364 LAW AND FREEDOM IN HISTORY

4. Instances of an Alternating Rate of Change

In our survey of evidences of variability in the tempo of change we
have so far confined our attention to cases in which this variability has
displayed itself in some single change of speed, whether upwards or
downwards. Our survey would be incomplete if we did not also take
account of cases in which there has been a concatenation of changes of
speed in which the two antithetical movements of acceleration and
retardation have alternated.

A conspicuous instance of an alternating change of speed is the
rhythm of Withdrawal-and-Return which we have analysed in a pre-
vious Part.1 The purpose, whether conscious or subconscious, of a
potentially creative minority's temporary withdrawal from full participa-
tion in the contemporary common life of the society of which it is a
member is to win for itself an opportunity of realizing its potentialities
by forging ahead of the rank-and-file. Its disengagement from contact
with its neighbours permits an acceleration of its own pace which it
could never have achieved if it had been content to have its own pace
set for it by the average pace of these pedestrian neighbours; and it is in
the course of this individual spurt of acceleration that the minority suc-
ceeds or fails in bringing its creative potentialities to fruition. This, how-
ever, is not the end of the story; for, as we have seen, a creative minority's
mission is to perform its work of creation, not just for itself, but for the
benefit of the whole of the society to which it belongs. A creative
withdrawal therefore will have missed fire if it is not followed by a
redemptive return; and a re-entry into the ranks that the minority has
temporarily deserted is necessarily accompanied by a retardation of its
pace from the rate at which it has been travelling in vacuo to the slower
rate at which it must now travel once more if it is to keep in step with
neighbours whom it has to convert to the newly created idea or ideal or
aptitude that it is bringing back with it from its lone reconnaissance, It
will be seen that, on analysis, the movement of Withdrawal-and-Return
turns out to follow a rhythm of three beats entailing two changes of
speed, the first change upward and the second downward; and, as far as
it is possible to portray a spiritual act in terms of the mechanical play of
physical forces, we may compare the tripartite movement of a creative
minority's withdrawal and return with the drill performed by the driver
of a car when he changes gear by the threefold action of declutching,
acceleration, and a re-engagement that reabates the momentarily free-
running engine's racing speed by loading it once again, with the retard-
ing weight of the momentarily disengaged vehicle.

A concatenation of alternating changes of speed which runs, not just
to two, but certainly to three and possibly to four, terms is to be found
in the Modern Western history of the arts of shipbuilding and naviga-
tion. This story begins with a sudden acceleration which revolutionized
both these arts in the West during the fifty years A.D. 1440-90; this
spurt was followed by a technological retardation which persisted
throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries; and

* In III. Hi, 248-63.