Man's evolution passes through three stages: the reform, the revolution and the rebellion. The reform is the most superficial; it only touches the surface, it never goes more than skin deep. It changes nothing but the dressing of man. It changes man's formalities, it gives man etiquette, manners, a kind of civilization?without changing anything essential in his being. It paints man, it polishes man, and yet deep down man remains the same. It is a delusion. It is fiction. It gives respectability and makes everybody a hypocrite. It gives good manners but they are against the inner core. The inner core has not even been understood.

But for the society it creates smoothness; reform functions like a lubricant. It keeps the status quo going, it helps things remain the same?which will look paradoxical, because the reformist claims that he is changing society. But in fact all that he does is paint the old society in new colors?and the old society can exist more easily in new colors than it could have ever done with the old ones. The old were getting rotten, reform is a kind of renovation. The house is falling, the supports are falling, the foundations are shaking and you go on giving new props to it. You can keep the house from falling a little longer. Reform is in the service of the status quo: it serves the past not the future.

The second thing is revolution; it goes a little deeper. Reform only changes ideas, it does not even change policies. Revolution goes and touches the structure, but only the outer not the inner.