Great Cycle

“ The Yogi Teachings inform us that the Grand Cycle of Man's Life on the Earth is composed of Seven Cycles, of which we are now living in the third-seventh part of the Fifth Cycle. These Cycles may be spoken of as the Great Earth Periods, separated from each other by some great natural cataclysm which destroyed the works of the previous races of men, and which started afresh the progress called "civilization," which, as all students know, manifests a rise and fall like unto that of the tides. ”

“ As often as this hieroglyphic occurs in their maps, it shows the number of half centuries. To enable them to specify any particular year, they divided the great cycle into four smaller cycles, or indictions, of thirteen years each. They then adopted two periodical series of signs, one consisting of their numerical dots up to thirteen, the other, of four hieroglyphics of the years.5 These latter they repeated in regular succession, setting against each one a number of the corresponding series of dots, continued also in regular succession up to thirteen. ”

“ If we examine the table of years. No. XVII, we will see that, commence where we may, and divide it into periods of twenty-four years by transverse lines, the first years of these periods taken in the order they come will accord exactly with this series. Take for example the Ahaues as there given: the first commences with the year 1 Cauac, the second with 12 Cauac, the third with 10 Cauac, and so on. As the great cycle contains thirteen of these periods, it follows that we shall find all these numbers in it by thus dividing it. ”

“ Eras of Great Fractionation have a duration of six and one-half centuries. Eras of Great Unification last ten and one-half centuries. The cycle of evolution is made up of seventeen centuries.
3. During this process of evolution, nations go through perfectly established phases so that at the end of the cycle they occupy the same position it had at the beginning thereof.
4. The cycle of evolution covers all areas of human activity, that is, in addition to the political cycle, we must consider the social, artistic, philosophical and scientific ones. ”

“ Since this is the term following the sixth, or great cycle, we may call it the great-great cycle. But we have seen that the {116}great cycle = 2,880,000; therefore the great-great cycle = twenty times this number, or 57,600,000. Our text shows, however, that seven of these great-great cycles are used in the number in question, therefore our first term = 403,200,000. The rest may be reduced by means of Table VIII as follows: B3, 18 great cycles = 51,840,000; A3, 2 cycles = 288,000; B2, 9 katuns = 64,800; A2, 1 tun = 360; B1, 12 uinals = 240; B1, 1 kin = 1. ”

“ In conclusion, those who imagine the cycle industry has anything left of its old time sporting glamour, when to be connected with it was regarded by some as a pleasant means of existence hovering between work and play, with a big proportion of the latter, should at once disabuse their minds of any such ideas. The cycle industry is now one of Britain's staple trades, and has settled down on industrial lines of great magnitude. ”

“ Cycle generally brings changes in life, either socially, or commercially, or both. If these changes appear under harmonious conditions they may be turned to great advantage. If left to themselves, or not directed into proper channels, they are quite as likely to result disastrously. An “A” out of harmony would be obstinate and headstrong. The tendency to “begin” things would still exist, but the power to “finish” would be weakened to correspond to the extent of vibratory discord. ”

“ There is just a possibility that the great cycle may not be 54. If it is 53, the date must be 9 Muluc 12 Muan; if it is 55, the date must be 9 Muluc 2 Yaxkin; but the month number is clearly 7, which eliminates both these great cycle numbers. In order to find a great cycle with the numbers ?. 10. 2. 9. 1. 9, 9. ?. 7. ?, we should have to go back or forward from Great Cycle 54 at least five great cycles, which means over 25,000 years. ”

“ Number of cycles covered by the given curve. (2) Shortness of maxima in relation to length of cycle; if the maximum is sudden and sharp, as in rainfall, the accuracy may be very great; if the maximum is long, as in a sine curve, the accuracy is less. (3) Regularity in the maxima and freedom from interference. These features all appear in the differential pattern and hence the accuracy of any period is its most evident feature and all observers can judge it equally well. ”

“ This cycle of change involved two great systems of natural processes. On the one hand, men were taught that by the action of running water the materials of the solid land are in a state of continual decay and transport to the ocean. ”

“ The great boom year in the history of cycling and cycle manufacture has had a tremendous influence on the trade, and history has undoubtedly repeated itself in connection with the sale and manufacture of motor cars and motor cycles.
The boom year in cycling occurred in 1895–96, when the popularity of the pastime for fashionable women became an accomplished fact, and there was a sudden rush for bicycles by a class of people who had never previously given the sport a single thought. ”

“ Enormous sums of money are locked up in plant and machinery at its various factories and works which produce the subsidiary articles that go to make up that portion of the trade known as accessories. It is quite impossible to give an accurate figure as to the amount of this capital or the number of employees, partly because a good portion of the capital is in private concerns and also on account of the cycle and motor industries being interconnected to so great an extent that it is difficult to say where one begins and the other ends. ”

“ If the hole was small the tyre was heavy and the machine ran "dead"; if large, the sides pressed hard against the edges of the rim and cut through. Some cushion tyres were more like a glorified thick garden hose, and various shaped rims were introduced to obviate the tendency there was to cut through at the sides. The expense of india-rubber resulted in great adulteration of cushion tyres, and although cycle makers of repute paid a fair price to obtain a good article, the makers of cheap shoddy bicycles often used cushion tyres that had very little india-rubber in their composition. ”

“ The present sub-cycle producing an entirely different influence to that of the past cycle, whose force was watery, magnetic and feminine, causes a warring of elements, confusion and uncertainty, until the old are displaced by the new conditions. ”

“ But why should the cycle begin or end at one point of time rather than at another; and what determines the length of the cycle? Some of the new dynamic forces such as inventions and growth of population are distributed pretty regularly along the line, so that their influences are nearly equalized. But occasionally some large impulse may serve to start a swing and if this impulse is somewhat regularly repeated, it may serve to keep up the rhythmic motion. ”

“ In consequence of this change every fourth year, twenty-eight years must elapse before a complete revolution can take place in the dominical letter, and it is on this circumstance that the period of the solar cycle is founded. ”

“ The races were very prolific, and multiplied very rapidly under the most favorable conditions. The souls of the Atlanteans were pressing forward for embodiment, and human forms were born to supply the demand. And now begins the history of our own Cycle—the Fifth Cycle. ”

“ And as the course of human history has flowed in an unbroken stream along quiet reaches of slow change and through periods of rapid change and revolution, so with the course of geologic history. Periods of quiescence, in which revolutionary forces are perhaps gathering head, alternate with periods of comparatively rapid change in physical geography and in organisms, when new and higher forms appear which serve to draw the boundary line of new epochs. ”

“ There is a wide range of models from which to make a choice, all of which—from the "Beeston" supplied to H.M. the King to the lowest-priced cycle—are good value because of their exceptionally long life. ”

“ It is impossible not to see, in the whole course of the events of this remarkable period, an onward movement as irresistible and certain in its ultimate progress as that of the great geological changes which have passed over the physical world. ”

“ How are we to select the one right idea out of several conceivable ones? To which we can only reply, that this must be done by trying which will succeed. If there really exist a cycle of the weather, as well as of eclipses, this must be established by comparing the asserted cycle with a good register of the seasons, of sufficient extent. ”

“ Yet advancing civilization desires something a little different from any of these. In riding a cycle we find it best to stand erect upon the feet and yet get a partial support for the body at the middle,—a condition nature has not exactly provided for. ”

“ So one might go on enumerating the different centres of industry that supply the cycle trade; but it does not require much imagination to compare the early struggles of the pioneer cycle mechanics with those of the present day, who have largely to fit together what is made for them by other producers. ”

“ The great division of history into phases by Turgot and Comte first affirmed this law in its outlines by asserting the unity of progress, for a mere phase interrupts no growth, and nature shows innumerable such phases. ”

“ Cycle succeeded cycle, by imperceptible transitions; highly-civilized flourishing nations, waxed in power, attained the climax of development, waned, and became extinct; and mankind, when the end of the lower cyclic arc was reached, was replunged into barbarism as at the start. Kingdoms have crumbled and nation succeeded nation from the beginning until our day, the races alternately mounting to the highest and descending to the lowest points of development. Draper observes that there is no reason to suppose that any one cycle applied to the whole human race. ”

“ THE UNIVERSAL CYCLES Each one of the luminous bodies in this limitless firmament has a cycle of revolution which is of a different duration, and every one revolves in its own orbit, and again begins a new cycle. ”

“ The fundamental character of the period we are about to study is the immense development of a vegetation which then covered much of the globe. The great thickness of the rocks which now represent the period in question, the variety of changes which are observed in these rocks wherever they are met with, lead to the conclusion that this phase in the Earth’s history involved a long succession of time. ”

“ A Cycle is a perpetual round, or circulation of the same parts of time of any sort. The Cycle of the Sun is a revolution of 28 years, in which time, the days of the months return again to the same days of the week; the Sun’s Place to the same Signs and Degrees of the Ecliptic on the same months and days, so as not to differ one degree in 100 years; and the leap-years begin the same course over again with respect to the days of the week on which the days of the months fall. The Cycle of the Moon, commonly called the Golden Number, is a revolution of 19 years ”

“ But we have another system of chronology derived from a wholly different system of ideas; it too relates to periods of vast duration, and, like our great tidal periods, extends to times anterior to human history, or even to the duration of human life on this globe. The facts of geology open up to us a majestic chronology, the epochs of which are familiar to us by the succession of strata forming the crust of the earth, and by the succession of living beings whose remains these strata have preserved. ”

“ The more important cycles are discussed in the articles Calendar and Eclipse. In physics, the term is applied to a series of operations which, performed upon a system, brings it back to its original state; “Carnot’s Cycle” is an example (see Thermodynamics) . From the use of the word for any period at the end of which the same events recur in the same order or for any complete series of phenomena, it is used loosely of any long period of time. The name ὁ ἐπικὸς κύκλος, the epic cycle, was given to the poems which complete the Homeric account of the Trojan War (see below) . ”

“ A Hundred Years Hence CHAPTER I THE RATE OF PROGRESS
To anyone who has considered at all attentively the enormous material advances of the nineteenth century, a much more remarkable thing than any invention or improvement which that century brought forth must be the speed of human progression during the hundred years between 1800 and 1900, and the extraordinary acceleration of that speed which began to establish itself about the year 1880. But indeed, during the whole century, our forward movement was steadily gaining impetus. ”

“ In each of our half-century cycles we have seen that there are five maxima and five minima of sun-spots, whose periodic times average for the first cycle a little more than eleven and a half years, and for the last cycle a little less. We may reasonably conclude that the next half-century will witness no material change, but that the like phenomena will continue, with a mean period of about eleven years; also, that the temperature and the rainfall will continue to exhibit their dependent phenomena as before. On this basis let us construct our diagram for the coming years. ”