The discovery of the eonic pattern has forced us to reexamine the meaning of evolution itself, for we suspect that its current purely genetic interpretation is misleading, and fails to account for a broader component that we can only call ‘macroevolution’. The term 'macroevolution' tends to refer to the process of speciation. But in the case of man we confront the ambiguity of that definition of man as man, the species Man. Perhaps that speciation is still incomplete, and history itself is an exhibit, evidence, in this process! It will turn on a question of 'evolution' becoming 'self-evolution', the passage from passive to active, as if it were an 'evolution of freedom'. It is time in any case to elaborate on our remarks about history and evolution. We have already produced the gist, and we should, at the risk of repetition, formalize our discussion. And this discussion began with a very simple question. If history and evolution are distinct, when did evolution stop and history begin? Clearly they could turn the one into the other in an instant. Thus it would seem that man 'evolved' toward 'history' but that something like history was coming into being while he was still evolving. And this still could be the case. So the two overlap. And this makes sense. Something that doesn't happen all at once has to happen in a transition, or a series of stages. On the one hand, the control of a passive process doesn't allow any freedom. But the total freedom to begin and continue is, at the beginning, an empty possibility. Chimpanzees are free to create civilization, but it won't happen. So between underdetermination and overdetermination we have some kind of overlapping evolution/history in which the balance is shifting toward freedom. One way to balance the under/overdetermination would be a series of 'transitions' of an intermittent character: strong direction, then a stop to see something actively emerge, then more direction, then stop again, and so on. But wait, that's what we see in the eonic sequence! A series of on-off transitions! Looks familiar.  

It is peculiar to bring the term 'evolution' so close to home in our own history. We tend to have romantic image of wild and primordial evolution, and like to think that we evolved into free men in a jungle somewhere, tearing raw flesh off of wild beasts, the fourth chimpanzee cooking steaks on a fire, and then after some lucky mutation we just walked away with full-blown Kantian moral to greater things from then on. But the eonic effect is a cautionary tale. Its action seems to be still coaching man at the point where he is producing his own art, so what are we to think? We underestimated what it means to be man, perhaps. And in history we detect something that is not supposed to be there, something truly stupendous, a system leapfrogging millennia, able to morph whole cultures comprehensively in short time-slices. Most of all we see a process of directional evolution that can operate globally in selected localized regions, as seen in the ingenious placement of the zones of transition. Thus as we examine the eonic effect we are confronted with something that demands to be called ‘evolution’, although it seems paradoxical to apply this to history.  But in fact Darwinists have no monopoly on the use of the term. We speak routinely of ‘cosmic evolution’, ‘economic evolution’, the evolution of technology or religion, even the evolution of science or, indeed, of evolution as an idea. The evolution of civilization as a concept poses no problem, save that unexpectedly we find it to be a genuine type of macroevolution in collision with Darwin's version. So let us ask, why the emphasis on Darwin's version? Scientific evidence? As we have seen the evidence of Darwin is not adequate and our different evidence indirectly suggests that he is in fact wrong about natural selection. So, as they say, 'we are free to go', and redefine the meaning of evolution by redefining our line of attack on its mechanism. The fact of evolution, however, is quite secure, and the overall research project of the biologists remains in place as a foundation for any use on our part of the term evolution. 

Thus, there can be no objection, as such, to still another use of the term for our data, especially if we qualify it, so that we don't get in the way of perfectly sound genetic usages of the word, even if those usages, as we suspect, are quite inadequate. Looking at our three successive transitions we can simply define this as the ‘eonic, or intermittent, evolution of civilization’, calling our intermittent sequence of transitions the ‘eonic sequence’, keeping in mind that this itself does not fully define the totality of the evolutionary components of world history, the economic evolution(s) of world history, for example, being something different, and an important component we will address separately. But then what is the status of everything happening in between our transitions? That’s the interesting part. We suggested the possibility of defining this as some kind of 'microevolution', based on issues of self-consciousness. Actually, our main point was simply to call this history, in contradistinction to the macroevolution of the eonic driver. As crude as it is, this approach works beautifully, as a descriptive, please note, not more, not yet as a theory of evolution. 

 To conclude, the answer to the paradox of history and evolution is given to us empirically. We see a series of intermittent transitions. Clearly that’s the form taken by our evolution-history. We can simply define the terms ‘evolution’ and ‘history’ to conform to that definition. We can speak of the Great Transition, broken into a series of smaller transitions, from evolution to history. This means that there is an overlap of the two. It is like a cornucopia, with a precession of things proceeded from a source but with a different character.  The advantage of this approach is the relativity of the definition. We can say that early man in the Paleolithic was evolving, but that his history is beginning, and that the two are braided together. Furthermore, we have a natural interpretation of the distinction of macro and microevolution.  We can formalize this as follows:

From evolution to history We can make the evidence of the type seen in the eonic effect the:transition from evolution to history” explicit grounds for defining the overlap between evolution and history. We could call history the record of free activity rising in the wake of the passive evolution of volition. 

The ‘eonic evolution’ of civilization We can call the evidence of our three turning points the ‘eonic’ or intermittent evolution of civilization, as some form of ‘macroevolution’ turning into history. Then we can keep rough track of the two levels of history we detect in the eonic effect. This will create a puzzle of two distinct forms of action, one inside the eonic pattern, one outside. 

System action (or eonic determination)/free action The character of these definitions is that of a mixed 'causality/freedom' system, except that causality is no longer causality, and freedom may not be free will. So we will speak of mixed 'eonic determination/free action' system. Eonic determination would be whatever caused the Axial Age, or the other transitions, free action the relative degree of freedom, subject to fluctuations, exhibited in the transitions (more creative) or in the mideonic periods (hopefully still creative). We will say that system action shows ‘eonic determination’ while behavior outside of it is simply ‘free action’.

The Great Transition Armed with these distinctions we can call the passage from evolution to history The Great Transition XE “Great Transition, The” , with a possible echo (or not) of The Great Explosion. However, we are immersed in this transition, and may or may not have reached the end of its clearly intermittent action, seen as a series of individual transitions.  

 Our exploration of historical ‘macroevolution’ seems audacious, and yet there is a rightness to this approach, and furthermore it is non-dogmatically useful. And it can also give us a venue to reopen a long outstanding question, that of a science of history. And the question of such a science raises at once the issue of Big History, the many attempts to explicate some form of historical dynamics, in the search for laws of history. This has always been a controversial question, and even as the progress of science has advanced into the realm of culture and mind, the stubborn refusal of history to yield to the reductionist legacy of the hard sciences.

We are ready to add one key idea to our eonic model. To do that we should once again examine the problems that arise with historical theories. Recall our distinction of system action and free action.

 This approach immediately creates two levels, hence two ‘evolutions’ really. A large-scale process, and the reaction to that in between, the ‘self-evolution’ in the middle, or medieval periods. Or else there is an 'evolution' of the cultures, the 'streams' that cross the boundaries of the eonic intervals, in the larger sequence. Thus we have multiple perspectives on evolution. We thus have a good reason to define 'eonic evolution' for one part only of our total picture of civilization. To see this, consider the Axial Age. Does our 'evolution' do this in detail, is it all determined. Clearly not. It seems more like an improvised play. All the action of the actors is their rendition. Yet there is an overall logic to the sequence of events. These two levels are crucial for dealing with such a complex phenomenon. We see that we must be careful to distinguish these different aspects, and our emerging model will be tailor made for this purpose. In fact, not only is our 'eonic evolution' correlated with just a part of the whole, it seems to consist of a minimum needed to get the job done. It amounts to saying that we are dealing with a mixed 'causality/freedom' system, one in which the 'causality' part is quite different from physics causality, and in which the freedom part operates on some prior condition of consciousness able to jump to higher octaves of creative action. 

 Although this eonic evolution seems to be limited in its action, it does nonetheless express what can only be the ‘main event’, so to speak, with respect to (historical) evolution. State formation, religion, the emergence of science, art, philosophy, and more, come under its action. A phenomenon on this scale is the only candidate for a theory about ‘macroevolution’ since it dwarfs all other processes in its comprehensive scope. No second candidate could exist distinct from this process. Such a statement must remain controversial, however, because of the way the 'eonic mainline' gives preference, at first sight, to a series of selected transition areas. These become the local sources for a greater whole. Problems arise from this, but that's what the facts show. The Israelites produce the source materials for monotheism, and this gives the Judaic stream a distinct place in the greater unfolding of the monotheistic religions. 

In general, subprocesses, like economic evolution, as we will see, interact in a distinct way and are no exception to our statements about eonic evolution. Note this point: state formation, religion formation, the greatest art, the foundations of all the major transitions, much else, all these are directly correlated, although not exclusively so, with our eonic sequence. This seems to downgrade the untouched greater history not part of the eonic sequence. Not so. It is the mideonic periods in which the 'test of evolution' must occur, where the degree of autonomy is confronted with its independence from evolution, as it enters history. But, it must be admitted, the first stages of mideonic free action show alarming tendencies toward chaos. 

Thus we also note another clue, net innovation, between the transitions, also seems to be increasing with time, for example. So, while our eonic sequence, has no monopoly here, it nonetheless leaves us with an unsettling picture, were we to subtract the advances correlated with our series of transitions.  The system is evolving one way, and in the process turning into something else. History is emerging from evolution, so to speak.

Darwinists distinguish this term ‘macroevolution’ from ‘microevolution’ and then often state that the micro aspect, natural selection, can explain, or explain away, the macro. We have cautioned against this. Microevolution might be the degree of ethical self-consciousness brought to bear on mideonic situations. To suggest the whole game was done by natural selection leaves us in the lurch. Why bother with qualitative refinements? Dog eat dog then, it's 'evolution'. This fallacy has proven costly in the legacy of Social Darwinism. 

Macroevolution is also associated with the actual process of speciation. Here Darwinists have a point. And here again, at least with man, there is no clear proof in the evidence that Darwinian microevolution is sufficient for this. And just at the tail end of what we call the ‘descent of man’, better, the ‘descent of humans’, we find this macro aspect to the very late development of civilization. What are we to suspect of earlier man? Anything operating on the scale of the eonic pattern must claim some reckoning. One problem here is the failure to define ‘man’, with a serious question mark: can modern man actually claim, objectively, the ability to make such a definition? Furthermore, in the absence of a definition we are in no position to state that man’s ‘evolution’ is complete. Maybe the eonic evolution of civilization is just the next grade in school, from which man might graduate?  We had thought that Darwinian evolution had created free men left to their devices at the threshold of history, thence to create higher civilization in an evolved autonomy. Yet now we see that at each stage an invisible driver is processing feedback as it were, without which man’s self-development would evidently have begun to drift or idle, witness the equilibrium of medievalizing sluggishness that overtakes the intervals between our transitions. The question of the ‘freedom to self-evolve in history’ has become ambiguous. We must, however, suspect that we have, for better or worse, reached a terminal point in eonic evolution. More on that later, but it would be hard for eonic evolution to continue once we begin to notice it. This point will prove significant, by way of conclusion. 

And one aspect of this must be the unsettling question we must pose to ourselves: what is the relation of this ‘evolution’ to our present? As we will see this is the crux of the whole problem, and the paradox created by bringing ‘evolution’ into our present will force us to redefine our terms comprehensively. But we can hardly claim a macroevolution is operating in our present. Where is it?  How does it effect our choices?  We will have to carefully address this issue. All we can say is that, by our definition, still unfixed, our recent past shows an evolutionary transition. We exited the last transition, and then, as eonic observers, noticed the fact of 'evolution of some kind'. To make this clear, since our previous cases, the Axial Age, for example, show an interval that rapidly came to a close, we must suspect the same for the modern transition. We cam easily spot the crucial interval, to conclude that this is indeed the case. It must have come to a close, it did come to a close, leaving us outside of it, in order to observe it at all. We call that the divide, and try to suggest later this occurs ca.1800, a moment of great significance for modernity.

Therefore we are, strangely, outside of this process, at least for the moment. This at first peculiar thinking will actually prove to be the breakthrough to the right approach to the whole question, at least for human evolution.

 It would seem that what we are discussing is ‘cultural evolution’ in some form, and that no conflict should arise with statements about biological evolution. It is certainly the case that we have no evidence of any genetic component to our ‘eonic evolution’, although we have not looked carefully for it, and it would seem justified up to a point to consider that man as man, genetically speaking, once reached a plateau where his ‘nature’ is fixed, at least to some degree. But a problem has arisen here, and we can see that the biological claims of Darwinists are going to collide with what we see in history and wish to call evolution of some other kind, at first sight purely cultural. First, and foremost, we can see that, with respect to history, the claims of natural selection are going to fail.

We can see the one thing theories of natural selection are designed to rule out, discontinuous episodes of rapid ‘evolution’ that operate over the long range, and that can do a kind of ‘end run’ around the sluggish competition of winners and losers. We will see that, on the average, the winners, by winning out, tend to create rigid structures that are incapable of innovation. Something new and different appears from a different source, often in the frontier areas of previous histories.  We have definite counterevidence here, complete with a substitute evolutionary driver, albeit in such a fragmentary glimpse that we are left to wonder about the earlier manifestations of such a prodigious force.  

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