Each of the major occasions of history is marked by a seemingly
  irrational moment when the tide of the past is broken into spray upon
  the rock of a single event and a now rhythm begins to accumulate in
  its place. A new phase in the historical process remains ambiguous
  until it defines itself through some sudden local event. In a voyage
  it is the sighting of the shore, in war the breaking of victory, in
  science the establishment of a new symbol of truth, which sets its
  irrevocable stamp upon the course of history.

  In the anticipated derivation of the laws of quantitative physics
  from process concepts, we have reached the special event through which
  unitary thought must ultimately prove its title. The entire fundamental
  content of exact science, that is, the essence of relativity, atomic,
  and quantum theory, is symbolized in one number, the "fine-structure
  constant." This number, a, whose measured value is 1/137.03 ...,
  represents the culmination of two millennia of static analytical thought
  and of three and a half centuries of quantitative science. Minds
  which are ripe for unitary thought cannot believe that the value of
  so significant a number is arbitrary and meaningless. In the unitary
  view there is no scope for any arbitrariness of measured number,
  because the structure of nature is not quantitative, but man puts
  quantity into nature by applying the process of measurement. It
  must therefore be shown that a has this particular value because
  in a world of process man has made certain measurements in certain
  ways. a quantizes process, but we do not yet know how. Unitary
  thought can only acquire the sanction appropriate to its scope through
  a unitary derivation of this fundamental number, providing the key to
  a comprehensive scientific synthesis.

  This is the most severe of all tests that can be demanded in advance
  of a system of thought. Such earnestness is appropriate to a doctrine
  claiming universality. Ultimately no doubt can remain. Unitary thought
  is the vision of a world. Either that world is a fantasy, or it is
  this world recognized by unitary man.

THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE AND OF LIFE

While the development of any particular physical system is a process which has been (or may be) repeated indefinitely, the development of the universe is unique. It comprises the history of all stellar universes, of the solar system and the earth, and of the development of physical and organic systems including their mental components. This covers the whole of knowledge. All processes are to be interpreted as forms in course of development.

This book outlines the aspects of this task which are relevant to the diagnosis of contemporary man.


THE HISTORY OF MAN

The unitary interpretation of the history of man amounts to a comprehensive anthropology dealing with the evolution and social development of the species, its general or permanent characteristics, and the varied individual characteristics which appear in the adult through the influence of different social and physical environments.

Chapters III to VIII outline the aspects of this task which are relevant.


THE WORLD TREND

Here we pass from the reorganization of existing knowledge, which has already been outlined in the previous chapters, to anticipation of the future.

The unitary conviction implies that a period has already opened in which men may once again recognize and accept the social tendencies of their time. During the first decade of this century many Europeans were still confident of continued moral progress, though there had been warnings of the impending breakdown. Now, after thirty years of doubt and despair, it is possible to establish a more reliable interpretation of the historical trend, by discarding the emphasis on moral progress and concentrating attention on the process of development which runs unmistakably through the history of man.

This was not possible even ten years ago. The unitary view has been developing for long, in many minds and in many forms, but only since 1939 has scepticism regarding the inherited tradition grown sufficiently to prepare the general mind for a unitary interpretation of the world trend. War appears to hasten the processes of history because it brings long-term and normally hidden tendencies into closer relation to current events. In a decaying culture, the vast majority continue to live like puppets in a dead world until the collapse of institutions forces them to recognize the painful truth. Few understood Nietzsche while he was alive, but countless millions have now seen the collapse of France and Italy, the German psychosis of fear and cruelty, and the grandeur of Russia. It is no longer madness to look from the European Christian idealist to a new type of man; the conception which was the monopoly of genius fifty years ago can today be formulated in a manner which many can recognize as a description of what is now happening under their own eyes.

In 1918, the western world intoxicated itself with a Wilsonian idealism which was the last and the most hopeless effort of the old Europe to achieve its own survival. It failed in its practical aim, just as all Europe's ideals failed, because that aim was the expression of a dissociated tradition and neglected the repressed organic and economic components. The prophecy of this chapter will be realized, because it is not the moral aspiration of a divided vision but the unitary recognition of the developing continuity of human history. The historical trend which is now forming the unitary world is the expression neither of idealism nor of animal self-interest, but of the formative vitality of the community and its members. If this picture of the future appears morally better than the recent past, that is because we happen to be moving from a phase of disintegration of convictions and institutions into a phase of reorganization, from disorder to order in the social and intellectual fields. In a generation this transition may already lie behind us, a historical step as unmistakable as a scientific discovery or a social revolution, for it will be the equivalent of both.

The cardinal feature of the new period is the existence of a general trend of development which men can recognize, accept, and facilitate, each in his own way. The conviction of the inevitability of such a trend implies that all its necessary conditions are being realized by the historical process. One of those conditions is the determination of an increasing number of individuals to organize their thought and lives in terms of the unitary conviction. Unitary man does not leave the task to others; he wills what the unitary process in himself leads him to will. He knows that he can only develop himself by helping to develop the whole. He does not sit back and allow an abstract historical necessity which he does not himself experience to do the work, since then he would fail to share in the general development. Each can only do what he is suited to do, but if he fails to do that, neither nature nor the community will spare him inevitable frustration.

Moreover individual action will only be effective in so far as it is in accordance with the trend. With its support everything will seem possible; against it everything will seem to fail. Goethe said that the chief reason for Napoleon's extraordinary personal influence was that under him men were sure of attaining their object. On this account they were drawn to him, like actors to a new manager who they think will assign them good parts. No one serves another disinteresteclly, but he does it willingly if he knows he can thus serve himself. In the same way the world community will feel itself drawn to the unitary conviction, though unitary thought denies the validity of this dualism of selfish and unselfish motives. The distinguishing mark of a period dominated by a constructive trend is that the interest of the individual and of the community can no longer be separated. Unitary thought says to every individual: to know yourself is no longer adequate, because static knowledge is not possible. You can only realize yourself as a developing component of the community. You are a man, with human heredity developed by the human tradition. If you are not distorted from the normal, it is possible for you to achieve your own development within the development of the community. Such a life may involve struggle, but it is spontaneous, non-purposive, and self-justifying. In a limited sense it is possible for the mass of the people in all periods. The special feature of the period we now enter is that this identification of personal with community development again becomes possible for all sections of society.

The transition is therefore from a phase in which the basic historical trend has been largely unconscious to one in which the trend dominates the attention of man. The earlier dualistic dialectic of left and right in politics is overcome. Historical change is no longer ascribed to the interplay of these supposedly fundamental antitheses in which morality is called in by one side or the other to justify an exclusive prejudice. Left and right programs achieve little except when the historical trend makes one of them its instrument. History normally passes on between them. The trend of a new phase can never be defined in terms of the conceptions of a previous phase, and traditional parties and institutions can never express the new. But as the new trend draws attention to itself and begins to dominate men's thoughts, then a new orientation appears. In place of the lateral dialectic of one side versus another, there is the polarization of the men of the new world against the men of the old. There will be as many place-seekers amongst the new as place-holders amongst the old. But those who look forward will win because they express the developing condition of man.

What, then, is the trend? What are the characteristics whose progressive development will mark the coming period?


The trend is towards a single order, unitary, balanced, and universal; the passage from an apparent anarchy of exaggerated contrasts, by a process of mutual adjustment and adaptation, towards a unitary order; the transition from unrestricted expansion towards finite order.

This trend towards a unitary order implies the following general aspects of the trend: i.e. increasing