It might be more accurate to
describe the process as an explosive expansion--explosive because rapid
and spectacular.

Form limits function. At the same time function modifies and ultimately
determines form. The two factors are omnipresent and complementary.
Except for purposes of analysis they are two inseparable aspects of
every human society. Where form predominates, social status results.
Where function predominates fluidity, flexibility and dynamism are the
outcome. Rapid change occurs on the home front at the same time that it
is taking place abroad.

Growth at home takes place in two fields. The first is the extension of
the homeland frontiers, broadening the geographical area of the nucleus
around which the civilization is being built. The second aspect of
growth involves an increase in multiplicity, variety and complexity and
perhaps also a higher level of quality. Increase in quality is an
optional feature of growth and expansion. Toward the end of a cycle of
civilization quality declines.

For the record we list fourteen aspects of the domestic growth of
civilization: (1) population; (2) production of goods and services; (3)
trade, commerce, finance; (4)wealth, capital, income, capital
construction; (5) the defense establishment; (6) growth in numbers and
in variety of consumer goods and services; (7) specialization; (8)
formal education, literacy, learning; (9) advances in science and
technology; (10) growth in the arts; (11) rising standards of luxury for
the oligarchy and growth in the volume of the professional and technical
middle class and their living standards; (12) growth of the state
bureaucratic apparatus in its complexity and in the number of its
personnel; (13) growth of the sources of unearned income and especially
in the number of persons living on unearned income; (14) growth of
dependents, delinquents, criminals and other outlaws. This list is not
exhaustive, but it is indicative of the wide area in which domestic
growth takes place.

Paralleling their domestic expansion, civilizations expand
geographically up to the point of diminishing returns, determined by the
growth of overhead costs. This process has taken the civilization, its
personnel, its institutions and practices into territory not heretofore
occupied, sometimes with the consent of the "foreigners", but more often
in the teeth of their determined and long-continued opposition.

Expansion of a civilization is of necessity a