The Decline of the West (Volume 1): Form and Actuality - Oswald Spengler

nThe Decline of the West Volume I: Form and Actuality nBy Oswald Spengler nContents I-Introduction nII-The Meaning of Numbers nIII-The Problem of World-history--Physiognomic and Systematic nIV-The Problem of World-history--The Destiny-idea and the Causality-principle nV-Makrokosmos--The Symbolism of the World-picture and the Problem of Space nVI-Makrokosmos--Apollinian, Faustian, and Magian Soul nVII-Music and Plastic--The Arts of Form nVIII-Music and Plastic--Act and Portrait nIX-Soul-image and Life-feeling--On the Form of the Soul nX-Soul-image and Life-feeling--Buddhism, Stoicism, and Socialism nXI-Faustian and Apollinian Nature-Knowledge nIntroduction In this book is attempted for the first time the venture of predetermining history, of following the still untravelled stages in the destiny of a Culture, and specifically of the only Culture of our time and on our planet which is actually in the phase of fulfilment--the West-European-American. Hitherto the possibility of solving a problem so far-reaching has evidently never been envisaged, and even if it had been so, the means of dealing with it were either altogether unsuspected or, at best, inadequately used. Is there a logic of history? Is there, beyond all the casual and incalculable elements of the separate events, something that we may call a metaphysical structure of historic humanity, something that is essentially independent of the outward forms--social, spiritual and political--which we see so clearly? Are not these actualities indeed secondary or derived from that something? Does world-history present to the seeing eye certain grand traits, again and again, with sufficient constancy to justify certain conclusions? And if so, what are the limits to which reasoning from such premisses may be pushed? Is it possible to find in life itself--for human history is the sum of mighty life-courses which already have had to be endowed with ego and personality, in customary thought and expression, by predicating entities of a higher order like the Classical or the Chinese Culture, Modern Civilization--a series of stages which must be traversed, and traversed moreover in an ordered and obligatory sequence? For everything organic the notions of birth, death, youth, age, lifetime are fundamentals--may not these notions, in this sphere also, possess a rigorous meaning which no one has as yet extracted? In short, is all history founded upon general biographic ar