SOURCE: "Aurobindo's Conception of the Nature and Meaning of History," in International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. XII, No. 2, June, 1972, pp. 205-19.

In the following essay, which focuses on The Human Cycle, Cairns outlines the five stages in Aurobindo 's psychological theory of the development of human civilization, citing examples from Western psychology, theology, scientific thought, and philosophical history that support A urobindo 's system.

The Metaphysical Context

The philosophy of Aurobindo is so eminently an integrated one that the general pattern of cosmic and human history cannot be discussed apart from his metaphysical system described at length in The Life Divine. In this system the Sevenfold Chord of Being is the central concept and provides the framework for the meaning and pattern of history. There are three higher and three lower hemispheres of Being in the Sevenfold Chord, and mediating between the two is the Supermind. The three that...