Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 423

Further, change is a form of motion, it occurs as the act of a being in potency insofar as it is in potency and has not yet reached the terminus of the change.

With regard to the change we are examining, the question is, at what point does the change become irreversible??

A number of considerations suggest that this occurs early in the process.

Change involves the displacement of form.

This means that the inception of change itself can begin only when the factors conducive to change have already become more powerful than those anchoring the existent form in being.

If the existent form is to be retained new factors that reinforce it must be introduced into the situation.

In the case of social decay, form is displaced simply by the process of dissolution with no form at the terminus of the process.

Now in the mere fact of the beginning of such displacement we have prima-facie evidence of the ontological weakness of the fading form.

And when we consider the tenuous hold tradition has on existence, any weakening of that hold constitutes a crisis of existence.

The retention of a tradition confronted with such a crisis necessitates the introduction of new spiritual forces into the situation.

However, the crisis occurs precisely as a weakening of spiritual forces.

It would seem, therefore, that in a civilizational crisis man cannot save himself.

The emergence of the crisis itself would seem to constitute a warranty for the victory of disorder.

And it would seem that history is a witness to this truth.