Oswald Spengler. The Decline of the West. An abridged edition by
Helmut Werner. English abridged edition prepared by Arthur Helps
from the translation by Charles Francis Atkinson. New York:
oxford University Press c199 [1926, 1928, 1932]. xxxx,415, xvix
CITIES AND PEOPLES [250]
What makes the man of the world-cities incapable of living on any
but this artificial footing is that the cosmic beat in his being
is every decreasing, while the tensions of his waking-
consciousness become more and more dangerous..
[252]this then, is the conclusion of the city's history; growing
from primitive barter-centre to Culture-city and at last to
world-city, it sacrifices first the blood and soul of its
creators to the needs of its majestic evolution, and then the lst
flower of that growth to the spirit of civilization--and so,
doomed, moves on to final self-destruction.
...
But the essence of Alexandrinism and of our Romanticism is
something which belongs to all urban men, without distinction.
Romanticism marks the beginning of that which Goethe, with his
wide vision, called world-literature--the literature of the
leading world-city, against which a provincial literature,
native to the soil, but negligible, struggles everywhere with
difficulty to maintain itself. ...
Consequently in all Civilizations the "modern" cities
assume a more and more uniform type...
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