The Human Cycle
The Ideal of Human Unity
War and Self-Determination

Note on the Texts

The chapters that make up the principal contents of The Ideal of Human Unity and War and Self-Determination were first published in the monthly review Arya between 1915 and 1920. The three works subsequently were revised by the author and published as books.

The Human Cycle. The twenty-four chapters making up this work appeared in the Arya under the title The Psychology of Social Development between August 1916 and July 1918. Sri Aurobindo began with a discussion of the psychological theory of social and political development put forward by the German historian Karl Lamprecht (1856 - 1915), about which he had read in an article published in the May/June 1916 issue of the Hindustan Review. Retaining some of Lamprecht's terminology, he went on to develop his own theory of "the cycle of society". During the 1930s, probably around 1937, he revised the Arya text of The Psychology of Social Development in two stages: the first revision was marked on a set of pages from the Arya, the second revision on a typed copy of the first. The revised text remained unpublished until 1949. At that time Sri Aurobindo considered making extensive alterations and additions to bring it up to date, but abandoned the idea and dictated only minor changes in the final stage of revision.

The book was published in 1949 by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram under the new title The Human Cycle. An American edition was brought out the next year. In 1962 a combined edition of The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity and War and Self-Determination was published by the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. In 1971 the three works were published under the title Social and Political Thought as volume 15 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. This has been reprinted several times under the combined titles of the constituent works. A separate edition of The Human Cycle was published in 1977.

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The Ideal of Human Unity first appeared in the Arya in thirty-five chapters between September 1915 and July 1918. At the time he commenced the series, Sri Aurobindo wrote to the Mother:

I have begun in the issue of the Arya which is just out a number of articles on the Ideal of Human Unity. I intend to proceed very cautiously and not go very deep at first, but as if I were leading the intelligence of the reader gradually towards the deeper meaning of unity — especially to discourage the idea that mistakes uniformity and mechanical association for unity.

The Arya text of The Ideal of Human Unity was brought out as a book by the Sons of India, Ltd., Madras, in 1919. Sri Aurobindo revised this during the late 1930s, apparently in 1938. (The date is inferred partly from a footnote he added while revising Chapter 5 — later replaced by a different footnote — referring to the "Anschluss", Germany's annexation of Austria in March 1938. Sri Aurobindo is unlikely to have worked on the revision after his accident in November 1938.) The revised text remained unpublished for more than a decade. In June 1949, asked about the possiblity of publishing this book and The Psychology of Social Development (which had not yet been renamed ), Sri Aurobindo answered that

they have to be altered by the introduction of new chapters and rewriting of passages and in The Ideal changes have to be made all through the book in order to bring it up to date, so it is quite impossible to make these alterations on the proofs. I propose however to revise these two books as soon as possible; they will receive my first attention.

Sri Aurobindo did not revise either book to the extent he had proposed. Although he made minor changes throughout The Ideal of Human Unity, his attempt to bring it up to date was largely confined to adding and revising footnotes (see the next paragraph). The only new chapter introduced was a long Postscript Chapter reviewing the book's conclusions in the light of recent international developments. The second edition of The Ideal of Human Unity was published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1950; it was followed by an American edition

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later the same year. (In the American edition the Postscript Chapter appeared as an Introduction.) In 1962, 1971 and subsequently this work was included in the combined editions mentioned above under The Human Cycle

Footnotes to The Ideal of Human Unity. The seventy-eight footnotes in the present edition of The Ideal of Human Unity reflect the complex history of the text. Only three of these can be traced to the Arya (two other footnotes found in the Arya were deleted during revision). Sri Aurobindo added more than fifty footnotes in his first revision, many of them referring to political developments of the 1930s such as the rise of Fascism. In his second, lighter revision, undertaken more than ten years later, he also made extensive use of footnotes for updating the text. Some two dozen new footnotes were added at this time and an equal number of the earlier ones revised. Thus the majority of the footnotes in the final version may be taken to represent the standpoint of 1949 - 50. Detailed information on the dating of footnotes and other significant revision is provided in the reference volume (volume 35).

War and Self-Determination. Sri Aurobindo published five articles on current political topics in the Arya: "The Passing of War?" (April 1916), "Self-Determination" (September 1918), "The Unseen Power" (December 1918), "1919" (July 1919) and "After the War" (August 1920). In 1920 the first three of these, along with a Foreword and a newly written essay, "The League of Nations", were brought out as a book by S. R. Murthy & Co., Madras. A second edition was published by Sarojini Ghose (Sri Aurobindo's sister) in 1922. Sri Aurobindo dictated a few scattered revisions to these essays during the late 1940s or in 1950. A third edition of the book was brought out in 1957. "After the War", which had been published as a separate booklet in 1949, was added to this edition. Since 1962 War and Self-Determination has appeared in the combined editions mentioned above under The Human Cycle. "1919" was first reproduced in the 1962 edition, where it was placed at the end. In the present edition, "1919" and "After the War"are printed in the order in which they were written.

The present edition. This edition of The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity and War and Self-Determination has been thoroughly  

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checked against the Arya and the texts of all revised editions. A note written with reference to The Ideal of Human Unity and a fragment related thematically to War and Self-Determination have been included as Appendixes.

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