Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

THE FINAL YEARS 175

of people. His prime method of communicating his ideas had always been through personal dialogue. Consequently he had always expressed his thoughts in ways which suited the context in which he was speaking. During the post-war period he attempted to bring these different threads and formulations together in a way which was intended to be more generally intelligible and accessible.

The most comprehensive and relatively straightforward summary and formulation of these different aspects of his life work and thought was one which he called ‘The Four Onlys.’ They consisted of four major notions which he insisted were equally valid and necessary components of any approach to a proper understanding of the world—and as a basis for acting upon the world. They were: ‘Only the World-whole’; ‘only the individual’; ‘only the senate radius’; and ‘only the Triune Revelation.’ It so happened that these four ‘onlys’ were not only in rational sequence, but also expressed the sequence in which he had worked more particularly on each of them during his lifetime. His whole world view can therefore be conveniently summarised by taking them one by one.

The World-Whole

This ‘only’ affirmed that only from the gestalt, the whole, can the various constituent elements and parts of the world be properly understood. One cannot understand the role of the various sub-units of humanity except by considering them in the context of, and from the point of view of, the world as a whole and humanity as a single family. “The problem of races, nations, trade unions etc. cannot be dealt with effectively so long as they are treated as separate problems about separate entities.” Rather, they should be considered “as functions of the whole human organism. Only in relation to the whole can their function be understood.”3 This notion was first dealt with by Mitrinovic in The New Age, when he put forward the notion of the world as a developing organism, and considered the idea of a functional world order as the only one which would make possible the solution of international and all other problems, without recourse to violence.

The Individual

Apart from the world-whole only individuals are ultimate ends in themselves. Only individual human beings can comprehend the pattern of