ABSTRACT
The end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries are marked by a definite decline of the theories of the uniform sequences of stages through which various societies pass in their life process. Its decline means the decline of various linear conceptions. The symptom of the same decline is the progressively increasing attention of the social scientists to the "cyclical," "recurrent," "fluctuating," and "undulating" aspects of the sociocultural processes. As to the increase of the literature that stands for the cyclical, or trendlessly undulating, and generally nonlinear conception of the course of sociocultural processes, this is hardly questionable. The symptom is the emergence and rapid growth of the literature and theories that try to formulate the nonlinear conceptions of sociocultural processes and, what is more important, the success which such theories are beginning to have. These symptoms are sufficient to warrant a decline of the linear conceptions in the cultural and social sciences at this time.
