estimated, be less than we have been led
to believe, though certainly few would lift the Carolingian crest to the
level of that of Hellenism or of the Middle Ages, nor assign to the end
of this latter period as low a fall as that accomplished during the
tenth century in continental Europe.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM No. 2. The rise and fall of the line of
civilization; showing also the nodal points at the Christian Era and at
the years 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 (?)]

In a third cut (Diagram No. 3) I have roughly indicated in conventional
form a phenomenon which seems to me to show itself around the nodal
point when a descending curve of energy meets and crosses the descending
line. As the _elan vital_ that has made and characterized any period
declines, it throws off reactions, the object of which is if possible to
arrest, or at least delay, the fatal _glissade._ These are, in intent
and in fact, reforms; conscious efforts at saving a desperate situation
by regenerative methods. Trace back their lines of procedure, and in
every case they will be found to issue out of the very force which is
even then in process of degeneration, therefore they are poisoned at the
source and no true or vital reforms, for the sudden energy that urges
them is, after all, in no respect different from that which is already a
failing force.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM No. 3. The reactions thrown off by (a) the
descending line of vital force, (b) by the ascending line.]

This, I conceive, is why today the multitudinous and specious "reforms,"
which beat upon us from all sides, and find such ready acceptance in the
enactments of law, are really no reforms at all, since each one of them
is but an exaggeration or distortion of the very principles and methods
that already are bending downward the curve of our progression until it
disappears in the nether-world of failure, as did those of every
preceding epoch of equal duration. An example of what I mean is the
astute saying, frequently heard nowadays: "The cure for democracy is
more democracy."

Now while one curve descends and throws off its reformative reactions in
the process, the other is ascending, preparatory to determining the
coming era for its allotted space of five centuries. In this process it
also throws off its own reactions, but these are for the purpose of
lifting the line more rapidly, bringing its force into play before its
determined time. These also are exaggerations, over-emphasiz