In Nature, autumn follows every summer before giving way to winter, and such a process can also be found in world history. Nations exhaust themselves in fervent activity to gradually withdraw from the arena, after which they enter upon a period of lethargy — a spiritual winter, with which the cycle of their life comes to its completion. The fulness of Greek life is followed by a vexatious period; the blossoming of the Roman Republic gives way to the repellant period of Empire, and to us it seems as if such a time of civilisational fainting were now upon Europe. And yet the development of humanity never ceases; eternal truths never perish; indeed, on the contrary: just as Nature awakens to a new, flourishing life with the coming spring, reprising its activity with freshly-renewed strength,
