Becoming versus Become:

that which is still living, still alive or growing VERSUS that which is finished, dead, its form finalized; Spengler uses this idea to differentiate between the Spring & Summer, versus the Autumn & Winter.

 

Destiny versus Causality:

Destiny: that which is predetermined, fate.  Destiny is a manifestation of the Will to Live (Schopenhauer); Nietzsche was influenced by Schopenhauer; he saw destiny as Amor fati (Love of Fate) meaning men would embrace what destiny brings, good or bad, pain or pleasure. 

Causality: cause and effect, by which one event, (a cause) contributes to the production of another event;  a process has many causes, all lie in its past: an effect can be a cause of many other effects, which all lie in its future.

 

historical versus natural-science:

Spengler associated history with Destiny and natural science with Causality

 

“t”:

notation used in Physics, standing for time (usually seconds)

 

systematic:

presented or formulated as a coherent body of ideas or principles; a methodical in procedure or plan; marked by thoroughness and regularity; relating to, or concerned with classification.  Spengler associates this with cause-effect, science.

 

physiognomic:

relating to, or characteristic of physiognomy or the physiognomy which is the art of discovering temperament, character or meaning from outward appearance; external aspect; Spengler posits that understanding is gained by understanding symbols

 

Goethe (his Farbenlehre):

Theory of Colours (1810), on his theory of the nature of colours & how they are perceived by humans.  It contains detailed descriptions of phenomena such as coloured shadows, refraction & chromatic aberration.  While it was controversial & rejected by most physicists several were influenced by it (Helmholtz, Heisenberg) as were a number of philosophers (notably Schopenhauer).  Its main influence was on the arts (J. M. W. Turner, the Pre-Raphaelites, Kandinsky). 

and see Chapter IV Chapter page 157

​

the Third Kingdom:

see Chapter X page 363

 

the New Age:

ambiguous reference; term dating from mid 19th century onward; in 1864 the American Swedenborgian Warren Felt Evans published The New Age and its Message; in 1907 Alfred Orage and Holbrook Jackson began editing a weekly journal of Christian liberalism and socialism titled The New Age.  It also had a deep religious resonance.  The concept of a coming "new age" that would be inaugurated by the return to Earth of Jesus Christ as promoted by Wellesley Tudor Pole (1884-1968) and of Johanna Brandt (1876-1964); Spengler also directly refers to the “New Age” with specific reference to Jesus Christ (Mark xiii)

 

Entropy:

a non-technical approach to the word- a doctrine of inevitable social decline & degeneration; the complete dispersion of energy (heat)