IMPERIUM

by Francis Parker Yockey
aka "Ulick Varange"

FOREWORD

THIS BOOK is different from other books. First of all, it is only in form a book at all. In reality, it is a part of the life of action. It is a turning-point in European history, a late turning point, but a real one. There is nothing original in the content of this book, the book itself only is original. The craze for originality is a manifestation of decadence, and the decadence of Europe is the ascendancy of the Barbarian.

This is the first of a line of works — the political literature of Europe. Heretofore all political works on the imperative side have been addressed to one nation of Europe alone. Among other things, this book marks the end of Rationalism. It does not bring it about — not books but only the advance of History can accomplish anything of that sort — it merely rings its funeral knell. Thus the imperative side of Life returns to its pristine source, the will-to-power. Henceforth there will be no discussion of action in terms of abstract thought.

This is addressed to all Europe, and in particular to the culture-bearing stratum of Europe. It summons Europe to a world-historical struggle of two centuries' duration. Europe will partake in this struggle either as a participant, or as the booty for marauding powers from without. If it is to act, and not merely to suffer in this series of gigantic wars, it must be integrated, and there is only one way this can occur. The Western Culture is suffering from disease, and the prolongation of this disease is the prolonging of Chinese conditions in Europe.

The word Europe changes its meaning: from now on it means the Western Civilization, the organic unity which created as phases of its life the nation-ideas of Spain, Italy, France, England and Germany. These former nations are all dead; the era of political nationalism has passed. This has not happened through logical necessity, but through the organic advance of the History of the West. It is this organic necessity which is the source of our imperative, and of the integration of Europe. The significance of the organic is that its alternatives are either to do the necessary or to sicken and die.

The present chaos — 1948 — is directly traceable to the attempt to prevent the integration of Europe. As a result, Europe is in a swamp, and extra-European forces dispose of former European nations as their colonies.

In this book are the precise, organic foundations of the Western soul, and in particular, its Imperative at this present stage. Either Europe will become totally integrated, or it will pass entirely out of history, its peoples will be dispersed, its efforts and brains will be at the disposal forever of extra-European forces. This is shown herein, not by abstract formulae and intellectualized theories, but organically and historically. The conclusions therefore are not arbitrary, not a subject for choosing or rejecting, but absolutely compelling to minds which wish to take part in affairs. The real author is the Spirit of the Age, and its commands do not admit of argumentation, and their sanction is the crushing might of History, bringing defeat, humiliation, death and chaos.

I condemn here at the outself the miserable plans of retarded souls to "unite" Europe as an economic area for purposes of exploitation by and defense of the Imperialism of extra-European forces. The integration of Europe is not a subject for plans, but for expression. It needs but to be recognized, and the perpetuation of nineteenth century economic thinking is entirely incapable here. Not trade and banking, not importing and exporting, but Heroism alone can liberate that integrated soul of Europe which lies under the financial trickery of retarders, the petty-stateism of party-politicians, and the occupying armies of extra-European forces.

The imperative integration of Europe takes the form of unity of People, Race, Nation, State, Society, Will — and naturally also — economy. The spiritual unity of Europe is there, its liberation will automatically allow the full blooming of the other phases of the organic unity, which all flow from the spiritual.

And thus, this book is a renewal of a war-declaration. It asks the traitors to Europe, the miserable party-politicians whose tenure of office is dependent upon their continued serviceability to extra-European forces, "Did you think it was over? Do you think that your misery and shame will remain securely forever on a world-stage which has seen true heroes upon it? In the war which you let loose, you taught men how to die, and thereby you have freed a spirit which will engulf you next, the Spirit of Heroism and Discipline. There is no currency that can buy this spirit, but it can overcome any currency."

Lastly, this book is itself the first blow in the gigantic war for the liberation of Europe. The prime enemy is the traitor within Europe, who alone makes possible the starving and looting of Europe by the outer forces. He is the symbol of Chaos and Death. Between him and the spirit of the twentieth century is unremitting war.

ULICK VARANGE
Brittas Bay, January 30, 1948

CONTENTS

• Foreword
• Table of Contents
• Introduction by Willis Carto and Revilo Oliver
• THE 20TH CENTURY HISTORICAL OUTLOOK
  • Perspective 3
  • The Two Aspects of History 17
  • The Relativity of History 21
  • The Meaning of Facts 25
  • The Demise of the Linear View of History 29
  • The Structure of History 38
  • Pessimism 46
  • The Civilization-Crisis 58
  • Darwinism 66
  • Marxism 78
  • Freudianism 89
  • The Scientific-Technical World-Outlook 98
  • The Imperative of Our Age 110
• THE 20TH CENTURY POLITICAL OUTLOOK
  • Introduction 123
  • The Nature of Politics 127
  • The War-Politics Symbiosis 137
  • The Laws of Totality and Sovereignty 152
  • The Pluralistic State 157
  • The Law of Constancy of Inter-Organismic Power 160
  • The Law of Constancy of Intra-Organismic Power 163
  • The Political Pluriverse 166
  • League of Nations 170
  • The Inner Aspect of the Law of Sovereignty 175
  • Political Organisms and War 183
  • The Law of Political Plenum 190
  • The Law of Protection and Obedience 194
  • Internationale 198
  • The Two Political Anthropologies 204
  • Liberalism 208
  • Democracy 224
  • Communism 231
  • Association and Dissociation of Forms of Thought and Action 234
• CULTURAL VITALISM — CULTURE HEALTH
  • Introduction 247
  • The Articulation of a Culture 250
  • Tradition and Genius 261
  • Genius 265
  • Genius and the Age of Absolute Politics 270
  • Race, People, Nation, State 273
  • Subjective Meaning of Race 292
  • Horizontal Race versus Vertical Race 300
  • Race and Policy 304
  • People 317
  • Nation 328
  • Nation and History 334
  • Nation and Rationalism 338
  • Nation in the 20th Century 348
  • State 354
• CULTURAL VITALISM — CULTURE PATHOLOGY
  • Culture Pathology 369
  • Culture Parasitism 376
  • Culture Distortion 402
  • Culture Retardation as a Form of Culture Distortion 410
  • Culture Distortion Arising from Parasitic Activity 416
• AMERICA
  • Introduction 443
  • The Origins of America 445
  • The American Ideology 450
  • The War of Secession, 1861-1865 458
  • The American Practice of Government 463
  • The History of American Imperialism 472
  • American Imperialism in the Age of Annihilation Wars 482
  • The American Revolution of 1933 493
  • World-Outlook 502
  • The Negro in America 512
  • Culture-Retardation in America 517
  • Propaganda 524
  • The Conduct of American Foreign Affairs from 1933 535
  • The Future of America 549
• THE WORLD SITUATION
  • The Political World 561
  • The First World War 565
  • The Second World War 571
  • Russia 578
  • Japan 587
  • America 591
  • The Terror 596
  • The Abyss 607
  • Imperium 612

INTRODUCTION

DIMLY, I could make out the form of this man — this strange and lonely man — through the thick wire netting. Inwardly, I cursed these heavy screens that prevented our confrontation. For even though our mutual host was the San Francisco County Jail, and even though the man upon whom I was calling was locked in equality with petty thieves and criminals, I knew that I was in the presence of a great force, and I could feel History standing aside me.

Yesterday, the headlines had exploded their sensational discovery. "MYSTERY MAN WITH THREE PASSPORTS JAILED HERE," they screamed. A man of mystery — of wickedness — had been captured. A man given to dark deeds and — much worse — forbidden thoughts, too, the journalists squealed. A man who had roamed the earth on mysterious missions and who was found to be so dangerous that his bail was set at $50,000 — a figure ten or twenty times the normal bail for passport fraud. The excitement of the newspapers and the mystery of it all seemed to indicate that this desperado was an international gangster, or a top communist agent.

 At least, this is what the papers hinted. But I know now that it erred in many ways, this "free press" of ours.

I know now that the only real crime of Francis Parker Yockey was to write a book, and for this he had to die.

It is always impossible, of course, to come to grips with the essence of greatness.  There are known facts of a great life, but facts are dead and almost mute when we seek the essential reality of a creative personality.  But let us review some of the facts we know of a life which is at once significant, fascinating and tragic.

Francis Parker Yockey was born in Chicago in 1917. He attended American universities, taking a B.A. degree in 1938 and, three years later, a degree in law from Notre Dame, where he was graduated cum laude.

From earliest childhood, Yockey was recognized for his prodigious abilities, and resented for them by many. History may reveal that the combination of originality and high intelligence in rare individuals is essential for human progress, but we mortals find these qualities more admired in biographies than in classmates, friends and underlings.

Yockey was a concert-level pianist; he was a gifted writer. He studied languages and became a linguist. As a lawyer, he never lost a case. He had an extraordinary grasp of the world of finance — and this is surprising, for we learn that in his philosophy economics is relegated to a relatively unimportant position. And it is as the Philosopher that Yockey reached the summit; it is this for which he will be remembered; he was a man of incredible vision. Even so, his personality was spiced by the precious gift of a sense of humor.

Like the great majority of Americans, Yockey opposed American intervention in the Second World War. Nevertheless, he joined the army and served until 1942 when he received a medical discharge (honorable). The next few years were spent in the practice of law, first in Illinois and subsequently in Detroit, where he was appointed Assistant County Attorney for Wayne County, Michigan.

In 1946, Yockey was offered a job with the war crimes tribunal and went to Europe. He was assigned to Wiesbaden, where the "second string" Nazis were lined up for trial and punishment. The Europe of 1946 was a war-ravaged continent, not the prosperous land we know today. Viewing the carnage, and seeing with his own eyes the visible effects of the unspeakable Morgenthau Plan which had as its purpose the starvation of 30 million Germans, and which was being put into effect at that time, he no doubt found ample reinforcement for his conviction that American involvement in the war had been a ghastly mistake. And feeling the might of the sinister power in the East, he might well have wondered whose interests were being served by such a "victory."

As Senator Robert A. Taft and many other responsible and thinking men of the day who had the courage to state their convictions, Yockey concluded that the entire procedure of the "war crimes trials" was serving the interests — and was meant to serve the interests — of international communism The use of torture, doctored evidence and ex-post-facto law before a court which was judge, jury, prosecutor and defense were merely part of the preposterous juridical aspects. Of even more importance was the reversion to barbarism which was inherent in the spectacle — a reversion so pointedly explored later by Britisher F. J. P. Veale in Advance to Barbarism.

For eleven months, Yockey's duty in Wiesbaden was to prepare reports on the various cases. Having a long view of history, he tried to do an objective job. Finally, in Washington, someone complained, and his superior called him on the carpet. "We don't want this type of report," he was told. "This has entirely the wrong slant. You'll have to rewrite these reports to conform with the official viewpoint."

Yockey felt that the time had come to take a stand, even if it meant to break with conformity and plunge into the lonely waters of social ostracism. "I am a lawyer, not a journalist," he said, "you'll have to write your own propaganda"; and he quit on the spot.

After Wiesbaden, he returned to America for five months. But following this taste of weltpolitik he was unable to settle down. He could not ignore an insistent feeling that he must immolate himself in the flames of controversy. And this conviction so destroyed his peace of mind that he knew he had no choice.

It was late 1947 when Yockey returned to Europe. He sought out a quiet inn at Brittas Bay, Ireland. Isolated, he struggled to begin. Finally, he started to write, and in six months — working entirely without notes — Francis Parker Yockey completed Imperium.

The formidable task of publishing it was the next step. Here, also, Yockey ran into serious problems, for no publisher would touch the book, it being too "controversial." Hungry publishers of our advanced day know that any pile of trash, filth, sex, sadism, perversion and sickness will sell when wrapped between two gaudy covers and called a book, but under no circumstances may they allow readers to come into contact with a serious work unless it contains the standard obeisances to the catchwords of equality, democracy and universal brotherhood.

Finally, however, Yockey was able to secure the necessary financing, and production began.

The first edition of Imperium was issued in two volumes. Volume I has 405 pages and three chapters. Volume II has 280 pages and also three chapters. Both were published in 1948 in the name of Westropa Press. Volume I was printed by C. A. Brooks & Co., Ltd. and Volume II by Jones & Dale — both of London. Both volumes measure 5 x 71/4 inches in dimensions and have a red dust jacket with the title in black script on a white field. The cover of Volume I is tan and that of Volume II is black.

It is known that 1000 copies of Volume I, but only 200 copies of Volume II, were finished. The discrepancy in quantity and the change in printers point to the difficulty in financing the job. Copies of the first edition are, of course, virtually unobtainable today.

The rarest combination in man is that of the philosopher and man of action. When Yockey tried his hand at political organization he proved that he was no exception to the rule — or was it that the times then were too out of joint with the future for a constructive movement to be started? Organizing the European Liberation Front in 1949, he and friends issued a manifesto called The Proclamation of London. But outside of getting beaten up in Hyde Park, nothing much happened. And here again he encountered the old trouble. Even among the forward-looking intellectuals and individualists who were his co-workers, his brilliance shone through. He was resented, and the effort soon collapsed.

His money and immediate hopes gone, Yockey procured a job with the Red Cross. He resigned in 1951 and travelled throughout Europe.

In 1952 the State Department refused to renew his passport. Repeatedly, he applied; each time he was rejected. A game then developed between the FBI and Yockey, for the FBI had received orders to keep him under surveillance at all times. This is a pattern which has since become obvious to vigorous anti-communists in all parts of the United States, especially in the South. When Yockey's whereabouts was known, the FBI would watch him night and day. When he dropped temporarily from sight, as he did frequently, his friends and relatives and contacts were constantly interrogated by agents who — they kept repeating "we just want to talk to him."

And this was undoubtedly the truth. This is all they wanted to do. They just wanted to know where he was, what he was doing, whom he was seeing, what he was saying and where he was going next.

Why, you ask? Why all the interest in Francis Parker Yockey, author? He himself gave the answer to a friend. "My enemies have evaluated me better than my friends," he said, and it was true.

And as I peered through the thick screens in the San Francisco Jail, and made out the indefinite shape on the other side, that tenth day of June, 1960, I knew that I would have to help the prisoner as best I could. I could do nothing else.

I have read your book, I said to the shadow, and I want to help you. What can I do?

Wait, he said. Wait, and do as your conscience tells you.

The following week was full of news of Yockey s appearance before Rabbi Joseph Karesh, the U.S. Commissioner.

Twice, I attended the hearings, and each time was fascinated by this man, Yockey. In stature he was about five feet, ten inches. He was light of weight, perhaps 145 pounds, and quick on his feet. His hair was dark, and starting to grey. The expression on his face — pensive, sensitive, magnetic — this was the unforgettable thing. It was his eyes, I think. Dark, with a quick and knowing intelligence. His eyes bespoke great secrets and knowledge and such terrible sadness. As he turned to leave, one time, those eyes quickly searched the room, darting from face to face with a sort of desperation, though the expression on his face of a determined resignation never wavered. What was he looking for? In that lions den, what else but a friendly countenance? As his gaze swept across, and then to me, he stopped and for the space of a fractional second, spoke to me with his eyes. In that instant we understood that I would not desert him.

Friday morning, June 17, I arose as usual. I heard the radio announcer pronounce words that stunned me.

Yockey was dead.

"I'll sleep through 'til morning" was the cryptic message he gave his cellmate, last night. Was the morning he anticipated the dawn of a new age?

A garbled note was found. The coroner declared it suicide and said the poison was potassium cyanide. No one knew where he had gotten it. The case was closed.

As Americans, we have been taught from infancy to believe that we live in a free country. But times change, and America has become transformed in many ways. Often, the old formalities are observed, but the meaning and inner reality of America has changed, and no one saw this more clearly than Francis Parker Yockey. How the press, for example, loves to brag to its victims — its readers — about its freedom. Yes, the press may be free to lie and distort and suppress and deceive and malign, but is it free to tell the truth?

The spectacle of a man being persecuted, framed and driven to his death simply because he wrote a book is not one we would expect to see in the Twentieth Century in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

But are we free when an American citizen whose only crime was to write a book is denied a passport by the State Department — a privilege which is given to all but the most notorious degenerates and criminals? It was not until April 24, 1962, that the State Department finally got around to beginning hearings to deny passports to the most important communists — but the "free press somehow forgot to report at the time that no report of a confidential nature from the FBI or any other source would be used against a communist unless he was given the "right" of confrontation with his accuser. And, of course, the right of appeal would be scrupulously honored, even then.

Are we free when a citizen can be arrested without a warrant and held in jail without charges, but with the fantastic bail of $50,000 levied against him? Are we free when the vultures of the "free press" can swoop down upon the victim to heap calumny and scorn upon his head and accuse him of doing things he never did and saying things he never said in an effort to build up "public opinion" against him? Is America a free country when a sensitive genius can be held in the filthiest of jails with Negro and White criminals and is denied even clean clothes and a bath? Are we free when such a "criminal" is not allowed to see his sisters in private, and when a group which has supposedly been set up to defend the constitutional rights of citizens — the American Civil Liberties Union — would rather defend the "rights" of homosexuals, traitors, murderers and pornographers than a sincere patriot like Francis Parker Yockey, whose every thought and effort was in behalf of his fellow man? Are we free, I ask, when a judge can rule that a prisoner is not to have a "speedy and public trial by an impartial jury…," as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, but, instead, must have a mental examination for the obvious purpose of eliminating a jury trial altogether? And finally, are we free when another group — vastly more powerful than the ACLU or the government itself — so powerful, indeed, that men dare not speak its name above a whisper, unless in terms of the most groveling praise — are we free when this group is able to dictate to the government the exact procedure which is to be used in disposing of troublemakers like Francis Parker Yockey? If such things as I have enumerated can happen — and they did — then our vaunted "freedom" is a fake thing; an empty word given to us by our watchful masters to keep us amused and quiet — as a parent gives a shiny bauble to a child.

It is enlightening to review the standard means whereby our masters combat positive ideas and movements. There is a pattern in such tactics which constructive forces will do well to study. The first tactic is suppression and determined non-recognition of the rebel and his works. The press will unanimously give the well known "silent treatment." Even at this early stage, if the movement gives promise of becoming significant, assassination is considered and carried out if possible. The murder of young Newton Armstrong, Jr., in San Diego, on the night of March 31, 1962, is a case in point. Quoting from Che Guevara's s book on guerilla warfare and the question of when to resort to assassination:

It is generally against the policy of the Communist Party to resort to assassination… However, it requires two criteria and a high-level policy decision… The criteria for the individual in question are that he must be highly effective and it must serve some sort of example — some sort of a highly effective example.

The next tactic is the Smear through libel, distortion, misrepresentation and the sowing of confusion wherever possible.This may be a negative smear with the purpose of destroying the effectiveness of an enemy or a positive smear for the purpose of building a haze around the truth to enable a disintegrative movement to develop. The falsification of the truth about Castro which was indulged in by virtually all of the press and, of course, the State Department, is a classic example of this. The Smear is usually started as an underground whispering campaign that viciously builds up to an outright and overt campaign, with the "free press" called into play. The object is to isolate enemies of the present regime and discredit them. The third tactic is infiltration into the movement and/or the building up of false leadership in order to sabotage the movement at the optimum time, meanwhile diverting patriot energies into harmless or controlled activities. The fourth and final stage is called upon only as a last resort, after the movement or philosophy has become institutionalized and is immune to grosser tactics. This is to "interpret" it so as to bring it as closely as possible into conformity with approved patterns. (Characteristically, the conflicting philosophies of both Jesus Christ and Friedrich Nietzsche have suffered this deadening interpretation.) Two or more of the above maneuvers are usually used simultaneously. For instance, in addition to the suppression of his Imperium, Yockey was also victimized by the Smear; and he was also in danger of assassination — and his enigmatic end settled the problem. Now it is with no gift of prophecy that one may predict that this present republication of his work will call forth the same sequence.

I tell you that the injustice of it all is enough to drive one mad. How can a man stomach the cynical or ignorant drivel of the liberals as they whine for "freedom of speech" and "right to dissent" and shake their bony fists at "conformity" and all the rest of their legerdemain when one knows that these moral cripples and ethical perverts demand their peculiar freedoms only for those who are working to destroy the West? We have seen their reaction when one committed to saving the West is in need of some of their medicine.

It was like a certain wise, old reporter whispered to one of Yockey's sisters as she slumped tearfully and quietly in her solitude. "Your brother is a martyr — the first of a long line of them — if we are to take back our country from those who have stolen it from us."

A surprising word on the Yockey affair came some weeks after his death, and was provided by the tight-lipped silence of the man who had been charged with railroading him to the insane asylum, the United States Attorney. Suddenly, inexplicably, he resigned his job, left his wife and children and joined a monastery.

Let us assume that at least one devoted servant of the Democracy has a conscience, even if displayed a little late.

Please allow me to expose to you my prejudice so that there will be no misunderstanding. I favor the survival of our Western cultural organism. I love those who fight for the integrity of the West, whoever they may be. And, as much as I fear and mistrust the outer enemies of the West, I despise our inner enemies and the cowards who support them far more — and I hate their putrid doctrine that calls our continuing degradation "inevitable."

Further, I believe that the West can survive. It all hinges on faith: faith in our future; faith in our superiority and survival. Skepticism, sophistication, cosmopolitanism, cynicism has destroyed the old faith, and it has not been replaced by a new one. But faith is and will always remain the essential ingredient in every historical force. Only a unifying faith can provide the common motivation for survival — the just and deep conviction of our right to live — and spark the single-minded and intolerant power which can clean and redeem our fast-decaying, rotting milieu. Very simply: the imperative of inspiring that faith is the central problem of our time.

And when I say, "survive," I mean nothing more. For we are so far gone; our philosophies, liberties and cultural patterns are so perverted or eroded that bare survival is all that is possible. I mean to say that those who are to save the West must realize at the outset that only part of it can be saved; that much must be sacrificed and that the resulting structure will be different from the past. Those who have gone before have allowed the dank "winds of change" to corrode the old life, and many weeds have sprung up which cannot entirely be eliminated. It is one thing to fight for an attainable ideal, but another to sacrifice for a lost cause. In determining what is attainable and what is forever lost a philosophy of history is needed.

And although our job is to rebuild we must not lose sight of the reality, for we cannot rebuild until we have captured. Political power is the essential criterion, not wishes or windbags, and to the goal of political power all else must be temporarily sacrificed. To say less is to insure defeat. He who is on board a sinking ship in a storm may be required to throw all his possessions overboard if this is necessary for common survival. Or, to use another image:

Those who would guide the West back across the Styx and out of the dark must travel first through the gates of Hell.

The practical problem of the recapture of political power divides itself into other questions. For one, is it possible to formulate an ethic and faith which, in itself, offers at least as much popular attractiveness as the painted lie of Marx? For another, how can those who would naturally lead such a movement compete with the highly-developed Leninistic operational diabolism in the perpetually savage and untamable jungle of political warfare — or is it necessary to do so? After all, the conspiracy we face is the hideous monster spawned of four millenniums of experience in guile and deception; so much so, in fact, that its main ally always has been the obtuse blindness of those on whom it feeds. "Struggle" to a man of the West means bullets, armies, and aircraft carriers. But to our enemy, international wars are of little meaning; "struggle" to him means not war but politics, and accordingly he has perfected his weapons in this most decisive of areas. Soldiers have never made good politicians, and, by the nature of their respective crafts, the soldier must always lose to the man of politics.

Finally comes the main consideration in formulating such a doctrine: will it certainly eradicate the politico-social evils and diseases of our day and lead mankind toward a better world?

It is by this standard and no other that you will, if you are wise, judge the work of Francis Parker Yockey.

To quit the search for such an ethic is to abandon history like the intellectual and spiritual nihilists — the liberals and beatniks. To quit the search is to turn over to the inner enemy carte blanche control over our lives, souls and fate.

The failure to provide this philosophy is not alone the fault of the saprophytes among us, however. Nor is it only the fault of the chameleon-like inner enemy of the West (the Culture Distorter; to use Yockey's apt term) which mercilessly persecutes and smashes all who dare to cry out against our rapid decline and degeneration; in all truth, it is mainly the fault of the many thousands who fully know the issues at stake yet have not the moral courage to identify and light the Culture Distorter; or — worse yet — who have, by diligent self-persuasion, convinced themselves that the battle for survival against an enemy that demands nothing less than total surrender can be fought and won with tax-deductible corporations, measured, "moderate" words and avoidance of "extremists." These dainty combatants swarm over every anti-communist movement like ants on sugar. By shrilly demonstrating their anti-communism they bribe their consciences to give them peace and often go so far as to join in the crucifixion of those few with moral courage lest they, too, be adjudged "guilty" by association. America has too many of such anti-communists and too few real patriots.

There is much in Imperium which can be easily misinterpreted. There is something for everyone to agree with. And there is something for everyone to disagree with. This is a distinguishing characteristic of every truly vital and revolutionary departure.

Yockey's criticism of Darwinism is an example of the first possibility, and it should be borne in mind that he is speaking of journalistic Darwinism, not the theory of evolution. A related point is his usage of the word, race. It would have added to clarity if another word, such as nobility, was used to describe those who feel the Imperative of the Age, for the genetic interpretation of race is a necessary, useful and valid one if we are to see all of our problems clearly and accurately. Also, Yockey cites some tests of doubtful validity when he asserts that children of immigrants into America are quite different in anthropological measurements than their parents. There is no doubt some truth to this; there are bodily differences caused by food and climate, but such conclusions can be carried into the realm of Lysenkoism unless great caution is used. Troyfim Lysenko is the Russian communist quack and high priest who "proved" through his hocus-pocus that environment and not heredity creates the man. Such a theory is the basic fallacy upon which the entire communist theory of man rests, though few people realize this. But heredity is a matter of genes and genes never change except through mutation unless genes of one type (race) are mixed with genes of another type (race). One of the best books on the subject to appear recently is Dr. Conway Zirkle's Evolution, Marxian Biology and the Social Scene. Evolution, biology and genetic inheritance must be treated as matters of life-facts, and any theory for the future has to accept them.

Yockey's usage of the word authority may be a source of misinterpretation. It should be remembered that the individual enjoyed far more liberty in Europe under the monarchs than in America, today. Doubters should familiarize themselves with Edmund Burke, Thomas Carlyle, Herbert Spencer, and the more recent work of Otto von Habsburg, The Social Order of Tomorrow. It is sure that by the use of this word, he does not mean Marxist-type collectivization.

Some readers have raised the question of Yockey's apparent anti-Russianism, and a clarifying word is necessary here. In later writings, Yockey made his views on Russia more clear; in fact, certain of his captors called him "anti-American and pro-Russian," during his San Francisco ordeal. Although this libel was of course vomited for the benefit of gullible newspaper readers, it shows that some of his later writings could have been misinterpreted as being pro-Russian, just as Imperium indicates an anti-Russian attitude. Of course, Yockey was neither pro- nor anti-Russian; he was concerned with the health and continuity of the West, and his view of the rest of the world was at all times subjective to what he considered in the best interests of the West at that time.

Accusations of "anti-Semitism," unless the imprecation is meant as simply having an open mind on the Jewish question, should be interpreted on the same level. The fact that he was captured in the home of a Jewish friend — even though that friend subsequently repudiated him — is instructive to the truth here.

Comment could be made on dozens of the brilliant thoughts and concepts presented in Imperium, such as, for one example, his relegating economics to its proper level — organically, the alimentary tract. His advocacy of European unification, long before this idea had gained any headway, is another case in point. This is perhaps a proof of his assertion that things that are considered "extreme today are the dogmas of tomorrow; the genius lives in the future, as he says, and whereas he used to be considered merely a little "odd" by his contemporaries, and avoided or tolerantly humored (unless, that is, he incurred the righteous wrath of the Church, in which case things could be made very hot for him) he is today declared by modern Freudianism to be mentally ill and unfit for the ancient protections of law; and this is surely indicative of the "progress" we have made in a thousand years.

The significance of the pseudonym Yockey chose as author of Imperium, Ulick Varange, should be noted. Ulick is an Irish given name, derived from Danish, and means "reward of the mind." Varange, of course, refers to the Varangians, that far-roving band of Norse heroes led by Rurik who, upon invitation from the Slavs, came to civilize Russia in the 9th Century, built the Russian Imperial State and formed the gifted and handsome Russian aristocracy until they were butchered by the Bolsheviks — along with some 20 million other Christians and Moslems — in that bloody terror. The name, therefore, drawn as it is from the Eastern and Western antipodes of Europe, signifies a Europe united "from the rocky promontories of Galway to the Urals," as he, himself, exhorts. Finally, the surname, Varange, by itself signifies the Western origin of historic Russia.

Imperium throughout is — again as the author says — not a book in the sense that it presents argument. It is prophetic, the work of an intuitive seer. You will find no bibliography or footnotes in Imperium for this reason in spite of the vast reading that the author has obviously done. And it is prophetic not only in the large historical sense, for could Yockey have been thinking of himself and predicting his own violent end when he stresses that the prophets of a new age often come to unnatural deaths? Twice this thought is brought out — once in the chapter THE ARTICULATION OF A CULTURE, and again, GENIUS.

Another interesting and mysterious fact about the manuscript he completed at Brittas Bay and that you now hold in your hand is that it is "keyed" so that, if the secret code can be discovered, the author's name is spelled. Thus, the question of authenticity which is always raised about a great work after the author dies cannot ever be a problem with Imperium.

It is important to seek the origins of Yockey's philosophy, for all are compelled to build on the backs of those who have gone before and to see the past clearly is to understand more fully. With more exaggeration than accuracy, Yockey states, "There is nothing original in the content of this book."

A grounding in Oswald Spengler is fundamental to understanding Yockey; in fact, it can be said that Imperium is really a sequel to Spengler's monumental The Decline of the West. Spengler, of course, is persona non grata to prevailing "intellects" for reasons that become very clear to any reader of Decline, so this revival of his influence — an inevitable revival, I'll add — will be a great shock to the tender minds of the beatniks, liberals and communists who have sucked at the dry pap of historical conformity for so long. These intellectual infants are always very eager to assure us that Spengler is "repudiated," a favorite semantic weapon of theirs, used regularly whenever they wish to avoid discussing issues and facts. But Oswald Spengler — "the philosopher of the Twentieth Century, as Yockey calls him — along with Gregor Mendel, Thomas Malthus and Charles Darwin — has shown us the pattern of the world of yesterday and the outline of it in the future, for better or for worse. Each of these giants is primary in his own field of study, and to study history while rejecting Spengler is quite as foolish as studying disease and rejecting the germ theory, or studying mathematics and rejecting numbers. The pathetic intellectual nihilists, materialists, equalists and do-gooders may yap, yap at the heels of Spengler until they are hoarse, but History cannot hear them.

"In this book is attempted for the first time the venture of predetermining history..."  Spengler opens Decline, and follows it with two thick volumes of delightful and profound excursions into world history, war, philosophy, poetry, music, art, politics, religion, even mathematics.

Perhaps the best synopsis of Spengler — if there can be such a thing — has been done by Egon Friedell in his A Cultural History of the Modern Age, a three-volume work of which, incidentally, Yockey was very fond. Says Friedell in listing significant thinkers:

Lastly, and with deep admiration, we come to the name of Oswald Spengler, perhaps the most powerful and vivid thinker to appear on German soil since Nietzsche. One has to climb very high in the world's literature to find works of such scintillating and exuberant intellect, such triumphant psychological vision and such a personal and suggestive, rhythmic cadence as his Decline of the West. What Spengler gives us in his two volumes is the "outlines of a morphology of history." He sees, in place of the "monotonous picture of linear world-history" the "phenomenon of a plurality of mighty Cultures." "Each Culture has its own new possibilities of self-expression, which arise, ripen, decay and never return. There is not one sculpture, one painting, one mathematic, one physics, but many, each in its deepest essence different from the others, each limited in duration and self-contained, just as each species of plant has its peculiar blossom or fruit, its special type of growth and decline. These Cultures, sublimated life-essences, grow with the same superb aimlessness as the flowers of the field." Cultures are organisms, and cultural history is their biography. Spengler establishes nine such Cultures, the Babylonian, the Egyptian, the Indian, the Chinese, the Classical, the Arabian, the Mexican, the Western and the Russian, and he throws light upon each in turn, naturally not an equally bright and full light in every case, as, of course, our information concerning them is very unequal. But in the evolutionary course of these Cultures certain parallelisms rule, and this leads Spengler to introduce the conception of "contemporary" phenomena, by which he understands historical facts that, "each in its own Culture, occur in the same — relative — positions and, therefore, have an exactly corresponding significance." "Contemporary," for example, are the rise of the Ionic and that of the Baroque; Polygnotus and Rembrandt, Polycletus and Bach, Socrates and Voltaire are "contemporaries." But within the individual Culture itself, too, there is naturally complete congruence of all its life-expressions at each of its stages of evolution. So, for instance, there is a deep connection of form between the Classical Polis and the Euclidean geometry, between the space-perspective of the Western oil-painting and the conquest of space by railways, telephones, and long-range weapons. By means of these and like guiding principles, now Spengler arrives at the most interesting and surprising discoveries. The "Protestant brown" of the Dutch and the atheistic plein air of the Manet school, the "Way" as prime symbol of the Egyptian Soul, and the "Plain" as the leitmotiv of the Russian world-outlook, the "Magian" Culture of the Arabs and the "Faustian" Culture of the West, the "second religiousness" in which late Cultures revive the images of their youth, and the "fellahdom" in which man becomes again historyless — these, and many more like them, are unforgettable glimpses of genius that light up for a moment vast tracts of night, incomparable discoveries and hints of an intellect that possesses a truly creative eye for analogies. That the Cimmerians of learning have opposed to such a work nothing but stolidity and a deaf incomprehension of what his questions and answers are about is not surprising to anyone who knows the customs and mentality of the republic of scholarship.

Spengler published Decline in July, 1918, and we are still being washed in the very first breakwaters of that titanic event. For The Decline of the West was fully as revolutionary to the study of history in 1918 as Copernicus theory of heliocentricity was to the study of astronomy in 1543.

What, we may ask, is the main cause of resistance to accepting Spengler aside from the fact that he is a massive roadblock to the total victory of the marxist-liberal "intellectual"? The main difficulties, I think, are two: the necessity of acknowledging the essentially alien nature of every cultural soul, and the apparent necessity to reconcile ourselves to the dismal fact that our own Western organism must, too, die as have all those which have passed before.

Paradoxically, the fundamental problem of the second difficulty lies in the very Faustian Soul of the West which Spengler himself defined: "The Faustian Soul — whose prime symbol is pure and limitless space," he said; and it is true, for we need, in our innermost being, the perpetual reach to infinity. The idea of unlimited progress flows from this spiritual reality; this is a concept which is deeply and inextricably imbedded in every man of the West. Thus, the thought of inevitable death draws a fundamental rejection and is called pessimism.

As for the first specific difficulty, the acknowledgment of the essentially alien nature of each cultural soul, it follows that if every culture has its own inner vitality, it will be uninfluenced by the spirit of any other. This also runs against the very deepest grain of Western man who, for five hundred years and more, has been proselyting men all over the world in the vain hope of making them over into his own beloved image.

This psychological block runs deep in the West — so deep that it is an error which is apparent in all philosophical strata, certainly not only the leftist variety. Name any philosopher, economist or religious adept of Western history, except Hegel (1) (yes, even including Spengler) and you are virtually certain to find a man who sought to lay universal laws of human behavior; who, in other words, saw no essential difference between races. This error is so fundamental it is usually unconscious. (What would Lord Keynes, for example, do with his "universal" theory of oversaving if he were to try to apply it to Ghana or Haiti?) The Roman Catholic Church is a case in point. Tradition-minded Westerners rightly speak of the Church as being a bulwark of the West, but sometimes go so far as to identify the Church as the West. Unfortunately, the compliment is not returned. The Holy Roman Church is a universal Church — one Church for all men — which sees all people, wherever they are and whoever they be, as equal human souls whose bodies are to be brought to the holy embrace of Vatican City. It is the first to reject the impious suggestion that it owes a primary loyalty to the West. Scientific and philosophical demonstrations that men and cultures are, nevertheless, different in many fundamental respects and that it is unhealthy — unethical — to mix them are sure to meet with the same inhospitable reception that the Church earlier gave to Copernicus and Galileo. In April of 1962 three Catholics in New Orleans were excommunicated for daring to stand on this heretical Verity.(2)

A central point when thinking about this subject is the growth and now the total supremacy of the Western idea of technics. The entire world of science is a reflection of Western man and no other, and we have seen Western technics conquer the world. We see our science being appropriated to varying degrees and in varying manners by every simian Culture on the planet which has advanced beyond the arboreal stage. The stone age Negro denizens of Africa, Haiti, New Guinea and the southern Philippines are fascinated by clocks, radios and even sails. When an American city wants to get rid of its old street cars, it sells them to Amerindian Mexico. The Semitic Arabs ride their Cadillacs and use rifles made in Belgium; both of which are bought with the gold of oil royalties from Wall Street, Dallas or London. The Oriental Chinese have learned well, and are expected to explode an atomic bomb at any moment. And even the half-Western Russians, from the days of Peter the Great, or even Rurik, have constructed their ships, cannon and rockets with European engineers. But does this mass appropriation of Western technics have the slightest effect on the inner and distinctive soul of the culture which appropriates? The answer is no, and we should not allow our foolish pride to think otherwise.

The other cause of rejecting Spengler lies in the difficulty of reconciling ourselves to the apparent necessity of the death of the West as a cultural organism.

But it is not necessary, in my opinion, to make this reconciliation. For although a Culture is an organism, it is a peculiar one; and, by accepting the analogy in the first place, we are able to intelligently seek for the possibility of extending or renewing its life.

Yockey rejects this hypothesis and, as a thorough Spenglerian, foresees the end of the West. But it can be argued that the very introduction of the organic concept into historical philosophizing and theorizing plus the unparalleled mastery over Nature which the West has attained — and the infinite possibilities of this for the future — hold out the conception that the organism of the West need not suffer the same Destiny as cultures which have gone before and which had none of this knowledge. In other words, we now have the proper concept, thanks to Spengler, and have, for the first time in all history, identified the pathology of Culture, thanks to Yockey. And, in addition, Western technics have created the equally unique physical means to apply to the problem. To carry this examination further, the Western Culture excels all others in history in these areas:

1. The obsession with fact-history.
2. The development of the organic concept of Culture, and recognition of its pathology.
3. The development of science and master technics. Nearing-subjection of the microcosm and time, and the macrocosm and space.

Let us now turn to the so-far final and, according to Spengler, the "inevitable" phase of a Culture — the imperialistic. First of all, it is in this area that the Spenglerian theory, as applied to "the venture of predetermining history," appears to falter because the West appears to be behind on the timetable. Yockey comments on this and attributes it to the retarding influence of Money. This is probably true. The question is, if Money can disturb the cycle, cannot other things, too?

Here may be mentioned another unique fact as regards the Western situation. The condition of overproduction has become a fact of life that almost all sectors of political opinion are loath to recognize. Nevertheless, this is a fundamental departure for men, with widespread implications. Until now, slavery was necessary to support a high standard of living. (And, of course, slavery has always been sanctioned by religion and law when it is economically desirable.) So were foreign conquests for exploitation. This is no longer the case. The main economic problem for the West is to dispose of its surplus production, not to feed and clothe its masses. (This elemental truth is known by every so-called "laboring man" but it has escaped the notice of theorists and economists of both Right and Left.) Overproduction and technics, then, appear to have destroyed the economic imperative for imperialism. Finally, the atomic bomb and its far more terroristic descendants have infinitely diminished the use of war as an instrument of national policy. From these points of view, imperialism as a policy of gain is as dead as the slave trade and the battleship. And if imperialism is not to be undertaken as a deliberate policy of gain, from what standpoint is it to be undertaken? Religious fervor? Popular enthusiasm for capitalism? No, the day of the Crusades is also past for the West. We shall not see the West march to conquer the world in any other fashion but that of Wall Street's and the Peace Corps' — unless the need to dump our products finally can be resolved only in "war, the coward's solution for the problems of peace."

Now if one were to object that the above considerations smack of the causal view of history — against which Yockey inveighs — and assert that the final phase of our Culture is subject to purely spiritual phenomena, I should be bold to suggest the possibility of a miscalculation by Spengler which could have been based on a misinterpretation of his own data and his own theory which, if seen in a slightly different perspective, not only clears up the meaning of the theory in the light of present developments, but also validates it completely. Space permits only the barest of outlines here, at the risk of unintelligibility to all but those initiated in the mysteries of Spenglerism.

Spengler's method was to show the correlation of all aspects of the history of a cultural organism. As the Friedell quotation earlier suggests, Spengler drew analogies between apparently diverse elements within a Culture, all of which are given shape and meaning by the zeitgeist (spirit of the age) which is the creation of the cultural soul in its singular Destiny. Hence, in the search of the past he saw as the culminating stage that which expresses itself spiritually as universalism. In the realm of religion, it becomes a "second religiosity," starting as a conglomeration of many sects and cults which no one takes seriously but everyone concerns himself with. (This is what we have today. It is called the "social gospel" and appears in a thousand forms, profane as well as sacred. It is not true religion at all but cultism.) Finally this anarchy stabilizes into the form of a generally-accepted and genuine religion — and we are about 200 years away from this. In the realm of the economic, there is "big business" and the growing power of Money, which, however, is finally broken by the force of politics. In art, the zeitgeist expresses itself as the importation of exotic art forms, and inane experimentation which has no significance whatsoever except as natural degeneracy of the native form. Finally, in foreign outlook, there is imperialism, military expansion.

We can plainly see all of the above running true to form and right on schedule except for the latter. Why? Simply because the subjection of technics to the service of the West and the mastery of economics over the West has sublimated this stage of spiritual universalism from militaristic imperialism to other forms of expansion. Verily, never before has there been such an aggressive army of gun-shy expansionists and pacifist imperialists. World government fanatics literally swarm over the West. They and others staunchly support the United Nations — an anachronism which cannot possibly be effective toward its alleged purposes — yet support for this harmful fossil is a matter of personal morality with millions. The zeitgeist is always reflected in definitions, so it is the height of insult for a White man today to be labeled an "isolationist" or "nationalist." White folks must all be "free traders," "internationalists" and "cosmopolitan" in our outlook, and how we admire the "citizen of the world," whatever that is. Our view is intently focused away from our marches; it is far easier, we have discovered, to solve the problems of total strangers than to solve our own. Non-Western peoples are not so enlightened as we, and it is eagerly excused, utilizing a newly-discovered Christian double standard which is a mark of modern moral superiority, like belonging to the Classics Book Club or contributing to the Negro College Fund. What, asks Nietzsche, has caused more suffering than the follies of the compassionate? It is good for colored peoples to be nationalistic; we encourage it, in fact, and snap up Israel Bonds with a warm feeling of self-righteousness. We are joyful when colored peoples and Jews exhibit "race pride," the cardinal sin and taboo of our own puritanical environment. (Incidentally, why is it that every subject except one can be discussed in our enlightened age? Atheism is now a dull subject. Marxism is even duller, after one hundred years of popularity. A step further has taken us past plain sex to sadism and perversion; the Marquis de Sade is even becoming jaded. What racy topic is left to discuss since the equalists have brought democracy's blessings? Only one thing cannot be discussed in polite company: race.)

The heroes of Wall Street reap the most from this type of "imperialism," and today investors big and little interest themselves in foreign investments which are actually given tax advantages over domestic investments (Tax favoritism: the final criterion of status in our democracy) — or they support "foreign aid" — remembering to stipulate, naturally, that a portion of this neat gimmick to dispose of our surplus production be allotted to their own products. The ultimate expression of this militant water-pistol imperialism is the hilarious yet deeply symbolic "Peace Corpse," the true expression of the zeitgeist. Created out of the typically American combination of abysmal do-good stupidity and inability to gauge the feelings of others, and enlightened greed, this is the perfect symbol for today.

No, we do not need imperialism so long as we have leaders like Mennen Williams and Adlai Stevenson; savants like Eleanor Roosevelt and Arnold Toynbee and altruists like Herbert Lehman, James Warburg, and Douglas Dillon to solve our problems for us.

To further pursue this inquiry into the applicability of Spengler today it is important to bring out a certain point of view which is heard most infrequently, thanks to the purveyors of intellectual freedom and democracy. Neo-Spenglerians who are attuned to the racial view of history (call them "racists" for convenience) hold that the "final" phase of a Culture — the imperialistic stage — is final only because the cultural organism destroys its body and kills its soul by this process.

Obviously, if we are to draw analogies between cultures and organisms we must agree that the soul of the organism dies only because of the death of the body. The soul can sicken — the soul of the West is now diseased and perhaps mortally ill — but it cannot die unless the organism itself dies. And this, point out the racists, is precisely what has happened to all previous cultures; death of the organism being the natural result of the suicidal process of imperialism.

A word on the racial view of history before proceeding further. Today, of course, history is written from the marxist standpoint of economics, linear progress and class warfare — and Yockey explains this triple error well. Previous to the first World War history was written largely from the racial point of view. History was seen as the dramatic story of the movements, struggles and developments of races, which it is. Suppression of the racist point of view reached its apex about 1960. (It is no coincidence that the power of the Culture Distorter in every other field, including the political, gave signs — however faint — of wavering at that time, too.)

Perhaps the biggest reason for a growing tendency of White folks to look at the races objectively is, paradoxically, precisely because they have been forced to look at them subjectively! It is no problem to maintain a myth in ignorance. Negro equality or even supremacy, for example, is easier to believe in if there are no Negroes around to destroy the concept. In a word, internationalism in practice quickly metamorphoses into racism.

To turn from experience to academic matters, how many Americans or Britons are acquainted with the stupendously elemental fact that they are — in the historical sense — Germans; that they are, like it or not, a part of that great Teutonic-Celtic family which — millenniums before the dawn of Rome or even Greece — was one tribe, with one language? How many otherwise enlightened and well-meaning people who have heretofore judged their patriotism according to the degree of hatred they have had for their continental brothers know that the ancestors of the great Teutonic-Celtic family were the same Aryans who subjected India and civilized it, speaking the Sanskrit language and creating the caste system which, incidentally, was nothing originally but a system of racial segregation endowed with a religious significance in order to maintain it? Or that, before this, there were the Sumerians and the Persians, and that the modern name for Persia — Iran — is merely a corruption of Aryan?

Greece and Rome, also, were created by this great, far-roving, culture-bearing race of conquerors. In whatever part of the world it went, a different civilization was created, each of which was distinctive because it developed in tune with the environmental conditions in whatever location its history began, yet bearing unmistakable traces of its Aryan origin.

There are some civilizations about which we know little, as far as the racial elements are concerned. All we know for certain about the Egyptians is that they were Caucasian, and that they, like all slavemasters, mingled their blood with that of their Negro slaves. As for the so-called Amerindian civilizations, we now know without doubt that civilization was superimposed upon Indian savages by a White racial stock. In his popular books, Kon-Tiki and Aku-Aku, Thor Heyerdahl cleverly reveals the forbidden racist view, in spite of the fact that a million people who are familiar with the adventure described in the books are totally ignorant of the deep racial message he wrote into them. (It is a sad commentary indeed when a gifted scientist, in order to reveal a simple truth, must risk his life and then write an adventure story in code which, when interpreted, shows a forbidden fact.)

In Kon-Tiki, Heyerdahl writes, "…There is not a trace of gradual development in the high civilizations which once stretched from Mexico to Peru. The deeper the archeologists dig, the higher the culture, until a definite point is reached at which the old civilizations have clearly arisen without any foundation in the midst of primitive cultures." All of the wonders in South and Central America before the arrival of the Spaniards had been brought about suddenly by a race of White conquerors and that, as they melted their blood slowly into that of their subject native population, the civilization dwindled. The very reason Cortez conquered the Aztecs so easily was because Montezuma believed that the Spaniards were the fair-skinned, bearded men coming from the East which, Quetzalcotl' s prophecy foretold, would return; and the Incas in Peru had the very same legend. The name, Inca, by the way, is the name only of the aristocracy of the Peruvians. The Incas were White and the princesses were quite beautiful; so much so that many of the Spanish officers married them and took them back to Spain. A glance at the present ' Incas in Peru shows at once that these were not the creators of the great Peruvian Culture.

Some of the very best writing on this subject and, for that matter, on the fascinating subject of world prehistory generally is found in Paul Hermann's Conquest By Man, an extremely valuable book which is currently out of print.

An even cloudier origin must be ascribed to the Chinese civilization. Suffice it to say that there is abundant indication of early White movements to North China and there is much similarity between early Chinese culture and Babylonian. Genghis Khan, a Mongol, came from a tribe called "the gray-eyed men," according to biographer Harold Lamb, and he had red hair and green eyes. The Chinese have shown that they have the ability to maintain a civilization but we cannot prove that they have ever created one.

The intensive suppression, misrepresentation, condemnation and opposition to the racial view of history has had its effect. We still not only have much to learn (the surface of prehistory has barely been scratched and will never be more than scratched if the scientists persist in spending their time in well-financed projects in the so-called "cradle of civilization" in the Middle Fast) but the results of historical perversion have been satisfyingly abundant in the social area. This has allowed the Distorter to convince Europe that all that Europe has it owes to the Greeks, the Romans and an obscure tribe of vagabonds which some religious crackpots refer to as "God's Chosen People." (3) In The Testimony of the Spade, however, Geoffrey Bibby relates some results of his straying off the beaten archeological track and looking for the origins of Europe in Europe instead of the alien Orient; results which will be surprising to persons brought up to believe that their ancestors were bearskin-clad savages, civilized only when forced to acknowledge the superiority of Rome. In truth, virtually everything the West has it owes to itself, including holidays like Christmas and Easter (originally Teutonic celebrations of the Winter Solstice and the coming of Spring, with the latter celebration dedicated to the Goddess Eostre), to law, ethics and single-breasted jackets. The world wears leather shoes and trousers, not sandals and togas. Wearing apparel very similar to items sold at Sears, Roebuck today have been discovered in Europe dating back some three thousand years.

The Western Culture had its birth many millenniums ago. It began autochthonously and developed to the present point, when it now stands upon the verge of physical and spiritual annihilation only because it has ceased to believe in itself. This is the lesson we glean.

Further, there is a correlation too perfect to be a coincidence in that, in every case on record of the death or stagnation of a Culture there has been simultaneously an abortive attempt to digest large numbers of cultural and racial aliens into the organism. In the case of Rome and Greece death came about through imperialism and the resulting, inevitable backwash of conquered peoples and races into the heartland as slaves, bringing exotic religions, different philosophies; in a word, cultural sophistication first, then cultural anarchy. In the case of Persia, India and the Amerindian civilizations, a race of conquerors superimposed their civilization upon a mass of indigenous people; the area flourished for awhile, then the Culture vanished or, in the case of America, was on the verge of vanishing, as the descendants of the conquerors became soft, fat and liberal and took on more and more of the accoutrements and blood of the subject population. In the case of Egypt, the alien blood was brought in over the course of many centuries by the importation of Negro slaves. The inevitable racial mongrelization followed, creating the Egypt we know today.

We thus see the real reason underlying the "inevitable" decline and destruction of a cultural organism. It is because, at a certain stage, a Culture develops a bad case of universalism. Speaking pathologically, unless this is sublimated to harmless channels by proper treatment, it will inevitably kill the organism through the absorption of a resulting flood of alien microbes.

It is, therefore, the natural by-product of universalism which kills the organism; the death of the organism itself is neither natural nor necessary!

This conclusion comes by a synthesis of the Spenglerian and the racial point of view. Each tempers the other; together a comprehensive and hopeful theory of history can be developed which holds a deep meaning to Westerners of this day. At all costs, the imperialistic phase of our development must be avoided, and we must guard against the digestion of alien matter we have already partially absorbed. The West need not die if it learns to sublimate the present "universal" stage of the West from the orthodox to something more constructive which will not only satisfy the "inevitable" yearning that the West now displays for expansion and universalism but, at the same time, will provide a basis for the West to continue its development. What can that be?

Faintly shining above the wreckage of seven Cultures we can now detect a dim ray of hope which gives to us, as men of the West, reason to believe that the Destiny of our Culture can work itself out through a completely new path. This ray of hope shines from the same developments which have brought the West to its position of unqualified superiority to every other Culture. For the West has already embarked upon the greatest adventure in all history — the attempt to conquer Space — the attempt to bring the very Universe under the control of the race! This imperative needs no justification other than the one Sir Edmund Hillary gave when he was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest: "Because it's there." This is the pristine reality of the Faustian Soul of the West, and it is beyond the logic of the rationalists.

Could any goal be at once so totally challenging, so impudent and impossible as this — and also so metaphysically necessary to the spiritual need of our Culture? And more — could any goal be so perfectly adapted to the physical situation in which we find ourselves?

The fates have provided the West well with the means of survival. At this point in history, our technics, industrial overproduction and the "population explosion" become all-important, for we see that finally the West has the means to turn the poetic imperative of the Faustian drive for the Infinite to reality; indeed, the inescapable need to do so.

For it is true that, regardless of all arguments to the contrary, Western man is bound to conquer Space or to die in the attempt. No longer is the drive toward infinity and largeness held back by earthly boundaries. Now, in fact, we have infinity at our elbow.

What I am suggesting is that at last the White man has burst the ties to Earth. I am stating the simple fact that, barring calamity caused by universal physical or biological destruction, we are now headed for the stars, and there is no power in heaven or earth to stop us. Coming days will see the present drive for Space magnified a thousandfold — a millionfold. All limits to the possibility of expansion have disappeared. Geographical expansion on Earth is senseless — and worse than senseless — it is suicide. The Frontier has come back — a Frontier that can never be dissipated. And with that Frontier comes literally limitless opportunities not only for physical expansion but for economic exploitation — and for the Soul of Faustian man to find its true expression.

Of course, man cannot conquer the heavens. Man cannot move the solar system, change planets in their orbits, add billions of square miles of dirt to the surface of the Earth, move other planets closer to the life-giving Sun to adapt them for colonization, refuel the Sun when it starts to fade and, most noble impossibility of all, actually upgrade the human species through deliberate biological mechanics; for, in the attempt to conquer Nature, we must fail; this is the eternal tragedy of the Faustian Soul, says Spengler in Man and Technics. But — and this is the important thing — we can try. And we will. The final end does not matter; time has no end; only the goal matters.

At the same time there is the grave danger that we will, with our attention fixed on the nearing stars, succumb to the subtle urging of the Culture Distorter and ignore the problems at home. The Infinite Challenge is of unspeakable excitement, but the mundane problem of the quality of men and their earthy environment is of more importance. Our venture to Infinity will be very short-lived if we come home to an earth peopled with a rapidly-degenerating human species; to nights that crawl with the prowlings of depraved, raceless savages, with only barred doors keeping the jungle out of the laboratory and the boudoir until day breaks; to a tyranny over our government that is exercised by organized and predatory minorities; to impossible taxes to support degenerative "welfare" schemes that are deliberately designed to proliferate the unfit and inferior at the expense of the productive and creative; to an organized filth that calls itself literature; to the ethical syphilis of Hollywood; to systematic lies that masquerade as scholarship; to purposeful journalistic and official propaganda that has as its sole aim the perpetuation of cultural decline; to thralldom to an economic system dedicated to extirpating individual excellence and personal responsibility; to a liberal philosophy and a sick religion — perfect for slaves — which ferociously combats all creative efforts of noble souls, revealing its own loftiest aspiration to be the implantation of a subconscious death wish in our people; to a cowardly hypocrisy that makes it impossible to speak of our real problems — and all of this for the purpose of stabilizing the total supremacy of the Culture Distorter, which feeds and fattens on these conditions.

Oswald Spengler, then, can be seen not as the prophet of inevitable doom, but as a challenger, as a seer who was — in common with all great creators — unable to see the final consequences of his creation. Hence, the importance of Spengler becomes the size of the future, and all men who are free from the grip of the destroyers must, as a categorical imperative, accept his basic teaching. What we do with it — whether or not we have the courage to build on the structure he built — this is up to us. We must hope that more men like Yockey will come to add a little more onto the concept he created, for the development of the Western cultural organism is not coming to an end, it is just beginning.

What is the significance of Imperium? Simply this. That now, for the first time, those soldiers who enlist in the service of the West have a profound theory to inspire and guide them. Imperium, after conquering all attempts to suppress it and destroy it — as have all constructive advances in the past of man — is seen as the only foundation which can be used to overthrow the inner enemies, re-conquer the Soul of the West and pave the way to the future.

In spite of the difference of opinion which Imperium will stir, this much is certain: here is a book which is basically different from other books, precisely as the author states on the first page. Whether it does, indeed, signal a turning-point in history such as the author describes, or not, it contains a vast amount of pregnant thinking and new concepts which any fair-minded person will welcome. It breaks through the straitjacket of present sterile intellectualism which affronts us from a thousand futile towers of "higher learning" and will undoubtedly endow every reader with possessions of thought which will enrich him and, in time, our Culture. Whether the apocalyptic prophecies are borne out, or whether an alternative and more constructive course can be imposed upon history — or whether the West and the world will come to its finality not with a bang but with a whimper, only the unfoldment of time can tell; but no intelligent man will ignore Imperium.

In one respect, Imperium is akin to Das Kapital, for Karl Marx gave to the conspiratorial Culture Distorter the necessary ideological mask to hide its mission of ruthless, total destruction. He provided an ugly and invalid theory of man, cloaked in putrifying equality, mewling hypocrisy, the disease of undiscriminating altruism and the "science" of economics. By so doing, he thrilled the rationalists with a totally specious verity, something their stunted, guilty souls desperately needed after they killed God.

Francis Parker Yockey has done the same thing for those who are constructive-minded and who have the intellectual and moral courage to face reality and seek and speak truth. This is why, although Yockey's plan for the West may not be perfect, it contains atomic power. If only one man reading this book is influenced to lead, and if others are made to see the world a little more clearly than they do now — and if they are thereby enabled to discriminate between their true friends and their real enemies, and to recognize the need for leadership and coordinated action — then Yockey's life of suffering and persecution and his monumental accomplishment in spite of all has not been in vain.

And whatever course Destiny may take from this day forth, I shall always be baffled by two questions.

For one, is the republication of this book, in itself, concrete evidence that its prophecy is being worked out?

And lastly — now you must accept this at my word and question me no further — it is most strange that two men — neither of whom can bring themselves to believe in either "Destiny" nor "Eternal Justice" — that these two heathens and bitter realists — these two rationalists, if you will — were the only ones with faith enough to take it upon themselves to see that Imperium is not forgotten but is made available for you, dear reader.

1. Extracts from the interesting Introduction to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Philosophy of History:

   "The peculiarly African character is difficult to comprehend, for the very reason that in reference to it we must quite give up the principle which accompanies all our ideas — the category of Universality. … Another characteristic fact in reference to the Negro is slavery. … Bad as this may be, their lot in their own land is even worse, since a slavery there quite as absolute exists; for it is the essential principle of slavery, that man has not yet attained to a consciousness of his own freedom, and consequently sinks down to a mere Thing — an object of no value. Among the Negro moral sentiments are quite weak, or more strictly speaking, non-existent. Parents sell their children and conversely children their parents, as either has the opportunity — the polygamy of the Negroes has frequently for its object the having of many children, to be sold, every one of them, into slavery … From these various traits it is manifest that want of self-control distinguishes the character of the Negroes. This condition is capable of no development or culture, and as we see them at this day, such have they always been. … At this point we leave Africa, not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the World; it has no movement or development to exhibit."

2. In his final work, History of the People of Israel, Ernest Renan said, "Socialism may bring back by the complicity of Catholicism a new Middle Age. And there are, indeed, some rather horrifying straws in the wind as regards the Church's traditional hostility toward communism. March 7, 1963 witnessed the Pope grasping the hand of Alexi Adzheubi, an official representative of the same Bolshevism which so far has murdered at least 50 million patriots in Russia, China and elsewhere. What are millions to think — Catholic and non-Catholic — who have heretofore looked upon Rome as a bulwark against this unspeakably degenerate conspiracy? (Decent Catholics should not be too surprised or chagrined; Protestant sects by and large were captured by the Culture Distorter years ago.) But should the two equalitarian religions converge, compromise is required on the part of the Communist Party, too; being totally bankrupt intellectually, this is not too great a price. An anonymous letter supposedly written by a CP member was reprinted in the May, 1963 Truth Seeker, a strongly anti-communist free thought periodical. It bears repetition:

   …The Party has soft-pedaled atheism for years and now we are dropping it completely. Atheism divides the masses and offends all the good religious people in the Party and who work closely with us. Fanatical atheists who insist on preaching their views are thrown out … confusing the political problems we have with religious matters is asinine. By far the most progress the Party is making today is being made through the churches. … I expect to see a complete convergence of the Catholic Church and the Party within the next fifty years. …

   The shadow of this is clearly foreshown in Poland. Perhaps you have heard of Pax? This is a Catholic lay organization run by communist priests … tolerated by both the Party and the Church. … You may yet live to see the day when the dictatorship of the proletariat will be proclaimed by the Pope!"
   
    
3. Or, as Samuel Hoffenstein put it in his earthquaking couplet:

   How odd of God
   To choose the Jews.

4. In Nature and Man's Fate, biologist Garrett Hardin of the University of California has done what too few academicians can do: created a book of both beauty and far-seeing scope. But alas, words are only words; politics alone, let us ever remember, is the art of the possible.

THE 20TH CENTURY HISTORICAL OUTLOOK

"Thus, as we do nothing but enact history, we say little but recite it: nay, rather, in that widest sense, our whole spiritual life is built thereon. For, strictly considered, what is all knowledge too but recorded experience, and a product of history; of which, therefore, reasoning and belief, no less than action and passion, are essential materials?" — CARLYLE

"The individual's life is of importance to none besides himself: the point is whether he wishes to escape from history or give his life for it. History recks nothing of human logic." — SPENGLER

PERSPECTIVE

FAR OUT in exterior darkness where no breath stirs, no light shines, and no sound is heard, one can glance toward this spinning earth-ball. In the astral regions, illumination is of the soul, hence all is dark but this certain star, and only a part of it is aglow. From such a distance, one can obtain an utterly untrammeled view of what is transpiring on this earth-ball. Drawing somewhat closer, continents are visible; closer yet, population-streams. One focal point exists whence the light goes forth in all directions. It is the crooked peninsula of Europe. On this tiny pendant of the great land-mass of the earth-ball, the greatest intensity of movement exists. One can see — for out here the soul and its emanations are visible — a concentration of ideas, energy, ambition, purpose, expansiveness, will-to-form. Hovering above Europe we can see what never before was so clearly visible — the presence of a purely spiritual organism. A close look reveals that the light stream is not flowing from the surface of Europe upward into the night sky, but downward from the hitherto invisible organism. This is a discovery of profound

4 THE 20TH CENTURY HISTORICAL OUTLOOK

and revolutionary importance, which was only vouchsafed to us by reason of our complete detachment from terrestrial events in the outer void, where spirit is visible and matter visible, only by reason of the light from the spirit.

More discoveries follow: on the other side are two islands, small in comparison with the land-mass. The pale glow diffused over isolated parts of these two islands is seen at once to be a reflection from the other side.

What is this supra-terrestrial phenomerion? Why does it hover over Europe in particular? What is the relationship between it and the human material under it? The latter is shaped up into intricately formed pyramidal structures. Ranks are formed. Movements proceed along channels of labyrinthine complexity. Persons stand to one another in defined relationships of command and obedience. Apart from this tiny peninsula, the human currents are horizontal, swirling, eddying like the water in the streams, the currents in the ocean, the herds on the vast plains. It is, then, the spirit-organism which forms and impresses the population of the peninsula into their intricate organic shapes.

With what can we compare this being, which could not be seen by us while we were earth-bound? It is alone at present.

But out here we have the freedom of time as well as the freedom of space. We are allowed to look upon a hundred generations as the earth-bound look upon the life-span of a fruit-fly. In our search for something similar to the spirit-organism we have seen, we go back two hundred generations. The ball is the same, but is in almost complete darkness. Things are almost indistinguishable; matter has not passed through the alembic of spirit, and is not apprehensible. A glance backward reveals a continuation of the void. We let a few generations pass in a moment, and spirit begins to make itself felt. A feeble, but

Perspective 5

promising, glow appears in northeast Africa. Then another, a thousand miles to the northeast, in Mesopotamia. They take names, Egypt, Babylonia. The time is around 3000 B.C. They increase in intensity and the first thing clear in each case is armies marching against the outer populations, who are felt as the barbarian. These spiritual organisms do not mix — their higher frontiers are sharp and clear; each being has its own hue, which adheres to it. Each organism seizes the human material in its landscape and impresses them into its service. First it gives them a common World-Idea, then it refines this into nations, each nation embodying a separate idea of the higher organism. A nobility and priesthood arise to embody different aspects of the idea. The populations are stratified and specialized, and the human beings live out their lives and destinies in a way entirely subordinate to the higher organism. The latter compels these humans with ideas. Only a small spiritual stratum of each human population is adapted to this kind of compulsion, but those who belong to it remain in the service of the idea, once it is felt. They will live and die for it, and in the process they determine the destinies of the population whence they spring. These ideas — not mere abstractions, strings of concepts, but living, pulsating, wordless necessities of being and thinking — are the technic by which these higher beings utilize human beings for their purposes. Religions of high complexity of feeling and rationale, forms of architecture, conceived in the spirit of that religion and put into its service, lyric poetry, pictorial art, sculpture, music, orders of nobility, orders of priesthood, stylized dwellings, stylized manners and dress, rigid training of the young up to these developments to perpetuate them, systems of philosophy, of mathematics, of knowledge, of nature, prodigious technical methods, giant battles, huge armies, prolonged wars, energetic economics to support this whole multifarious

6 THE 20TH CENTURY HISTORICAL OUTLOOK

structure, intricately organized governments to infuse order into the nations created by the higher being acting on the different types of human material — these are some of the floraison of forms which appear in these two areas. Each form is different in Egypt from the corresponding form in Babylonia. If an idea is taken over, it is only apparently adopted; actually it is misunderstood, re-formed, and adapted to the proper soul.

But the higher being approaches a crisis. It has expended itself in this earth-transforming process. It shudders, it apparently weakens, it palpitates — chaos and anarchy threaten its terrestrial actualizations — forces outside gather to strike it down and wipe out its grand creations. But it rouses itself, it puts forward its greatest effort of all — no longer in the creation of inward things, arts, philosophy, theories of life, but in the formation of the purely external apparatus of power: strict governments, giant armies, industry to support them, fleets of ships for war, legal systems to organize and order the conquests. It expands across areas never before investigated or even known, it unifies all of its proper nations into one, which gives its name to the rest and leads them on to the last great expansive effort.

The same great rhythm is observable in each of them. As one watches, the two lights die down from their splendid hues to an ever-paler earth-light. They go out slowly, leaving a glow of memory and legend in the minds of men, and with their last great creations lying in the widened landscape — Imperium.

Outside these two areas, the rest of the earth has remained unchanged. The human bands are distinguishable from the herding-animals only by a primitive culture, and a more intricate economy. Otherwise their existence-forms are devoid of significance. The primitive cultures are the sole thing existing above the plane of economics, in that they attribute symbolic significance to natural occurrences and human conduct. But

Perspective 7

there is nothing in these movements resembling the High Cultures which transformed the entire appearance of the Egyptian and Babylonian landscapes for almost forty generations from their first beginning until the last sinking.

Physical time flows on and centuries pass in darkness. Then, precisely as in Egypt and Babylonia, but again of a different hue, and to different music, a light appears over the Punjab. It becomes bright and firm. The same wealth of forms and significant happenings work themselves out as in the earlier two organisms. Its creations are all in the highest degree individual, as different from its two predecessors as they were vis-a-vis one another, but they follow the same grand rhythms. The same multi-colored pageant of nobles and priests, temples and schools, nations and cities, arts and philosophies, armies and sciences, letters and wars, passes before the eye.

II

Before this high culture was well on its way, another had started to actualize itself in the Hwang-Ho valley in China. And then a few centuries later, about noo B.C. in our way of reckoning, the Classical Culture begins on the shores of the Aegean. Both of these cultures have the stamp of individuality, their own way of coloring and influencing their terrestrial creations, but both are subject to the same morphology as the others observed.

As this Classical Culture draws to its close, around the time of Christ, another one appears in a landscape subjugated by the Classical in its last expansive phase — Arabia. The fact of its appearance precisely here makes its course an unusual one. Its forms are inwardly as pure as those of all the other Cultures, inwardly it borrows nothing any more than they did — but it was

8 THE 20TH CENTURY HISTORICAL OUTLOOK

inevitable that the material contiguity of landscape, temporal succession, and contact with the civilized populations of the older organism would influence the new soul to take over the wealth of classical creations. It was subjugated to them only in a superficial way however, for into these old bottles it poured its new wine. Through selection, reinterpretation, or ignoring, it expressed its own soul despite the alien forms. In its later, expansive phase, this culture embraced European Spain as the Western Caliphate. Its life span, its end form, its last great crisis — all followed the same organic regularity as the others. Some five centuries later the now familiar manifestations of another High Culture begin in the remote landscapes of Mexico and Peru. It is to have the most tragic destiny of any we have yet seen. Around 1000 A.D. the European Culture is meanwhile born, and at its very birth shows itself to be distinguished from the others by the extraordinary intensity of its self-expression, by its pushing into every distance both in the spiritual realm, and in the physical. Its original landscape was even of an extent many times the size of its predecessors, and from this base, in its middle life, it enters upon an Age of Discovery, in which it finds for itself the very frontiers of the earth-ball, and converts the world into the object of its politics. Its Spanish representatives in the two warrior bands of Cortez and Pizarro discovered the Civilization of Mexico and Peru, then in its very last stage of refinement of the material life. The two grand Empires of Mexico and Peru, with social forms, economico-political organization, transportation, communication, city life, all developed to the utmost limits for this particular soul made the invading Spaniards seem like mere naïve barbarians. But the technical disinterestedness of these empires left them helpless before the few cannon and horses of the invaders. The last act of this Culture-drama is its obliteration in a few years by the invaders

Perspective 9

from another world. This consummation is instructive as to the attention that the World-Spirit pays to human values and feelings. What soothsayer would have dared to tell the last Aztec Emperor, surrounded with the pomp of world-historical significance, clothed with the power of the world, that in a short time the jungle would reconquer his cities and palaces, that his armies and systems of control of his world-Empire would vanish before the onslaught of a few hundred barbarians ?

Each Culture-soul is stamped with individuality; from the others it takes nothing, and to them it gives nothing. Whatever is on its frontiers is the enemy, whether primitive or Culture-populations. They all are barbarians, heathens, to the proper culture, and no understanding passes between them. We saw the Western peoples prove the lifeworthiness of the European culture by their crusades against the highly civilized Saracens, Moors, and Turks. We saw the Germanic populations in the East and their Visigothic brothers in the South push the barbarian Slavs and the civilized Moors continually back during the centuries. We saw Western ships and Western armies make the whole world into the object of booty for the West. These were the relations of the West to that and those outside.

Within the Culture arose Gothic Christianity, the transcendent symbols of Empire and Papacy, the Gothic cathedrals, the unlocking of the secrets of the world of the soul and the world of nature in monastery cells. The Culture-soul shaped for its own expression the nations of the West. To each it gave individuality, and at the last, each thought it was a Culture in itself, instead of being a mere organ of a Culture. Cities grew out of the hamlets of Gothic times, and from the cities grew intellect. The old problem of the relation of Reason and Faith, the central problem of early Scholastic, is apparently being slowly decided in these cities in favor of the Supremacy of Reason.

10 THE 20TH CENTURY HISTORICAL OUTLOOK

The nobility of Gothic times, the masters of the earth who had no superior unless they voluntarily recognized him, become subject to an idea — the State. Life slowly externalizes: political problems move into the center; new economic resources are developed to support the political contests; the old agricultural economy metamorphoses into an industrial economy. At the end of this path stands a ghostly and terrifying Idea: Money.

Other Cultures also had seen this phenomenon appear at the same stage and grow to similar dimensions. Its slow growth in importance proceeds pari passu with the gradual self-assertion of Reason against Faith. It reaches its highest point with the Age of Nationalism, when the parts of the Culture tear one another to bits, even as outer dangers loom threateningly. At its highest point, Money, allied with Rationalism, contests for the supremacy over the life of the Culture with the forces of State and Tradition, Society and Religion. In our brief visit to interstellar space, we found the position of detachment whence we could see this grand life-drama unfold itself seven times in seven High Cultures, and we saw each of the seven surmount the last great crisis of two centuries' duration. The Mexican-Peruvian Civilization overcame the inner crisis only to fall before marauders appearing out of the blue sea.

The great crisis of the West set in forcefully with the French Revolution and its consequent phenomena. Napoleon was the symbol of the transition of Culture into Civilization — Civilization, the life of the material, the external, of power, giant economies, armies, and fleets, of great numbers and colossal technics, over Culture, the inner life of religion, philosophy, arts, domination of the external life of politics and economics by strict form and symbolism, strict restraint of the beast-of-prey in man, feeling of cultural unity. It is the victory of Rationalism, Money and the great city over the traditions of religion and authority, of Intellect over Instinct.

Perspective 11

We had seen all this in the previous high cultures as they approached their final life-phase. In each case the crisis had been resolved by the resurgence of the old forces of Religion and Authority, their victory over Rationalism and Money, and the final union of the nations into an Imperium. The two-century-long crisis in the life of the great organism expressed itself in gigantic wars and revolutions. All the Cultural energy that had previously gone into inner creations of thought, religion, philosophy, science, art-forms, great literature, now goes into the outer life of economics, war, technics, politics. The symbolism of power succeeds to the highest place in this last phase.

But at this point, we are suddenly back on the surface of the earth. No longer detached, we must participate in the great Culture-drama, whether we will or no. Our only choice is to participate as subject or as object. The wisdom that comes from the knowledge of the organic nature of a High Culture gives us the key to the events transpiring before our eyes. It can be applied by us, and our action can thereby become significant, as distinguished from the opportunistic and old-fashioned policy of stupidity which would try to turn the Western Civilization back in its course because stupid heads are incapable of adjusting themselves to new prevailing ideas.

III

With the knowledge of the organic nature of a High Culture, we have achieved an unparalleled liberation from the dross of materialism which hindered hitherto the glimpse into History's riddle. This knowledge is simple, but profound, and is therefore shut off from the inward appreciation of all but the few. In its train flow all the consequences of the necessary historical outlook of the coming times. Since a Culture is organic, it has an individuality, and a soul. Thus it cannot be influenced in its

12 THE 20TH CENTURY HISTORICAL OUTLOOK

depths from any outside force whatever. It has a destiny, like all organisms. It has a period of gestation, and a birth-time. It has a growth, a maturity, fulfillment, a down-going, a death. Because it has a soul, all of its manifestations will be impressed by the same spiritual stamp, just as each man's life is the creation of his own individuality. Because it has a soul, this particular culture can never come again after it has passed. Like the nations it creates to express phases of its own life, it exists only once. There will never be another Indian culture, Aztec-Mayan Culture, Classical Culture, or Western Culture, any more than there will be a second Spartan nation, Roman nation, French or English nation. Since a Culture is organic, it has a life-span. We observed this life span: it is about thirty-five generations at highest potential, or about forty-five generations from its first stirrings in the landscape until its final subsiding. Like the life span of organisms, it is no rigid thing. Man has a life span of seventy years, but this term is not rigid.

The High Cultures belong at the peak of the organic hierarchy: plant, animal, man. They differ from the other organisms in that they are invisible, or in other words, they have no light-quality. In this they resemble the human soul. The body of a High Culture is made up of the population streams in its landscape. They furnish it with the material through which it actualizes its possibilities. The spirit which animates these populations shows the life-phase of the Culture, whether youthful, mature, or at the last fulfillment. Like each man, a Culture has ages, which succeed one another with rhythmic inevitability. They are laid down for it by its own organic law, just as the senility of a man is laid down at his conception. This quality of direction we call Destiny. Destiny is the hallmark of everything living. Destiny-thinking is the type of thought which understands the living, and it is the only kind which does. The other

Perspective 13

method of human thought is that of Causality. This method is inwardly compulsory in dealing with inorganic problems of technics, mechanics, engineering, systematic natural philosophy. It finds the limits of its efficacy there, however, and is grotesque when applied to Life. It would tell us that youth is the cause of maturity, maturity of old age, that the bud is the cause of the full-blown flower, the caterpillar the cause of the butterfly.

The Destiny-Idea is the central motive of organic thinking. If anyone thinks it is merely an invisible causality, he understands it not. The idea of Causality is the central motive of systematic, or inorganic thinking. The latter is scientific thinking. It aims at subjugation of things to understanding; it wishes to name everything, to make outlines distinct, and then to link phenomena together by classification and causal linkage. Kant is the height of this type of thinking, and to this side of Western philosophy belong also Hume, Bacon, Schopenhauer, Hamilton, Spencer, Mill, Bentham, Locke, Holbach, Descartes. To the organic side belong Machiavelli, Vico, Montaigne, Leibnitz, Lichtenberg, Pascal, Hobbes, Goethe, Hegel, Carlyle, Nietzsche and Spengler, the philosopher of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Scientific thinking is at the height of its power in the realm of matter, that which possesses extension, but no direction. Material happenings can be controlled, are reversible, produce identical results under identical conditions, are recurrent, can be classified, can be successfully comprehended as though they are subject to an a priori, mechanical, necessity, in other words, to Causality.

Scientific thinking is powerless in the domain of Life, for its happenings are uncontrollable, irreversible, never-recurring, unique, cannot be classified, are unamenable to rational treatment, and possessed of no external, mechanical necessity. Every

14 THE 20TH CENTURY HISTORICAL OUTLOOK

organism is something never seen before, that follows an inner necessity, that passes away, never to reappear. Every organism is a set of possibilities within a certain framework, and its life is the process of actualization of these possibilities. The technique of Destiny-thinking is simply living into other organisms to understand their life-conditions and necessities. One can then apprehend what must happen.

The word Fate is an inorganic word. It is an attempt to subjugate Life to an external necessity; it is of religious provenance, and religion comes from the causal type of thinking. There is no science without a precedent religion. Science merely makes the sacred causality of religion into a profane, mechanical necessity.

Fate is not synonymous with destiny, but the opposite to it. Fate attributes necessity to the incidents of a life, but Destiny is the inner necessity of the organism. An incident can wipe out a life, and thus terminate its destiny, but this event came from outside the organism, and was thus apart from its destiny.

Every fact is an incident, unforeseeable and incalculable, but the inner progression of a life is destined, and works itself out through the facts, is helped or hindered by them, overcomes them, or succumbs to them. It is the destiny of every child that is born ultimately to become senile; incident may intervene in the form of disease or accident, and this destiny may be frustrated. These outer incidents — that may elevate a man to the heights despite his blunders, or cast him into defeat despite his efficiency and mastery of the idea of his time — are without meaning for Destiny-thinking.

Destiny inheres in the organism, forces it to express its possibilities. Incident is outside the organism, is blind, uninformed by necessity, but may nevertheless play a great role in the actualization of an organism, by smoothing its way, or imposing

Perspective 15

great obst