resisted by a tendency for the organizing processes to recover proper control; circumstances determine which tendency dominates. But the damage done to an individual by a distorted tradition can only be repaired by the influence of others; the individual cannot cure himself of a distortion which is of social origin. Mutual aid is indispensable and one kind of person may complement or repair the deficiencies of another kind.

It is here that the relations of the sexes played a special role in European and western society. We are concerned now, as throughout this study, with European and western man as influenced by the tradition and the following remarks refer to the dominant types which gave Europe its stamp. The European dissociation is primarily a male distortion, and man has the opportunity of recovery, or at least of compensation, through woman. This regenerative opportunity lies deeper than the innocent sentimentalism of early romantic love, and even than the deeper awareness of later attachments. It operates on every level of the human being from the glandular stimulation of the thalamus to the formative power of the comprehensive Eros and the interplay of family life. Under the influence of Eros man becomes malleable and offers the regenerative processes their supreme opportunity. But these processes failed to save the tradition and in late European man we find the dissociation breaking out in a sick romanticism which can no longer hide the cruelty of the spirit towards the flesh.

The characteristic variability of the human species refutes every sharp classification, yet in organically normal individuals there is a tendency for the two sexes to diverge into complementary types. Man is primarily concerned with specialization to master circumstance, woman with the inner continuity of process. Her organic course is marked by a finite rhythm of a few hundred opportunities. If she misses them all, some organs will never mature and she must turn her energies elsewhere. She therefore knows the value of time, and can only at her peril neglect the present stimulus for the long deliberation. Her thought is therefore normally in concrete process forms, her experience of antagonistic tendencies in her own nature less than that of man, her system closer to the permanent organic rhythms.



This brief outline of the unitary conception of man will be developed further as regards European man and unitary man in the chapters that follow. But one difference between the traditional and the unitary view has still to be made clear. The traditional view of man ascribed human behavior to various causes, material or mental, conscious or unconscious, self-seeking or altruistic. But in the unitary view the processes of the human system are all of one general form and cannot be isolated and ascribed to such separate causes. These processes, including the general behavior of the individual, develop as one system and cannot be split into parts attributable to the agency of separate causes. Understanding of the human system is not to be reached by the search for causes, but by tracing the complex hierarchy of formative processes of which it is constituted. These processes require no cause. It may be convenient sometimes to suggest that the universal formative process expresses itself in a particular type of behavior, but this only implies that such behavior displays the characteristics of a formative process. Since development is the general form of process, development can have no cause. That is just how nature and man are. It therefore becomes of importance to understand the relation of the various traditional causes of human action to the unitary process which is to be substituted for them.

The new attitude implies a far-reaching change in the interpretation of man. European languages in general begin with a subject-noun whose action is expressed in an active verb. Some apparently permanent element is separated from the general process, treated as an entity, and endowed with active responsibility for a given occurrence. This procedure is so paradoxical that only long acquaintance with it conceals its absurdity. For example, "consciousness" is separated from natural processes; it would seem for the very object of serving as an agent to influence them. Similarly the concept of matter or substance is abstracted from process, and "material agencies" are then made responsible for the processes of nature and of history, though by its definition matter lacks any formative property. These difficulties arise because since the beginnings of systematic thought it has been customary to think, and to build sentences, in terms of permanent entities which are imagined as engaged in some action, often directed towards some other entity.

But such isolation of entities cannot aid in the interpretation of any process which, like development, displays an asymmetry in time; what is static cannot account for process. Since nature, and human nature, are systems of processes, all that we can do, and all that we need to do, is to trace their form. We shall find special correlations, for example in the development of an incompatible dualism from some earlier duality, and the earlier form may be treated as the cause of the later form. But if process is of one general form, it is meaningless to assert that human behavior has any special cause, such as either consciousness or material agencies. Distortions of form may be traced back to earlier distortions, which may be regarded as causing them, but the general form of process has no cause. It is the morphology, or sequence of developing forms, of social history and of individual behavior which must be identified if human behavior is to be understood.

As we have seen, unitary thought rejects the dualistic implications of the conception of consciousness, and suggests that the valuable element in it is the reference to a relation of attention between the organism and a particular external or internal stimulus. Though a given stimulus may leave a permanent impress on the processes of the human system, attention to it is always transient. Nothing ever remains continuously "in consciousness." It is therefore wrong to isolate those transient moments of attention to particular forms, to endow them with a special metaphysical status as a "state of consciousness," and then to ascribe to consciousness the supreme directing role in behavior. The dominant organizing processes control the general form of behavior (that is what is meant by "dominant"), and attention is an essential prior condition to adaptation to any novel stimulus. But these isolated moments of attention are merely points at which the processes at lower levels momentarily influence the dominant processes of the hierarchy. Attention is only a transitory focusing of the extended system of processes which guide behavior. It is an inherent weakness of subjective thought that it must misconceive and exaggerate the role of attention. When man became self-conscious he was bound at first to make this mistake, and therefore also, two thousand years later when he became aware of the historical process, to ascribe to consciousness an excessive role in the processes of history.

A complementary error which arose from the same dualistic prejudice was the materialistic interpretation of individual behavior and of social history. Strictly there can be no materialistic interpretation of history since matter, or substance, is a name for what is permanent, or static, or conserved, and history is an asymmetrical process in which later and earlier states differ intrinsically. Permanence cannot account for novelty or development; material science can only embrace what is static or cyclic, and history must remain beyond its scope. For example, the attempt to transpose the Hegelian dialectic of the mind, that is the formative processes of the mind, into a dialectical materialism is not merely logically absurd but philosophically disastrous. Such "materialism" has little or nothing to do with the concept of matter, or with the processes already understood by physical science. To assert a dialectic of matter is to land thought in complete confusion. The attempt to do so was for that none the less grandly prophetic, because the forward impetus of its process thought repeatedly led it to repudiate its own materialism and so to anticipate a radical unitary interpretation of process.

The clue to the bizarre situation of dialectical materialism as a philosophy is that there is no parallel between the material and mental components of process; by their common usage these terms refer to aspects of process which have different and indeed antithetical forms. There can be no psychophysical parallelism if the psyche is the formative aspect and matter the permanent aspect of process. In seeking to transpose the Hegelian dialectic from mental to material processes the Marxist doctrine assumes a parallelism which cannot exist. There can be no consistent interpretation of the historical process which is not based on a unitary concept of process.

Similar difficulties are met in the dualistic approach to the human individual. For example, the division of the human system into physiological and psychological processes frustrates the advance of a comprehensive science of man. What are called psychological processes are the mental components of the whole system of processes, the components in which the brain organizes past and present experience into new responses. The mental components are essentially formative, they extend old forms into new situations and so develop novelty. On the other hand the subject matter of quantitative physiology is the material aspect of process, i.e. the conservation of energy, materials, and local structures. For certain purposes one of these methods of approach may be applied independently with considerable success. Some forms of illness are clearly psycho-genic or mental in origin, while others are as clearly somato-genic, or physiological in origin. But even illnesses of these extreme types rapidly create a general state of disequilibrium which cannot be described by either method alone. Emotional shock disturbs the glandular balance, and a sharp localized pain may depress the emotional tone. Moreover most types of illness cannot be ascribed to a cause of either type alone, but are due to a lowered general metabolism bringing into evidence the Achilles' heel of the system in the form of a local symptom. Thus local rheumatism may be psycho-genic. Fear or frustration lowers the general vitality and a special symptom appears. Similarly a local disturbance may be the cause of a general depression.

In the absence of a single language it is not surprising that physiology cannot even describe the facts that appear to lie in its own field such as the glandular balance, or psychology successfully analyze mental processes such as the relationship of instinctive and deliberate behavior. Neither of these part-sciences can cover even its own aspect of the human system, restricted as each is by a language that deals only with limiting cases. Every distortion of the organic balance is a disturbance both of the general organizing processes and of local organic structure. The proper form of the organizing processes implies proper local structures and vice versa, but it is only in unitary thought, which makes this fact axiomatic, that the dualism disappears. Attention, on the one side, and physiological quantities, on the other, refer to special aspects only of the organic system of formative processes. The system is single and requires a single language.

A similar confusion arises in the attempt to define the roles of intellect and emotion in determining behavior. So long as these two are regarded as independent entities operating as active agents in forming behavior, no clarification is possible. The intellectual processes arose by the specialization of symbols first of speech, then of script, and finally of silent conceptual thought. This process was guided by the progressive sensorimotor refinements involved in the use of tools, writing, and other human arts. The intellect is therefore mainly related to special local stimuli and specialized responses. The emotions on the other hand are related to the sustained co-ordination of behavior, and express states of polarization of the system as a whole, which maintain the integration of activity along one general course by facilitating some modes of behavior and inhibiting others.

Intellect and emotion are related respectively to specialization and co-ordination. But this does not imply that they are separable. Co-ordination means the organization of specialized processes, and the development of such specialized processes is only possible within a co-ordinated system. Every concept has some emotional tone, but to assert the fact is equivalent to an admission that the terms "concept" and "emotion" are misleading unless they can be reinterpreted as aspects of a single process.

Yet the development of the intellect has so far depended on a gradual process of separation of language from emotion. Baby language, battle songs, and sacred names are symbols for communicating patterns of behavior in which this separation has scarcely begun. As it continues the intellectual processes become more specialized and abstract until the intellect seems to rid itself of all emotional emphasis. In special situations where the formative aspect of the mental processes nearly disappears, they assume the disguise of an abstract reason whose operation consists in the logical manipulation of tautologies, an exercise like the play of children. At the contrary pole in other special situations all sense-discrimination and memory-recording may cease for a moment, and the mental processes lose all specific form and dissolve into a formless passion like the fury of a beast. Each of these forms of behavior is a degenerate limiting case. The abstract analytical intellect denying the formative tendency and manipulating static forms, and the passion which is blind to specific form, both lack an essential component of complete human behavior. Human personality means the expression of the formative tendency in a specific form. If the individual seeks to deny either the formative tendency or the limitation to a specific form, he loses a part of his humanity.

Word and emotion are both essential to man, but as aspects of development, and in the process of unitary development the two lose their separation. The European oscillations from rationalism to activism, and from the practical to the emotional life, display the instability of the dissociated system. Neither reason, nor the emotional consciousness, is man's proper criterion. The doctrines that proclaim the extension of human consciousness as the supreme good share the same error. Consciousness, or attention, is merely one aspect of the formative system of man. To see in it the aim of human life can lead nowhere.

But if unitary thought is valid this confusion is only temporary. In the beginning was the deed, but within it was the universal formative process. In the process of developing the community, each individual will necessarily share in some degree in the general development. The unitary emotion which inspired both religion and science will accompany and guide the further development of man. But in this process the word has a crucial role. The intellect is man's unique asset. Words are necessary for communication from man to man. The uttered word operates by calling the attention of others to the existence of a particular situation. Until a situation is jointly recognized by verbal communication, no fully effective human co-operation is possible. The couple whose love remains in suspense until the first word is spoken, and the group whose emotion is impotent until the word is passed around which releases co-ordinated action, are evidence of the role of the uttered word. "Unitary" is such a word, communicating a message. Its implications are inexhaustible.




IV

European Man

The ground is prepared. We can now apply this method of thought to the development of European man and the diagnosis of the present condition of western civilization. Our task is to trace the changing organization of man, that is, the degree of differentiation and the form of integration which resulted in different periods from the influence of a developing social tradition. We are not directly concerned with the subtlety or variety of the individual, but with the stamp of the social tradition on each maturing generation and the dominant types thus produced. Moreover in emphasizing the impress of the tradition and relatively neglecting the more balanced and persistent characteristics on which it is imposed, the analysis deliberately presents a parody of the general condition in each period. Only at special moments such as the present does this method perhaps cease to exaggerate the actual condition of society.

Throughout history there runs one main trend: a progressive differentiation, or passage from simple to more complex forms in behavior, thought, and social organization. Over sufficiently long periods this tendency is unmistakable, and in the recent acceleration of technical development it has been so intensified as to dominate all other social processes. We shall therefore disregard, both in our glance at the more distant periods and in our closer study of recent centuries, the cycles of vitality, maturity, and decadence which mark earlier local civilizations. We shall also ignore individual historical events except in so far as they symbolize important stages in the continuous sequence of transformations which has led to the present state of man. We shall be unable to refer to the history of art, though this would perhaps offer the most direct approach to the unitary process of the changing condition of man. Moreover the story will be further simplified by omitting all reference to those cultures in Asia and elsewhere that do not form part of the sequence which leads from primitive to European and western man. The continuity of this sequence is clear. In spite of local cycles the developing social tradition which has led to western man followed one dominant path: the ancient civilizations of the Near East provided the stimulus to the establishment of European civilization, which in turn decisively influenced the communities of the West.

Though this story covers a period which we are accustomed to regard as one of considerable length, it is necessary to view it in its correct proportions. The biological and social process with which we are concerned is formed of a series of steps represented by the influence of the tradition on each successive generation, and the appropriate unit of time is therefore the generation of, say, 25 years. The evolution of the human species from its simian ancestry occupied a period of the order of a million years, or 40,000 generations, but this period covers the slow process of selective evolution which lies outside the present study. The gradual appearance of homo sapiens amidst the earlier manlike hominids may have taken place some 2,000 generations back but the story of community life does not begin until the development of agriculture, stock-breeding, and urban settlements a mere 400 - 300 generations ago. On this scale the history of European culture is a short experiment in human adaptation: Socrates is separated from us by less than 100 generations, and Kepler and Galileo at their prime by only 14. These figures fix the measure of this study; three hundred generations cover the history of civilization, ten may suffice for fundamental changes, and a single generation represent a critical moment of transition.

This perspective draws attention to the acceleration which seems to have marked the recent development of society and now to threaten the stability of the process. While the biological unit, the generation, has scarcely changed, the rate of social development, particularly in technique, has grown continually more rapid during the last three hundred years. The biologically paradoxical position has thus been reached that the lessons of childhood have to be unlearnt by the adult, for by the time he has attained maturity they are already out of date. It is improbable that any species could remain healthy under such conditions, and a diagnosis of contemporary man must take account of this situation. Yet it must be remembered that the general rate of human processes is not changing. The main physiological and developmental processes in the individual still require the same span of time measured against the sun and stars; the acceleration of the differentiation of new techniques and of their social consequences represents an anomaly which cannot persist indefinitely. If we desire to understand the processes which have shaped European and western man we must forget the present instability and go far back to their origins. The present rate of technical development bears no direct relation to the main rhythm covered by our story.

It will be convenient to divide prehistory and history into four main periods which mark definite stages in the development of the species through its leading types to western man, though they do not imply any uniformity in the different communities of each period. The first is the period of primitive or savage man, from the emergence of the species until about 8000 B.C. The second is the period of ancient man, from the discovery of agriculture and stock-breeding until the first centuries of the millennium before Christ. This period extends from barbarian neolithic communities to the civilizations of the Bronze Age. The third may, for the purpose of this work, be called the period of European man, extending up to the foundation of exact science at about A.D. 1600. The fourth period, up to the present day, is that of western man. We shall now consider each of these in turn.



During the first period men were savage, living from hand to mouth in small communities, either nomadic or sheltering in caves, and hunting or collecting their food. This period covers part of the Paleolithic Age and closes about the time of the first neolithic arrow-heads and pottery. The differentiation of individual behavior and of social organization had not then proceeded far. Racially inherited instinctive tendencies dominated behavior and verbal symbolisms played only a small role. Even at the end of the period the most advanced communities had only a limited faculty of speech and few general conceptions, while the memory of the individual may have extended no further back than a few years. The social tradition was communicated to the next generation almost wholly by example and mimicry, aided by only primitive verbal suggestion. Behavior was still integrated, as in the higher mammals, by the balance of the instinctive tendencies, though the forms of social behavior characteristic of primitive man were being built up as the accumulated result of the intelligent adaptations of individuals, which were mimicked by others and so stabilized as a continuing tradition.

Though development was slow, the formative tendency was operating continually, both towards greater dominance over the environment and towards the adaptation of man to the environment. This formative process is displayed in the tendency of primitive man to improve his tools and to establish more general and effective methods of communicating his slowly developing thoughts. Normally these changes occurred very slowly. But when favorable circumstances made it possible for the community not only to protect itself from day to day but in addition to establish a margin of security and collect a surplus of food, the attention of some of its members was liberated from preoccupation with immediate needs, and they began to exercise their developing faculties in ritual, play, and experiment. The formative tendency is here seen at work in the instinctive struggle for survival, in the improved adaptations of animal intelligence as developed in man, and in the constructive activities that led towards culture.

Viewed biologically this period is marked by the unchallenged instinctive control of behavior. The general co-ordination of behavior is still determined by the balance of instinctive tendencies, for though the developing social tradition is gradually extending its influence over the pattern of individual behavior, the tradition itself is as yet primarily directed towards the satisfaction of instinctive needs. Man is a tool-using animal, slowly developing the use of language.



In the course of any process of development, long periods of slow change may be followed by a sudden transformation revealing potentialities of which previously there has been little indication. Such transitions can only occur when favorable internal and external conditions coincide. It may be that the human system had for long been ready to develop new faculties, and that climatic and other external conditions in the Near East about 8-4000 B.C. suddenly provided the opportunity for them to mature. The slow development of nomadic or cave communities, primarily instinctive but exploiting their animal intelligence in the human use of tools, had been proceeding with fluctuations for perhaps fifty thousand years, or two thousand generations, and suddenly in less than 200 generations there appeared the various techniques which provided the basis for civilization. The expression of conceptual thought in script as well as speech, the practice of agriculture and stock-breeding, the discovery of bronze, and the establishment of urban societies capable of supporting an extensive specialization of individual function, all occurred for the first time within this relatively brief span. Favorable circumstances gave man the opportunity to increase his material security by improved methods of obtaining food and shelter, and to use the leisure so won for the development of new and more complex techniques no longer limited to the satisfaction of immediate material needs.

By 3000 B.C. this surplus formative vitality had produced the splendor of the earliest civilizations of the Near East. The basis of this unprecedented expansion of human life was provided by the farmer and stock-breeder whose produce made possible the establishment of urban societies capable of supporting a greatly increased specialization of function amongst the members of each community. Before 6000 B.C. there is no evidence of urban life; by 2500 B.C. civilization has reached an advanced stage in many parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. For reasons which we shall consider in a moment this period may be regarded as ending soon after 1000 B.C. and it therefore covers the early civilizations of the Near East, Egypt, China, India, Crete, and Greece, and perhaps others of which the record has been lost or not yet been found. This period of ancient man opens in prehistory, but from about 3100 B.C., when the first events can be dated with some accuracy in Sumer and Egypt, it enters the historical age. Until about 2000 B.C. the records tell mainly of mythical figures of great kings and founders of empires, but during the following centuries the individual definitely enters history and traits of personality begin to be recorded, some of which may be assumed to correspond to those of a historical person.

The millennia from 8000 to 1000 B.C. include so many different forms of society from the neolithic communities to the ancient civilizations that no single generalization can cover them all. Nevertheless, if these societies are considered from a biological point of view, one tendency is evident throughout this period. Compared with the relatively static and simple forms of life of primitive man, a quicker development is now in process towards a more complex differentiation of behavior, both within the life of each individual and in the different functions of the individuals within the community. The responses of primitive man to his environment were relatively swift, that is they followed the stimulus either immediately or after only a short delay, His memory was too short and his attention too uncertain to permit him to plan far ahead, and his power to dominate the environment was correspondingly restricted. In the language of unitary thought the characteristic forms of primitive man persisted (in memory) only for short periods, and were extended (in molding the environment to suit his needs) only to a moderate degree. But with the advantages of urban life ancient man was able to exercise faculties that had previously had little opportunity; he developed new tools for action and new words for thought, found that a better organized brain could remember longer, and so gradually evolved the complex and extended patterns of deliberate behavior characteristic of civilized society.

Certain features are common to all the more highly developed communities of this period, the chief of these being a social hierarchy (more complex than that of primitive communities) of individuals with specialized functions usually dominated by a priest-king, and the use of written records, including codes of law, to supplement oral tradition. In contrast to the relatively quick responses of primitive man, a considerable part of the whole of human activity is now composed of the systems of deliberate behavior connected with the various occupations: the priests, officials, merchants, soldiers, craftsmen, and serfs. These systems of behavior, which include deliberate planning and rituals extending over months or even years (compared with the days or weeks covered by the plans of primitive man), are controlled and communicated from one generation to another not only by mimicry but increasingly by the use of words. Speech, script, and conceptual thought are now of rapidly growing importance in the organization of society. The concept, or idea, has become one of the main instruments of social co-ordination, and ideas begin to be linked in sequences which permit reasoned attention to be given to novel situations, and so lead to the long-delayed deliberate responses which result from sustained thought.

Nevertheless, though the social tradition was already complex and far-reaching in its modeling of the earlier instinctive and traditional forms of life, it did not yet include any general verbally organized mode of integration which might rival the dominance of the instinctive control. The hereditary instinctive tendencies still provided the ultimate control which kept the complex traditional life in balance. The ancient civilizations did not challenge the instinctive life, but developed and differentiated it into a rich social pattern of special activities communicated and organized by a verbal tradition. Until the closing centuries of this period, from 1400 to 1000 B.C., the dominant components of this verbal tradition did not recognize any separation of idea from fact, or of man from the world around him, or any general antithesis between man as he is and man as he should be. Prior to 1000 B.C. ethical formulations are the exception, and by contrast serve to throw light on the pagan background of the ancient world.

Nature and man were accepted without critical or systematic attention. Words were mainly symbols for naming particular situations or objects and for organizing specialized modes of behavior. Thought was concrete. The general control of the individual's behavior and the factors determining choice in situations of difficulty or conflict were not yet the subject of general attention, and hence also not yet the subject of verbal formulation as an accepted part of the tradition. There was still no need for a general conception of man as an independent person with the faculty of choice in accordance with his individual character. The fact that individual behavior was co-ordinated by certain general tendencies had not yet come sufficiently to man's attention to form part of the tradition. The civilizations of the antique world and the modes of life recorded in the earliest Egyptian scripts, the Iliad, or the first Vedic hymns, represent, compared with neolithic man, an advanced stage in the differentiation of deliberate behavior. But these systems of deliberate behavior still retained the character of a rich flowering of primitive life; they were sufficiently stable to operate without any single conceptually organized integration of the whole pattern; with certain striking exceptions the developing social tradition had not yet asserted the possibility of organizing the whole of life in terms of one central idea.

The period of ancient man is a transitional stage of development between the period of the instinctive control characterizing primitive man and the deliberate control which has been carried furthest by European and western man. The power of the word and the general concept to organize behavior is growing but has not yet challenged the dominance of the earlier system. Man is pagan; he has not yet been dominated by one idea and is therefore still free of the inner conflict and external intolerance which result from the ascription of universality to ideas of limited scope. Man is still a part of nature, though already thoughtful; thoughtful, but not yet about himself; an individual, but still displaying normal organic integration. Though they are supplemented by a rich social tradition, the dominant organizing processes retain the integration characteristic of the higher mammals in that no fundamental dualism or dissociation in the individual or in the community has yet challenged the biologically normal degree of harmony.



A momentous change opens the third period; the passing of the ancient world and the development of rational self-consciousness. This transformation coincides with the collapse of the Bronze Age civilization and the expansion of life which resulted from the use of iron. During the centuries from 1600 to 400 B.C. the processes of history acquire a wholly novel shape, and perhaps temporarily lose their proper form, for now, if ever, is the fall of man. But the new type of man has unprecedented vitality and swiftly assumes the leadership of the species. Starting from various centers on the shores of the Mediterranean he spreads his influence rapidly throughout Europe and finally dominates the world. This achievement is the result not of any specially favored hereditary constitution but of the steadily developing European tradition which grew from the traditions of the ancient civilizations transplanted into European soil. The third period covers the story of this new tradition from its origins in the ancient world up to the opening of the next period at A.D. 1600. This is the age of states and empires, of monotheism, and of universal ideas. In applying to this more recent historical period the same method of approach as we have used hitherto we shall discover that like its predecessors it is marked by a characteristic form of integration. But we shall also identify the inner weakness in the European tradition which rendered its collapse inevitable, even though at one stage it seemed to stand for a universal and permanent form of society.

What was the nature of the change that produced this new type of man? Between 3000 B.C. and the opening of the Christian era three great processes occurred, each of them of sufficient importance to rank as an event in the biological story of man, and all maturing within a few hundred years of 1000 B.C. The first is the appearance of great empires claiming to extend to the limits of the known world. This process began from the supremacy of one city state over others at about 3000 B.C., and found its first mature expressions in the Egyptian empire near 1600 B.C., in the early Chinese empire from 1400 to 1200 B.C., and finally in the Persian empire in 500 B.C. The second is the development of the idea of one universal god and the spread of monotheism in the place of the earlier polytheistic religions. This process is represented by Akhenaton and Moses, both in the 14th century B.C., and later by Zoroaster, Jesus, and Paul. The third is the emergence of universal ideas and of the doctrine of rationalism. Plato, at 400 B.C., represents its first maturity.

The close succession of these three tendencies and their wide geographical extension suggests that they had a common origin in some profound transformation of human nature at that time, or, more accurately, in the adult human being as matured by the contemporary social tradition and its new techniques. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the feature of universalism is common to all three, and extends even to Lao Tse and the Buddha. It seems that adult human nature, as molded by the developing tradition in the leading areas of Eurasia, was ripe for the universal empire, the universal god, and the universal idea. Stimulated perhaps by the consequences of the discovery of iron, skill, emotion, and thought now claimed the right to extend their scope without limit. But these processes were accompanied by another, more subtle but no less definite. This was the attraction of man's attention to a novel field, the mental processes occurring in himself. The outward-looking pagan became introspective; man became aware of moral conflict, aware of himself, and aware of his own separation from nature. Knowledge of conflict led to self-consciousness and to the sense of guilt. Man fell from innocence. For reasons which we shall analyze, universalism was achieved at the cost of inner dissociation. The struggle of the spirit against nature had begun.

Everyone who pauses to consider the significance of this moment in the story of man must be held in awe by the grandeur of the transformation that was consummated in so short a time. The processes which organized human behavior had, it seems, been ready for a swift reorganization; the human pattern had become unstable and now settled rapidly into a new shape. This great readjustment, expressing the continuity of the formative process in man, found its historic agents within the communities concerned: a few young men scattered here and there knew some aspect of this process at work in themselves, recognized their mission, and became -- Socrates, Plato, Alexander, Caesar, Jesus, Paul. These names represent the culmination of the process as far as Europe is concerned; there had been other equally remarkable individuals before them. It has no meaning to separate the parts played by the individual and by the community in so comprehensive a process. Individuals like these appear to have contributed much to Europe because each of them was molded by the general necessity of the time. Had they not themselves been consumed in the process, they might be regarded as catalysts of the transformation that was shaping European man. They were in fact the nuclei from which the reorganization spread with the speed which showed how timely it was. These men were great because they were in a profound sense the willing agents of a general need. Each willingly became its agent, his own will expressing the continuity of history as well as of his own personality.

The significance of the three parallel tendencies and of their common universalism is not far to seek, if we apply the unitary conception of man. In the ancient civilizations, thought and social organization had attained a degree of differentiation which had not yet been compensated by the development of correspondingly extensive coordinating ideas. Thus wherever the traditions of these civilizations were called in question there arose the opportunity and the need for a co-ordination of the new complexity of life and thought within a single comprehensive system. Improvements in all the technical arts of production, war, and communication, made it possible for small states to be united until empires were established claiming to control all the peoples within their borders. This process cannot be ascribed solely to personal or national ambitions, to military or economic necessity, or to the spread of ideas or principles, since all these tendencies are special cases of one general process: the tendency for patterns to extend their form. Material and economic conditions determine little unless mental processes conform, and mental processes are ineffective unless they can extend their patterns in the external world. But neither of these aspects is in general prior to the other; both are expressions of the unitary process.

It is therefore natural that, parallel with the development of universal empires, we should find the same unifying process at work in the world of thought leading to the establishment of universal ideas in terms of which man sought to explain the whole of experience. At the same time, in the field of religion the local tribal gods and the polytheistic hierarchies gradually gave place to the universal god whose realm often extended to the boundaries of the new empires. Each of these movements displays the establishment of one organizing principle claiming universality within its own sphere. Thus the external aspects of the transformation which occurred at the opening of the third period expressed the tendency for the forms which organized human behavior to spread without restriction, i.e. for social systems and systems of thought to be organized around principles of universal application.

But this interpretation only covers one aspect of the transformation, and in order to understand the significance of the self-consciousness which developed side by side with the new universalism, we must consider in more detail the biology of the human situation at that time. During the period of ancient man the ultimate control of behavior had been instinctive, and the complex systems of behavior which were stabilized in the traditions of the ancient civilizations had not challenged the instinctive background of life. So long as these traditions were adequate there was no clash between the spontaneous instinctive life and the deliberate patterns of behavior expressed in the ancient traditions.

In the pagan age man could think out practical problems without finding himself involved in any general or persisting conflict. Thought and action were never far from immediate instinctive needs, no dualism of incompatibles had yet become dominant in human nature or in man's thought about himself, and though decision on a particular course of action might sometimes be difficult, such difficulty seemed to lie in the nature of things rather than in his own nature.

Yet this primitive condition was bound sooner or later to be disrupted, either by the increasing differentiation of thought and of deliberate behavior, or by the clash between different modes of life brought into contact by the improved methods of communication. When this occurred the old assurance collapsed, instinctive and traditional systems ceased to be adequate to organize behavior, man became uncertain what to do, and so unsure of himself. This hesitancy meant that instinct and tradition having proved inadequate, the individual was being compelled to rely for guidance on his own mental processes. Instead of being aided primarily by instinctive responses to external stimuli and by mimicry of the forms of a stable social tradition, the individual was now increasingly dominated and controlled at moments of decision by the special forms of his own thought processes. This dominance of the individual's own mental processes means, in unitary thought, that his attention was drawn to these processes. Instinctive and traditional responses to the outer world no longer sufficed to organize the whole of behavior, decisions had now increasingly to be made in accordance with forms internal to himself. Thus man became self-conscious. The individual became aware of his own thought.

This development was partly the result of the increasing plasticity of human behavior. The rigid and undiscriminating organization of behavior by the instinctive tendencies and the social tradition had become inadequate, and had to be supplemented by a subtler and more variable control expressing the dominant tendencies in each individual person. The pagan, even with his highly developed animal intelligence, could no longer cope with the complex variety of situations in which he was finding himself; to do this, his attention had to be drawn to the characteristic continuity of his personal life; he had to become aware of himself as a person.

This, I suggest, is the biological significance of the human situation at the opening of the third period. Let us now examine the historical facts supporting this interpretation. The Bronze Age civilizations of the Near East, and of Egypt, Crete, and Greece were usually dominated by one figure: the king, lawgiver, or priest. The traditions of these societies were relatively stable since they rested mainly on elements that had been developed locally over an extended period, and were focused in one person whose unquestioned authority tended to assure the stability of the community.

But as these different civilizations grew and with improving means of communication spread their influence beyond their original borders they came into contact and mutually influenced one another. This situation was continually occurring, but in the Near East from 1500 to 500 B.C. such fertilizing exchange acquired an importance it had never had previously. After 1200 the development of iron upset the old civilizations and created a ferment in which the continuous exchange of materials and ideas extended over vastly greater areas than ever before. Sea-borne traders and adventurers could acquire experience of different cultures and carry home their influence. The experience of the Mediterranean traveler in those centuries epitomized the characteristic situation of the time in that part of the world: men found themselves comparing different forms of society and different systems of thought. Choice, doubt, and conflict began to appear to a degree far beyond that which had been possible within the relatively static societies of the antique world. The organization of society came under attention, and ethical and political problems began to be discussed. For the first time the individual began to pay consistent attention to the fact that he was alone in a world where things could not be taken for granted. Amidst this new uncertainty he consciously yearned for security, for the recovery of his lost assurance and innocence, in a word, for salvation. In place of the habits and traditions symbolized in one priest-king, the individual began to develop general ideas which could help him to find his own way through the new complexity. The only method by which this uncertainty could be overcome was by the establishment of universal ideas including a conception of man himself as a personality with freedom of choice, and a conception of the pattern of behavior to which he should conform.

Thought has for so long been distorted by the verbal dualism of mind and body that the development of self-consciousness is commonly regarded as a peculiarly mysterious process. But it is no more than the development of the dominant mental processes to include, not only the impress of the forms of external stimuli on instinctive and traditional patterns (as in the extravert pagan), but a persisting form characteristic of the individual personality. The circumstances of human life demanded that individual choice, based on personal consideration of the problems of behavior, should to an increasing degree dominate behavior. The attention of the individual was drawn more and more to his own thought as well as to external stimuli, and he became aware of himself as a thinking and feeling person endowed with the faculty of choice.

The operative factor in this situation was the uncertainty which often prevented action from following the stabilized patterns of instinct and tradition and compelled the mental processes of the individual to dominate behavior, i.e. drew the attention of the individual to his own thoughts and feelings. In the instinctive or traditional life of ancient man, response followed stimulus along established paths, and the dominant factor holding the attention of the individual was the world of sense around. But now that the old traditions were inadequate, situations continually arose in which this flow from stimulus into response was arrested, and no adequate action was possible until the extended processes of thought had worked out the appropriate solution. The organizing processes instead of following, as previously, a universal pattern adapted both to the individual and the community tradition, had now to form a special response for each individual in accordance with the tendencies that happened to be dominant in each. Each person had increasingly to shape for himself his own dominant form, to develop his own personality in his own actions.

The part played in the production of self-consciousness by uncertainty arising from the inadequacy of habitual patterns of behavior is evident in the process of western adolescence which mirrors certain features of the historical process which we are considering. At adolescence a boy becomes aware of tendencies in himself which he does not understand breaking through the harmonious mode of life which his family environment has developed in him. He becomes uncertain and distrusts his own spontaneous tendencies, since they now lead him along strange paths. His hesitation between these new disturbing inclinations and his earlier socially accepted habits draws his attention towards himself. Though the analogy is not complete, we see here the same factor of delay in response, the consequent dominance of a new inner process of thought requiring a finite amount of time, the deflection at special moments of the individual's attention from the environment to himself, and his discovery of himself as a unique person separate from everything around him.

The process which we are considering may be regarded as the development of individual personality. Under the new circumstances which we have described, the opportunity arose for the frequent appearance of responses to the environment expressing the past experience of the individual. The organizing processes which had previously been either instinctive or traditional now began to develop forms characteristic of the individual, and these individual forms began to dominate behavior repeatedly and continuously. His behavior expressed his own personality. Moreover the personal continuity of form which dominated his behavior was therefore the subject of his attention, and he became aware of himself as a person with special desires, sometimes different from those of the individuals around him. But the individual's awareness of himself as a person could not arise generally until the circumstances of the time had rendered traditional forms of behavior inadequate and provided a stimulus to individual thought. Though there is evidence that isolated individuals had become aware of their difference from others up to two thousand years earlier, it was only during the first millennium B.C. that this degree of self-consciousness became sufficiently widespread to affect the social order.

This interpretation explains the origin of a widespread increase in the individual's awareness of himself at the opening of the third period, but we have still to consider the quality of that state of awareness, or more accurately, what man's attitude was to the self which he had discovered. We have to account for the change from the pagan man of the antique civilizations around 1500 B.C. to the self-critical ethical type which developed rapidly in Egypt, Palestine, and elsewhere, and culminated, as far as Europe is concerned, in the spread of Christianity. Early Egyptian and Greek records reveal no concern with the inner relation of the soul to god; the moral conscience is absent, and the sense of sin is only recognized as an expression of the external consequences of action. Egyptian religion was concerned with man's practical needs in the next world, while Greek religion existed to make man feel at home in this world. In contrast the Hebrew books and the Christian epistles are essentially subjective, the sense of sin has become an internal experience.

In the pagan period language and ideas were mainly concerned with particular situations and special responses to them. But the field of behavior covered by verbally formulated ideas steadily broadened, and when instinct and tradition failed to provide a sufficiently discriminative response to the more complex situations in which ancient man found himself, there arrived both the opportunity and the need for universal ideas which could be applied by each individual in deciding general issues for himself.

In order to appreciate the significance of the unitary process by which universal ideas, at once religious, ethical, and intellectual, were developed, it is necessary to consider various aspects of this process in succession. Complementary to the uncertainty in face of a new and more complex social situation for which traditional methods were no longer adequate, there was another factor, no less important, which displayed the same unitary process at work. Instinctive modes of behavior had been woven by primitive tradition into a system of life which, during the ancient civilizations, was relatively stable. The instinctive tendencies were, as I have already indicated, held in balance by a physiological control, similar in character to the organic control in less developed mammals. But as the ancient civilizations acquired more powerful technical methods and the community, or at least some of its members, were assured of immediate survival, a new and unsettling factor entered. Since instinctive fulfillment gave satisfaction, favorably placed individuals could devote their surplus in material security and technical instruments to the deliberate pursuit of instinctive pleasures. The organic balance of the instincts, which had been adequate to maintain a proper co-ordination of behavior while social conditions were still primitive, doubly failed in this new and more complex situation. It not only failed to establish adequate responses to new and pressing situations, but it could not even maintain a proper balance of the instinctive life, now that the individual was aware of what gave him satisfaction and possessed the instruments with which he could deliberately exploit and intensify this satisfaction.

The change in material conditions transformed the innocence and integrity of primitive and pagan man into the sensuality and bestiality of the decadent periods prior to the rise of monotheism. Primitive man had also sought instinctive pleasure, but ancient man as he became decadent exploited the satisfaction of his instincts to the point at which it disturbed the organic balance and upset the proper co-ordination of his life. But parallel with this new deliberate sensuality, upsetting proper co-ordination and therefore accompanied by sadism and masochism, there developed also the new deliberate idealism which expressed itself in all forms of spiritual endeavor. Both the sensuality and the spirituality were new, and represented the dualistic and therefore distorted substitutes for the prior organic integrity.

Thus the new uncertainty and the revolt from the degenerate life of the ancient world both stimulated the development of universal religious and ethical ideas.

In becoming aware of himself, man simultaneously formed a conception of a single authority, or god, and a conception of what that god expected of man. Man did not become aware of himself naively, but, with a judgment prejudiced by the growing dualism of his thought, considered his own nature and found in it not one harmonious organization, but two principles which he called good and evil. The divided state and the prejudiced approach to it both came about, as we have seen, because a potential separation of spontaneous and deliberate behavior (due to the dual structure of the nervous system) was aggravated and made effective by a corresponding dualism in the verbal tradition. The tradition was in course of developing a system of ideals for organizing deliberate behavior which had no direct relation to man's instinctive and spontaneous activities. Man considered himself in terms of these ideals and felt ashamed, for he knew that a part of his own nature could not conform to them. His self-consciousness had therefore the quality of conflict, shame, and guilt. Man fell from innocence to sensuality and monotheism.

It may at first sight appear strange that an animal species endowed with the faculty of animal intelligence, such as pagan man, could conceive the dualism of good and evil, come to regard the more recently developed deliberate behavior as "good" and the undisciplined satisfaction of his instincts as "evil," and then establish, in some degree at least, the dominance of this "good" over this "evil." If man is animal, continuous with animal nature, how can spirit suddenly arise and discipline the flesh? How did the spiritual element master the sensual in this transformation from the ancient pagan to the ethical idealist?

Thus formulated the problem appears baffling, but the difficulty is the result of the deep prejudice which lies in the form in which it is expressed. Ancient man was neither spiritual nor sensual, but simply whole. The complementary distortions, spirituality and sensuality, were the result of the dissociation, and there is no cause for surprise that one of these two elements, both of which represented distorted components of his primitive human nature, should in certain respects dominate the other. The spiritual dominated the sensual in the sense that the community preached the one as against the other -- and not vice versa, because the spiritual represented the further development of the formative process. The complex forms of deliberate activity organized by the new religious tradition helped to maintain and develop the species, even though at times they came into conflict with instinct. It was a victory of spirit, not over a properly co-ordinated instinctive life, but over an exploitation of instinctive pleasures which had already become damaging. Ideas were effective in facilitating the further development of man, and so the development of ideas was itself facilitated. Ideas, and in particular the new religious ideals, offered a means of integrating life -- even though only partially -- and so were accepted and developed. What we call "religion" is the operation of a partial substitute for complete organic integration.

The organizing process in any animal tends to suppress the activities of any one instinct when these threaten to damage the organic balance. Nothing is more common than for men to resist their instinctive tendencies for the sake of an integrating principle, patriotic, religious, or idealistic. Because the bias of thought towards static concepts prevented the development of a rational principle which could facilitate the co-ordination of the whole of human nature, man accepted what was available, the new standards of monotheism, even though they carried with them a lasting sense of guilt. But since the community tended to support the new spirituality and condemn the new sensuality, the bible story is at fault. The fall of man represented the victory not of instinct, but of deliberate thought. But the community taught the individual that his fall from grace was due to his instincts, whereas we can now see that his tragedy was that he could not avoid accepting as inescapable an inner conflict which had been aggravated by a temporary dualism in the tradition and was not due to any permanent dichotomy in his own nature. The fact that some civilizations do not suffer from this dichotomy shows that the fault lies in the tradition, and not in the hereditary constitution of the species.

The new man was able in some degree to conquer his instinctive nature because he had fallen in love with the patterns of his own thought. Without realizing the fact, he was from now on fascinated by the images formed by his own mental processes. The god of his own thought was henceforward man's chief source of inspiration. If man's view of himself had been complete and his self-love had been whole-natured, history would have been different. But the religious narcissism which was the basis of monotheism unfortunately extended to one aspect only of contemporary human nature. In its immature state the new faculty of thought could not reflect in one pattern the whole of man. Man's image of himself was therefore faulty; neither Platonic nor Christian man saw himself whole. Beneath the formulated ideal, adapted to organize the deliberate life, there remained the complementary spontaneous life dissociated from the former and therefore distorted. Reverence for the spiritual was inevitably accompanied by hate and distrust of the sensual. Socrates and Jesus loved the soul of man, but even they could do no better than forgive the flesh.

By the opening of the Christian era the transformation from ancient to European man was complete. We cannot trace this process in its historical detail, but certain points must be emphasized which concern its relation to the general development of man. This transformation was not merely a local phenomenon which might repeat itself in the cycle of each transient civilization. Though processes similar to this awakening of self-consciousness may have occurred previously in the history of other civilizations, they only prepared the way for this final transformation which affected the whole of mankind about the opening of the third period. All sections of the race did not simultaneously undergo it in the same degree. Yet as the result of the leadership of European man the whole species was ultimately led through this transformation.

Moreover the two main centers of civilization did undergo this transformation simultaneously, though it took somewhat different forms in the two areas. In the eastern Mediterranean the final transition on the intellectual side occurred about 450-400 B.C., when Greek thought ceased to view man unself-consciously as the innocent bearer of either a fortunate or a tragic fate, and adopted the subjective, rationalistic, analytical attitude which resulted from increased self-consciousness. The Homeric poems are clearly in the ancient world; so are Heraclitus (540-475 B.C.) and Aeschylus. Socrates (470-399), Plato (427-347), and Aristotle (384-322) represent the transformed man, from whom the European intellectual develops without further radical change. The representative character of the Greek philosophers thus enables the intellectual aspect of the change to be dated closely. If the other aspects are considered, and other areas around the Mediterranean, we find that the entire process took place between 1600 and 400 B.C.

Meantime in China we find an ancient imperial authority in gradual decay from 900 to 400 B.C. and a social transformation in process leading to a similar development of intellectual enquiry. Lao Tse (b. 604, not a historical person?) recommends the innocent spontaneity of an earlier and simpler state; his ideal is an unself-conscious unity with the natural course of things. He corresponds broadly to Heraclitus; these two are the last great thinkers whose view of process is scarcely touched by the analytical consciousness. On the other hand Confucius (551-478) corresponds to Plato; both sought to use the power of conscious reason to create or recreate a social order; both are transformed types. The significance of such parallels is limited. Yet the simultaneity of similar processes in different areas indicates a universal situation to which different sections of mankind responded in their own ways. It was only in Europe that the transformation took so radical a form as to make a permanent effect on the subsequent history of the entire species.

So far we have been concerned with the general features of this transformation, and we must now examine certain aspects of it more closely, since these resulted in the establishment of the institutions characteristic of Europe. For this purpose we shall appear to split the process into three independent components, though in fact these are no more than special expressions of the general transformation. In primitive communities there was little individual specialization of function and it is impossible to separate what we now recognize as the economic, religious, political, and intellectual aspects of social organization. In the ancient civilizations characteristic of the second period, a complex hierarchical society with a considerable degree of professional specialization had already been established. Nevertheless the hierarchy was normally dominated by one person or dynasty, in which all forms of authority and power were vested. In most of the communities of this period authority and power were single; the different forms of authority to which we are accustomed today had not yet been differentiated from the single relation of dominance between the ruler and the rest of the community. This total monopoly of power is not identical with tyranny. It only becomes tyranny when the many have become aware of it owing to its failure to facilitate their further development.

In the ancient world there was no fundamental contrast between East and West. The division occurred when Europe discarded the single organization of authority, while Asia retained it. This divergence was the consequence of geographical factors which had become of decisive importance under the technical conditions of the time. Now those conditions have changed again, the geographical differences have lost their importance, and the paths of East and West are converging. Only during some three thousand years or less has the scale of social organization been such as to render the geographical contrast of Europe and Asia a dominant factor in their development. In earlier times communities were too small, and today they are too large for the relative diversity of Europe and uniformity of Asia to lead them apart. Technical conditions separated the hemispheres for three millennia; now they bring them together.