Disruption

“ All their energy has disappeared, and from this time till a second change takes place for the worse, large numbers drag out a weary existence, victims of vices which hold them in their grip, till as if burned up by a fierce but short-lived fire, they ultimately become seared and shattered wrecks. ”

“ The city had the air and movement of hysteria, and the citizens were crying, in every accent of anger and alarm, that the new forces must at any cost be brought under control. Prosperity never before imagined, power never yet wielded by man, speed never reached by anything but a meteor, had made the world irritable, nervous, querulous, unreasonable and afraid. ”

“ You must first moderate your present alarm, and then change your attitude, and be alarmed, all of you, for the Thebans. They are far more within the reach of disaster than we: it is they whom the danger threatens first. ”

“ The two additional propositions suggested in the Introduction, namely, that the degree of fluidity seems to vary directly as the shock of the catastrophe, and that brusk revolution in the conditions of life accomplish not sudden, but gradual changes in society, require a study of comparative catastrophic phenomena for verification or rejection. ”

“ All declare, ‘If any change should come, it will mean terrible disaster!’ Some have the backbone and some have the civil power behind them, but unitedly they croak to the people that if any change is made, it will mean ruin to the present order. ”

“ A valley of anarchy, — a confession that harmony of the elements was hopeless here, and that the toil of Nature for cycles working a world out of chaos, had failed, and achieved only a relapse into ruin, drearier than chaos. ”

“ Like a flood that slowly undermines a bank, and which the proprietor regards not when he sees so tiny a current dribbling and oozing through, and scarcely bowing the grass between which it trickles, so came the Destroyer—slowly and almost imperceptibly undermining the current of life, and eating out the foundations, until there needed but one mighty rush, and all was over beyond recovery, and the work of destruction was completed. ”

“ No one could say that the social mind now failed to respond to new force, even when the new force annoyed it horribly. Every day Nature violently revolted, causing so-called accidents with enormous destruction of property and life, while plainly laughing at man, who helplessly groaned and shrieked and shuddered, but never for a single instant could stop. ”

“ It is necessary that I should set these things before you, should give the key of inconvenience and uneasiness in which all things were arranged, should suggest the breath of trouble that stirred along the hot summer streets, the anxiety about the strike, the rumours and indignations, the gatherings and meetings, the increasing gravity of the policemen's faces, the combative headlines of the local papers, the knots of picketers who scrutinised anyone who passed near the silent, smokeless forges, but in my mind, you must understand, such impressions came and went irregularly ”

“ I believe we understand both scenes and machinery. But there is another kind of public opinion that rises like the wind, incomprehensible, unmanageable, and terrible as the wind when it rouses itself to a storm. ”

“ Whenever the part, spurning the whole, tries to run a separate course of its own, the great pull of the all gives it a violent wrench, stops it suddenly, and brings it to the dust. Whenever the individual tries to dam the ever-flowing current of the world-force and imprison it within the area of his particular use, it brings on disaster. ”

“ Then Nature struggles violently, demanding her rights, twitching, clutching, and tugging at your eyelids and striving in a thousand ways to bring you into submission and force her rule upon you, but the iron laws of necessity, circumstance, and system prevail; you must battle the power within you and repel the sweet soother, struggling on in the unnatural combat. ”

“ Then life was suspended, for it is they who are the motor force of life, they and no other. The water supply stopped, the fire went out, the city was plunged in darkness. The masters began to tremble like children. Fear invaded the hearts of the oppressors. ”

“ While Vergli, Fortunatus, or Vulnar Remain at large, destruction threatens us. Destroy this trinity and dangerous force 95 Of Will, and thought, and optimistic hope, And all will flow serenely once again. The torpid languour of the working men Will soon return to lull them all to sleep, As in the good old days gone by, when I Ruled o’er the roost in undisputed sway. ”

“ There'll be talk—oh, I know human nature, and that it's impossible for things to be otherwise—but at least I may count upon you for stemming the tide a little, until the way is rather clearer. Believe me, there will be a crisis—a solution of some sort will come. I know that the present state of tension can't last. ”

“ If the drums and the banners of revolution are beaten and displayed, and the other outward and visible signs of a violent dislocation of the compact of society are plainly to be discerned, the event takes its place as a revolution, and the nervous system of society is fluttered and shaken. ”

“ And it is equally clear that we experience every hour the effects of our fall and ruin. What, then, comes to us from all this chaos and wild confusion, in a voice of irresistible conviction, but the irrefragable truth of both those sides of humanity? ”

“ In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters, thy merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fall.—When thou shalt be broken and engulfed in the roaring waves of anarchy, thy doctrines shall cease and all thy supporters shall fall. ”

“ I have tried to prevent the sharp discussions of the foreground, the dramatic moments and eloquent passages, from blinding us to the dark and darkening background of Old World affairs. I have tried to show that even the horrors of war are not the whole or the main disaster which results from human disunion and disorder in the presence of increasing mechanical power. I have stressed the theme of economic and social dissolution. ”

“ But what could be the consequences but some enterprise, the issue of which is uncertain, and the ultimate result of which, whatever it might be, presents disasters such as one can not endure to contemplate? ”

“ For a weary instant I felt again the pressure of all those currents which bewilder, crush, and smother the struggling individual—movements of peoples, marching of armies, alliances of nations, the tides of poverty and disease, the tremendous impersonal economic conflicts. ”

“ At times it takes place so gradually that one day seems like another. At other times it operates with furious energy, turning things upside-down overnight. Such change, whether it takes place in nature or in society is revolutionary. ”

“ A great deluge had swept just recently over all that previous centuries had established; society was still on a narrow and shaking plank which required widening, strengthening, but, above all, fixing over the still turbulent and agitated waters. ”

“ The policy of drift, which we seem to favour, is bound to lead us to disaster, and when we couple with it inefficacious resistance and bigoted obstruction we cannot be surprised if, in the end, it only yields us bitter disappointment, extensive losses, enmity and derision. ”

“ Bleeding in the feet, for example, so rarely practised in better times, is now among the fashionable follies of the day. That gentle, civilized system of evacuation, which prevailed under my auspices, is subverted by the reign of anarchy and emetics, of quackery and poison. In short, chaos is come again! Every one orders what seems good in his own eyes; there is no deference to the authority of ancient wisdom; our masters are laid upon the shelf, and their axioms not one tittle the more regarded for being delivered in languages as defunct as the subjects of their application. ”

“ There are tumults of the mind when like the great convulsions of nature all seems anarchy and returning chaos, yet often in those moments of vast disturbance, as in the material strife itself, some new principle of order, or some new impulse of conduct, develops itself, and controls and regulates and brings to an harmonious consequence, passions and elements which seemed only to threaten despair and subversion. ”

“ The misery of others, like a tempestuous night, added to the pleasures of your own security. You even enjoyed the storm, by contemplating the difference of conditions, and that which carried sorrow into the breasts of thousands served but to heighten in you a species of tranquil pride. ”

“ But this is only one aspect of it. In so far as men are merely mechanical, the struggle is one which, though it may bring disaster and death to millions, is no more than accident, an accidental collision of forces. ”

“ There is froth on the surface—a rising here, an agitation there, a deal of wild talk everywhere, and the dead old government proposes to suppress it in the dead old ways, like men with paddles seeking to beat the waves down flat! ”

“ And the chief thing demanded by these intricacies of civilisation was control, restraint--a poise of self that was as delicate as the fluttering of gossamer wings and at the same time as rigid as steel. ”

“ So in life, what is it that sets up this slow gentle explosion that makes the machinery of our vital economies go—that draws new matter into the vortex and casts the used-up material out—in short, that creates and keeps up the unstable condition, the seesaw upon which life depends? ”

“ All the social forces will then be thrown into spasmodic commotion; and, when those forces, in their native wildness, break through their traditional restraints, the world may have to witness a spectacle of revolutionary chaos without example in history. ”

“ These recurrent crises which, with ominous frequency and resistless force, are afflicting an ever-increasing portion of the human race must of necessity continue, however impermanently, to exercise, in a certain measure, their baleful influence upon a world community which has spread its ramifications to the uttermost ends of the earth. ”

“ The disinherited begin to feel their doom: their blind and hopeless but strong and desperate struggles against that doom have already begun in wasting strikes and bloody riots; and at every new outburst the wave of fire and blood spreads wider and rises higher. ”

“ The whole effect upon the mind of a cool observer was of a covey of unsubstantial jabbering minds drifting over a series of irrational economic cataclysms, prices and employment tumbled about like towers in an earthquake, and amidst the shifting masses were the common work-people going on with their lives as well as they could, suffering, perplexed, unorganized, and for anything but violent, fruitless protests, impotent. ”

“ No, no, that the people should once again, as so many times before, be duped and gained over, caressed in order that it might be enthralled—this was repugnant to one’s reason, and the whole system appeared degenerate, dangerous, temporary, calculated to end in the worst catastrophes. ”

“ He links a chain of circumstance bearing on destruction’s delirious delusions that now rocks the foundations of the world, which reacts on and affects every civilization, person, and individual on earth. ”

“ So whatever brings risk of tumult and disorder, multitudinous processions in the streets of our crowded towns, multitudinous meetings in their public places and parks,—demonstrations perfectly unnecessary in the present course of our affairs,—our best self, or right reason, plainly enjoins us to set our faces against. ”

“ Another blow was to be added, more calculated than all to test their firmness and bring home to their bosoms a sense of the perils of the crisis, and the necessity of immediate action, unless they should conclude to yield at once to the current of destiny which seemed to be setting so strongly against them. ”

“ Political errors, however trifling, form in time so many links in one unbroken chain of disasters,—a chain which, presently, the greatest struggles, the most clear-eyed statesmanship, may trouble themselves to break in vain. ”

“ Whether we look at the absurd length, the discouraging cycles, or the destructive cataclysms which are an essential part of the system, one and all bring in their train depression, stagnation, and the spirit of reckless waste. ”

“ But nothing arrests nor interrupts the tension of all these energies toward the goal, and the vast, simultaneous activity, which goes and comes, mounts, descends, and mounts again in these obscurities, and which immense unknown swarming slowly transforms the top and the bottom and the inside and the outside. Society hardly even suspects this digging which leaves its surface intact and changes its bowels. ”

“ Crises often, perhaps most often, precede catastrophies, as when revolutions break. The alternate truth that the catastrophies themselves are re-agents to generate the crisis-situation has not been so commonly noted. Nevertheless the disintegration of the normal by shock and calamity is an increasingly familiar spectacle. ”

“ all destruction, by violent revolution or howsoever it be, is but new creation on a wider scale. ”

“ The raging wind increased tenfold all danger and the difficulty for the labourers. Had the engineer-in-chief not been at their head, the people must have given up in despair, and have merely looked on at the destruction they thought themselves powerless to prevent. ”