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206 The Human Cycleby a dominant individual leader, Führer, Dux, dictator, head ofa small active minority, the Nazi, Fascist or Communist party,and supported by a militarised partisan force; there is a rapidcrystallisation of the social, economic, political life of the peopleinto a new rigid organisation effectively controlled at everypoint; there is the compulsory casting of thought, education,expression, action, into a set iron mould, a fixed system of ideasand life-motives, with a fierce and ruthless, often a sanguinaryrepression of all that denies and differs; there is a total unprecedentedcompression of the whole communal existence soas to compel a maximum efficiency and a complete unanimityof mind, speech, feeling, life.If this trend becomes universal, it is the end of the Age ofReason, the suicide or the execution — by decapitation or lethalpressure, peine forte et dure, — of the rational and intellectualexpansion of the human mental being. Reason cannot do itswork, act or rule if the mind of man is denied freedom to thinkor freedom to realise its thought by action in life. But neither cana subjective age be the outcome; for the growth of subjectivismalso cannot proceed without plasticity, without movement ofself-search, without room to move, expand, develop, change.The result is likely to be rather the creation of a tenebrous NoMan’s Land where obscure mysticisms, materialistic, vitalistic ormixed, clash and battle for the mastery of human life. But thisconsummation is not certain; chaos and confusion still reign andall hangs in the balance. Totalitarian mysticism may not be ableto carry out its menace of occupying the globe, may not evenendure. Spaces of the earth may be left where a rational idealismcan still survive. The terrible compression now exercised on thenational mind and life may lead to an explosion from withinor, on the other hand, having fulfilled its immediate aim mayrelax and give way in calmer times to a greater plasticity whichwill restore to the human mind or soul a more natural line ofprogress, a freer field for their self-expanding impulse.In that case the curve of the Age of Reason, now threatenedwith an abrupt cessation, may prolong and complete itself; thesubjective turn of the human mind and life, avoiding a premature