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of Brandenburg over the Rhineland, of the Yellow river basin
over that of the Yangtse and the triumph of New England over
its rivals in the colonization of North America.

Dynamic activity testifies to the direction of mimesis
towards the future achieved by breaking of the "cake of custom".
For this reason new ground provides a stimulus by the removal of
the weight of tradition.

The stimulus of blows and pressures accounts for the
rejuvenation of many political entities, for the virility of
border provinces. France underwent a regeneration through the
military catastrophe of 1871, as did Prussia under the impact
of Jena and Austerlitz. The dominant position enjoyed by border
provinces within the civilizations results from the tempering
they undergo in the constant challenge as guardians of the
marshes. The history of the growth phase of the Holy Roman
Empire exhibits a continuous shift of the center of gravity to-
wards the border regions, its decline a reversal of that ten-
dency. Neither the Ottoman nor the Austrian Empire survived
the relaxation of their mutual pressure in the contest for the
Balkans.

Thus Toynbee distinguishes responses due to the stimulus
of hard countries, to the stimulus of new ground, and the stimulus
of blows and pressures.

If an increase in the severity of the stimulus yields

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. II. p. 166. For a discussion of Toynbee's data see post Conclusions.

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a correspondingly successful response, can this process be con-
tinued indefinitely? Toynbee denies this and postulates an
optimum challenge defined as the Golden Mean, of sufficient
intensity to elicit the maximum potential of creativity, though
not so oppressive as to be stifling. The "Law of Compensation"
expresses his mechanical formulation of this principle. It
states that an excessive challenge by either the physical or the
human environment must be compensated by an alleviation of the
alternate factor. Such was the case of Switzerland and Holland,
both of which mastered a prohibitive physical environment in ex-
change for the lessening of the human pressures.

The concept of the Golden Mean raises formidable problems
in methodology. For how is a challenge proved excessive? The
unsuccessful response to a particular challenge may merely
indicate a lack of inner reactive ability. Toynbee offers two
approaches. An excessive challenge can be proved by a relation
in three terms, of which, in comparable conditions, the Golden
Mean of severity produced the optimum response. Toynbee's second
proof examines the abortive civilizations which collapsed soon
upon attaining birth under the formidableness of their
challenges. Thus the Far Western Civilization of the Celtic

1. For a discussion of the essential meaninglessness of this
adaptation of an Aristotelian concept see post Conclusions.

2. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. II. p. 274.

3. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. I. p. 290. For illustrations see p.
291-322. This argument, of course, does not really resolve
the original dilemma, since all terms mutually define each
other.

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Fringe experienced a brief bloom which for a time indicated that the style of Christianity might be set from Ionia instead of Rome. Irish missionaries ranged far over the Continent and Scotus Eregina represented merely one example of brilliant Celtic learning. Yet the dual challenge offered by the superior discipline of the Roman Church and the impact of the Scandinavian Voelkerwanderung was too severe. The Synod of Whitby (A.D. 664) settled the issue and led to the isolation of Ireland from the rest of Christianity. The invasions by the Norsemen had hardly been overcome when Henry II invaded the Celtic fringe with Papal sanction. These two successive blows presented a challenge of such severity that an effective response proved impossible and thus the Far Western Civilization, whose inception was so promising, proved abortive.

The concept of challenge-and-response represents an affirmation of purposiveness in history. Its distinguishing characteristic is the creative imponderable that prevents the prediction of the reaction to the ordeal. The level of integration of Yin is disturbed and the dynamic activity (Yang) of which suffering represents Man's lot, leads back to the inner reconciliation with God and the recognition of His Love.

Thus Toynbee's metaphysical assumptions find expression in his doctrine on the genesis of civilizations. But the initial dilemmas remain unresolved. The empirical method imposes a

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success pattern which makes the recognition of God's love de-
pendent on the new level of integration achieved on the higher
ledge. But no civilization has yet managed this precipe and
the assertion of the purpose of history as an inner reconcilia-
tion represents a metaphysical resolve, not a data of history.
The immanence in all activity of the Elan Vital makes challenge-
and-response, little more than the mechanism of an inexorable
immanence. Moreover, the pragmatic approach results in an
analysis of response almost exclusively in terms of challenge,
which represents at best a refinement of the environment theory.
Empiricism and noumenal experience continue as logical anti-
nomies. Thus God's purpose is derived syllogistically from
a normative pattern based on Toynbee's conception of a fair
wager.

Toynbee's distinction between discrete phases of Yin and Yang raises many problems. If integration represents organic being and Yang purposive creation, must those two stages operate successively? Life never seems to exhibit perfect states of either absolute Integration or absolute differentiation. It appears likely that the static condition of primitive societies results from the same ego-centric delusion that considers one civilization the acme of all achievement. Similarly the dynamism of civilized life does not represent a purposiveness that completely transcends tradition, the organic factor.

1. See post Ch. History and Man's Experience of Morality (Kant).

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Spengler resolved the problem of necessity and freedom
by postulating alternative modes of behavior, in separate realms.
History was ruled in its main tendencies by an immanent Destiny
not to be influenced by human volition. Toynbee, on the other
hand, argues for successive stages in an evolutionary, biologi-
cal process ruled by mimesis. But is this social drill not
based on a uniformity in history for which no warranty can be
found in empirical data? It seems that drill is hardly a pre-
paration for the creative individual whose appearance is con-
cended as of "almost unimaginable rarity." These are the
problems to consider in the subsequent development of Toynbee's
philosophy.

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 272

The Growth of Civilizations.

The growth of civilizations in Toynbee's scheme does not exhibit an immanent inexorability, but a process of increasing self-determination, with breakdown the penalty for an unsuccessful response. Just as the genesis of civilizations results from the reaction to the challenge of disequilibrium, so growth reveals series of successful responses to recurring challenges. The loss of the capacity for successful response, or the appearance of an excessive challenge, mark the stage of breakdown. The difficulty of uniting the metaphysical assumptions with the empirical method reappears. Toynbee's criterion for growth is etherealization, the transfer of the field of action from the macrocosm to microcosm. Toynbee the theologian ascribes this to an inward state. Toynbee the empiricist can, however, find it only in a physical extent that performs becomes its own environment. Similarly, Toynbee sways between considering breakdown the consequence of a deficient response or of an insupersable challenge. The incommensurability of the realms of theology and biology appears in every aspect of Toynbee's analysis.

Once the genesis of civilizations has been accomplished and the dangers inherent in birth overcome, must their subsequent development follow a uniform pattern? Does every civilization, which avoids being abortive, exhibit identical symptoms of growth? Toynbee denies the necessity of uninterrupted growth and distinguishes a third specimen of the genus, the arrested civilizations as an illustration.¹ All the arrested civilizations have been petrified in response to a challenge of such severity that its solution

¹. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. LLL. p. 3

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required a tour de force. The entire strength of the society was required for responding to this oppressive stimulus, a task achieved only at the price of pegging the civilization at a level of inflexible readiness for one crisis.

Such was the case of the Polynesians who had responded to the challenge of the Pacific Ocean with an intensity just sufficient for the attainment of an equilibrium. They succeeded in crossing the vast spaces but never with any margin of safety, until the tension went slack and their civilization degenerated on the forgotten islands of the Pacific.

This, too, is Toynbee's conception of the history of the Nomads whose existence results from a successful response to the recurrent challenge of desiccation. The drought forces the cultivators of the soil to either withdraw to more fertile regions or to launch themselves on the inhospitable and steppe, no longer the domesticators of plants, but of animals. Manifoldly the latter is a higher art, more comparable to Industrialism than to agriculture. It substitutes the indirect utilization of vegetation for the planting of crops. By means of grazing animals the sparse produce of the Steppe is transformed into food and clothing. This involves a Division of Labor and a hierarchy of specialization articulated into the nomad, the animal auxiliaries ( the dog, camel, etc.) and the herds of cattle. The survival of the group depends on a finely

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 12.

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tempered adaptation in an environment which leaves no margin
for lax discipline and severely limits the range of possible
1
responses.

The explosion of the Nomads into settled areas results
from a further increase in the severity of the environment, des-
troying the narrow balance of survival. Alternatively, the
nomad may be pulled out of the steppe by a vacuum in the neigh-
bouring Society. The transformation of a Nomadic community from
a master of the Physical Environment on the Steppe to a lord
of the human environment of a civilization constitutes the super-
lative challenge of this stage of development. The Nomad at-
tempts to respond to this stimulus by treating his human sub-
jects as he would his cattle and changes from a herder of cattle
to a herder of men. This was the reaction of the Avars who
collected their Slav prisoners into flocks and placed them in
a vast semicircle around the Hungarian plain.

But while the composite society constituted by the Nomads
and their flock represents the most efficient mode of survival
on the steppe, their division of labor the condition of every-
body's survival, the Nomad acts as an incubus in an environment
of fields and cities. The organization of society into Nomads
and indigenous human cattle is economically unsound and para-
sitic. From shepherds keeping their flocks, the Nomads turn

1. These passages are presented at such length because they represent the happiest examples of a successful use of the empirical method, as well as Toynbee's practical application of Challenge and Response.

2. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 22.

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into drones exploiting their working-bees. This accounts for
the empherability of Nomad empires established on a base of
sedentary people. The virtues that led to the Nomad's early
successes, self-reliance and physical toughness, atrophy in an
environment that no longer provides the necessary stimulus. The
degeneration of the conquerors is paralleled by an increase in
stature of the sedentary settlers to whom the existence of
foreign domination constitutes a constant challenge. The end
of Nomad empires is like their beginning, violent, sudden, total.

Some Nomad conquerors such as the Osmanlis, succeeded
in the tour de force of imposing a lasting empire on a sedentary
population, but only at the price of arresting their own civil-
ization. Catapulted out of the steppe into the Balkans by the
pressure of the Mongols, the Osmanlis' political beginning was
auspicious for they provided that universal state, which the
Balkan offshot of Orthodox Christianity had been unable to
achieve for itself. The duration of the Ottoman empire was,
however, the result of a successful response to the extraordin-
ary challenge constituted by the human environment. The
Osmanlis remembered that successful utilization of animal flocks
depended not only on the relation of the shepherd to the herd
but also on the employment of animal auxiliaries, the dog, horse
and camel. This lesson they applied to their Balkan Empire.
Instead of animals they took advantage of human auxiliaries,
recruited forcibly from their Christian subjects. The employment

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 27.

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of slaves as soldiers and administrators, the Janissaries in
the Ottoman case, has been the tour de force by which all suc-
cessful Nomad Empires over sedentary people have maintained
themselves. This response had two consequences. By excluding
the Osmanlis from any administrative and political responsibil-
ity their moral fibre degenerated, in the absence of any effec-
tive stimulus. The Janissaries could maintain their efficiency
only as long as their numbers were small, in itself a tour de
force. Eventually the loss of public spirit by the ruling
Osmanlis led to a dilution of the Janissaries and the arrested
civilization represented by the Ottoman Empire expired as the
"sick man of Europe" in 1918.

Thus the history of Nomad Empires illustrates the manner
in which civilizations become arrested, through the excessive
challenge of either the physical environment, such as the steppe,
or the human environment exemplified by the impact of sedentary
populations.

Two corollary conditions characterize arrested civiliza-
tions, caste and specialization. Survival in a severe environ-
ment is purchased only at the price of that proficiency in one
excellence which stifles creativity in all other fields. The
Centaur, the man grown to the horse, represents the outsider's
view of the Nomad raider. It contains the symbolism of the re-
turn to animalism which constitutes another facet of the ar-
rested civilization. Their reactive ability has become

1. For other illustrations see Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 22-79.

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concentrated on one challenge, which is indeed mastered, but
which first reduces and then prevents the proper response to
the inevitable new challenges inherent in existence. Utopias,
by definition attempts to peg societies at a certain level,
exhibit most clearly this tendency towards caste and specializa-
tion. The arrested civilizations thus disprove both the uni-
formity of the civilizations' development as well as the neces-
sity for constant growth.

If growth is not the necessary concomitant of a civil-
ization's existence but depends on a balanced response to a
series of challenges what is its nature? Toynbee again bases
his answer on mythology. Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, contains
his symbolic representation of the conditions attending growth.
Having attained dominance over Olympus, Zeus is chiefly concerned
with maintaining his mastery. Any change can merely detract
from the absoluteness of his power. Yet Zeus did not achieve
his eminence unaided. His Titanic ally Prometheus, the appre-
hension of creativity, the embodiment of the Elan Vital, works
constantly for progress against arrest, represents thought
against force. No amount of physical compulsion can avail to
wrest Prometheus' secret from him and in the end there is recon-
ciliation. Zeus admits the creativity as a condition for his
own survival. He had not been what he seemed.

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III p. 117. See a discussion of this method of utilizing mythology see historical proof see post Conclusions.

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Toynbee sees in Aeschylus' trilogy a poetic chronicle of Hellenic history. Just as Zeus avoided the fate of the arrested civilizations by being galvanized into activity by Promethous so Hellas' growth testified to a series of successful responses to recurrent challenges. The first challenge, offered by the barbarian highlanders evoked the response of mastery over the brigands. This victory decided that Hellas should be a world of cities and agriculture, not of villages and pasturelands. The limit of maximum density of population supportable by agriculture proved to be inelastic, however. The Malthasian problem served initially as a stimulus for overseas expansion. But the impact of Hellenic imperialism evoked the reaction of greater unity among the Mediterranean peoples and set an effective limit to Greek colonization.

This challenge of overpopulation was finally solved by Athens, which became the "education of Hellas". Under its

1. It is doubtful whether Pericles meant his reference to Athens as the education of Hellas in an economic sense.

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guidance Greek expansion was transformed to indirect methods, with commerce and production the key methods of continuing survival. Aeschylus' triology serves as a testimony to the intensity of the Athenian response.

Growth - in Toynbee's scheme - stands revealed as a process of successful responses to recurrent challenges. The optimum challenge is that which provides a stimulus for a response that carries the civilization beyond the point of exact balance - the condition of the arrested civilization - into a continuing disequilibrium. The step from genesis to growth exhibits a repetitive, recurrent rhythm in which equilibrium constitutes breakdown.

Growth represents one aspect of the process of evolution, accomplishing itself through ever greater self-articulation and progressive mastery over the environment. Yet what criteria exist for evaluating the growth of a civilization? Does mastery over the environment mean the external relations of the civilizations or its inner self-determination?

Increased control over a civilization's human environment expressed in terms of geographical expansion is rejected by Toynbee as a criterion of growth. Expansion seems to exert a stifling effect on the ability to respond creatively. The most archaic forms of Christianity exist in the Catholicism of Quebec, the Coptic church of Abyssinia, the Fundamentalism of

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1. the Mississippi basin. The "law" that geographical expansion retards social progress further explains the philological phenomena that the most archaic forms of the language usually occur at the furthest distance from their origin.

Why should the era of greatest expansion coincide with the period of decline? Toynbee argues that the "social radiation" obeys the same laws as light-waves. During the period of growth a civilization emits its influence in a ray of uniform consistency, with cultural, political and economic manifestations merging into a meaningful whole. The period of decline witnesses a diffraction of these rays into their component parts allowing absorption of the desirable emission. Since the resistance to the acceptance of an alien cultural pattern is much greater than the reluctance to take over alien techniques, the decaying civilization usually succeeds in making its influence felt on the economic, sometimes on the political, rarely on the cultural plane.

Increasing command over the physical environment can not serve as a criterion of growth for Toynbee since it represents merely another emanation of the ego-centric delusion. In the present stage of Western civilization, a conception of history as a uniform development of increasing technical mastery fits too precisely the prejudices of the age to be objectively

1. This is, of course, in direct contradiction to the doctrine of the stimulus of new ground.

2. For the danger of arguing from physical phenomena see post Conclusions.

3. This leans rather heavily on Spengler.

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1. Moreover, the division of history into periods considered. distinguished by technological labels, such as Bronze age, Iron age, etc., has no standing in empirical data. At every stage the new technique can only have been the property of the creative few, from whom it was acquired by the rest of mankind through mimesis and by a very gradual process. Thus there probably never existed a Paleolithic age. Moreover, no support can be found in history for a necessary connection between technical proficiency and a civilization's growth. The transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic age witnessed an improvement in technique accompanied by a degeneration of wisdom, ideation and style.

The interregnum between the collapse of the apparent and the appearance of the affiliated civilization also exhibits a deficiency in inward stature despite a superior technique. Such was the case of Rome. The improvement in agricultural techniques made large-scale agriculture profitable and resulted in the introduction of plantation-slavery in the Hellenic world. The destruction of the free peasantry and the consequential rise of a parasite proletariat in Rome served as an incubus which in time strangled the Hellenic civilization. Finally the technological improvement in military weapons is relatively constant,

1. Though this argument limits inference from universal assent, it can hardly be utilized to disprove the thesis of uniform progress.

2. This argument, holds good only for the origination of the technique and says nothing about the condition after its general acceptance.

3. Toybee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 173.

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proceeding in inverse ratio to the civilization's growth.

Increasing command over the environment does not dis-
close any criterion for progress, but it does reveal the condi-
tion precedent to technological advance. Toynbee finds this
1
in the law of progressive simplification, which states that
growth attends a continual economizing of means. The operation
of this law can be observed in the development of script which
proceeds from the pictograms of Chinese to the hieroglyphics of
Egypt, culminating in the Alphabet. In this Syriac invention,
the introduction of auxiliary words has enabled Western lang-
ages to surpass in simplicity, while equalling in expressive
power, the Arab verb of many aspects.

The progressive simplification of fashions parallels
the economy of hypothesis for the explanation of natural phen-
omena. The Copernian system replaces the Ptolemaic, accounting
in far simpler terms for the same range of phenomena. Einstein,
again, has provided a theory which synthesizes the laws of
gravity, radiation and Magnetism.
2

This simplification does not, however, reveal a nega-
tion or omission, but the liberation of energy for higher tasks.
Its human representatives are Socrates who in a Platonic dialogue
transfers his attentions from the physical to the psychic sphere

1. Toynbee, op. cit. Vol. III. p. 174.

2. Toynbee, op. cit. Vol. III. p. 181.

3. This is another illustration of Toynbee's normative pattern.

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1

by means of an inner experience and Ghandi whose appeal for the
return to handiwork expresses the symbolism of a spiritual plane.
In its deepest sense the process of etherealization exhibits
a shift of this field of activity from the macrocosm to the
microcosm. Toynbee's criterion of growth then applies to a
progressive internalization of the field in which challenge-
and-response occurs. The growing civilization tends to become
its own environment and the subsequent ordeal takes place with-
in its own body.

Thus in Hellenic history the earliest challenges were
offered by an external environment, the Achaemenians and the
Thracian barbarians. 2 But with the decisive defeat of the last
Syriac power, Carthage, and the subsequent conquest of the
European barbarians, the external factor grew ever less impor-
tant. The conflict shifted to the internal field where the
bitterness of the antagonism between the Oriental plantation
slaves and their Roman masters equalled in intensity the passions
engendered by the Punic wars.

Similarly in the West the external challenge of the
Horsemen, preceded the domestic problem of the replacement of
the Feudal system by an organization of Sovereign states. The
most recent stage of Western history exhibits in the phenomena
of Bolshevism the ultimate proof of its absorptive power.

1. Phaedo 96-7.

2. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 197. This contradicts the earlier assertion that overpopulation, an internal factor, constitutes earliest challenge.

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Marxism which transferred Russia's capital to Moscow as a symbolic repudiation of the West, has been forced by its emphasis on technique and electrification into the pattern of Western civilizations. Thus the challenge of Communism, as also Gandhi's who ever draws his inspiration for economic self-sufficiency from Europe, is an internal problem of the Western civilization.

Growth, for Toynbee, constitutes a pattern of the progressive etherealization of challenge-and-response. The external factor constantly diminishes in importance, the necessity of self-articulation becomes more pronounced. Growth is a process of increasing the range of self-determination, of a transfer of the field of activity from the macrocosm to the microcosm. History represents the chronicle of that effort.

If growth exhibits an increase of self-determination by what mechanism does it accomplish itself? Toynbee examines two common arguments, the theory of the atomistic independence of individuals and the conception of society as a biological organism. He refutes the former by referring to the Odyssey's description of the Cyclops and the postulate that language and therefore thought can be developed only in society. Toynbee

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 216. For the weakness of this argument see post Conclusions. Toynbee here confuses an alien inspiration with an area of activity.
2. Note the dependence of this concept on Hegel.

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dogmatically denies Spengler's conception of the Culture as a
super-organism, without adducing any supporting data except
the assertion that man can act only as an individual, not as
part of an organism.

For Toynbee, society represents a community of indiv-
duals, each of whom constitutes a discrete field of activity.
The areas at which the various fields of action intersect con-
tain the political and social institutions of each civiliza-
tion. A field of action, obviously can not serve as a source
of action. A relation merely provides the common ground for
the encounter of several forces. Society serves as the medium
of communication for the interaction of its components.

Toynbee considers creativity the attribute of suddenly
inspired individuals. They arise with unpredictable rarity and
express the essence of evolution, the force that changes the
state of Yin into the activity of Yang. These men of genius push
back the vistas of human intelligence and serve as the guide-
posts on the road of history. Their illumination is achieved
in a mystic ecstacy which transforms the essence of their soul
and indicates the necessity for fresh creation. They represent
the future state of Yin, and an intrinsic superiority comparable
to the eminence of the civilizations over primitive societies.

The appearance of these "saints", "geniuses", or "super-
men" presents society with a dilemma. Though they are the

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 243.

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leaven which galvanizes society into activity, the uncreative majority can follow them but with difficulty. The most satisfactory leadership would rely on the direct illumination of the mass by contact with the saints. This, however, can be achieved only at the end of the process, at the new level of integration.

Thus social drill, mimesis, replaces inspiration utilizing an existing faculty by merely changing its orientation. This generic feature of social life is henceforth directed towards the creative minority, no longer restrained by the "cake of custom". Mimesis, constitutes a short-cut fraught with danger for the mechanicalness of its drill might be channelled into immoral directions. Yet it reveals the only condition for social growth, its risk the problem of mortality.

The Saint can not achieve his mystic ecstacy in society, however. Only in solitude can he attain through suffering that clarity of vision, that inner tempering which enables him to lead his people out of the wilderness into the Promised Land. This is Withdrawal-and-Return, the plot of the fables of many civilizations, the story of the foundling who grew to greatness, the tale of the re-birth of the agricultural God, Christ's sojourn in the Wilderness.

The intuition that the withdrawal obtains its moral sanction from the return to this world exhibits Christianity; moral superiority over Hellenism. Life is Action, and a

1. Note correspondence with Dante's concept. See post.

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transformation of the microcosm must work itself out in the
1
macrocosm. The Greek philosophers considered withdrawal as
the ultimate state of bliss. Plato's captives return to the
cave with a heavy heart. Christianity, on the other hand, sees
the test of the ordeal in the quality of the return, that will
lead the captives towards the light.

Here Toynbee's mythology of the genesis of civilizations
recurs. The state of Yin is disturbed in the microcosm, which
suffers its crisis in solitude and whose inner reconciliation
enables the macrocosm to participate in creativity. Growth ex-
hibits beats of the universal rhythm of which withdrawal-and-
return represent subsidiary pulsations. Peace results from
activity, reconciliation from suffering, harmony from discord.

This is the meaning for Toynbee of the lifes of Dante,
Hindenburg, Saint Paul and almost all creative personalities.
This, too, describes the role played by Athens in the second
part of Hellenic history and by England in the third chapter of
the Western development. At a time, when most Greek polis were
engaged in overseas expansion, Athens withdrew into isolation
and there developed a solution to the most serious Hellenic
problem, that of overpopulation. Basing her greatness on a com-
merce achieved by specialization and manufacture, Athens signaled
her return to the Greek scene by throwing down the gauntlet to

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 235.

2. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 217-333; For the essential incommensurability of most of Toynbee's illustrations see post "Conclusions" (Discussion of Methodology).

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the Archaemenian Empire. For over two hundred years Athens's role was the exact antithesis of its previous condition of apparent hibernation. The institutions developed during the withdrawal proved their superiority over their Spartan counterpart which had broken down while Athens became the "education of Hellas".

Similarly England's insular position enabled her to find the solution to the most serious challenge of the 17th century Western civilization. By breaking down feudal barriers within her domain and substituting democratic government for aristocratic dominance, she achieved the transformation of an agricultural to an industrial society. When the Glorious Revolution brought England's return to the European scene, the Continental powers found there a model for their adaptation of Italian Transalpine efficiency to nation states.

This, Toynbee believes, may be Russia's role in the Western world. The early Communist tendencies of absolute isolation may well constitute that withdrawal which finds the proper response to the all-pervasive Western challenge of nationalism. Brought by technology into the Western pattern, Russia will perhaps return to serve as the creative minority in the next stage of Western development.

Growth accomplishes itself through the agency of a creative

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 377 et seq.

2. It is difficult to see how Russia can serve as the creative minority of a civilization which meets Toynbee's every criterion for disintegration. See post "Conclusions."

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minority the withdrawal of which results in an inward tempering
and which becomes effective through its return. It leads by
mimesis, a social drill, in the absence of the direct inspira-
tion which will be attained at the next level of integration.
Life presents a series of problems, each a challenge to undergo
an ordeal. Yet each problem is essentially unique, each res-
ponse singular. Moreover the successful solution of one problem
exposes the civilization to a new challenge, the nature of which
is largely determined by the previous response. Spengler as-
serted that each Culture possessed a soul, which revealed itself
in the selection of its appropriate symbolism and which contained
the key to the understanding of the culture's history. This
Toynbee denies. He opts for a willed direction, based on a series
of overbalances, each successful response creating a fresh challenge.
Differentiation is achieved by growth, not through a determined
immanence.

The Growth of civilizations, in Toynbee's scheme, exhibits
that purposiveness which his metaphysical assumptions postulate.
The dependence of Toynbee's concepts on Dante is striking. Toyn-
bee's precipe resembles nothing so much as Dante's Mount Purgga-
tory. The direct mutual illumination in the new state of Yin
parallels the ability of the denizen of Dante's Paradise to read
each other's thoughts.

Yet again the empirical method leads to the logical in-
consistencies and philosophical difficulties observed previously.

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. III. p. 377.

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If etherealization exhibits the liberation of energy for higher tasks then this assertion finds no warranty in historical data. Higher and lower - as Kant already pointed out in his Refutation of Ethical Hedonism - do not constitute categories of empirical experience, but normative patterns of rationality. On the other hand, empiricism sees etherealization as merely a technical transfer of a field of activity brought about by the physical expansion of the civilization.

In fact, Toynbee sways uneasily between his theological conception of inner self-determination and the etherealization which is merely a product of the civilization's growth (Environmental). Toynbee the empiricist sees the problems of Western civilization as consequences of a technological mastery, (though the inconsistency implicit in at one point postulating that an improvement in technology accompanies simplification and at another considering Gandhi's return to the spinning wheel as a symptom of a yearning for simplicity can not be overlooked).

Toynbee the theologian views the criteria of growth as emanations of a soul's self-articulation. What is the connection between these realms of necessity and freedom? Do arrested civilizations result from an insuperable challenge or a deficient response?

Toynbee's criticism of Spengler is curiously inept.

Surely Spengler's assertion of a Culture as an organism did not

1. Kant - Critique of Practical Reason. op. cit. p. 111.

2. See post Conclusions for further developments of this point.

imply that the culture and its component individual constituted
two mutually exclusive entities. Spengler would not deny that
all activity presupposes individual volition. The crucial ques-
tion is, however, whether this personal volition represents an
immanent, inexorable Destiny which implicitly structures thought
or whether it serves as the cause of a Civilization's develop-
ment. Toynbee offers no definite answer to this question. He
denies the concept of a Culture's soul, but his differentiation
by growth resembles the quibble of psychologists of whether a
child's personality is formed before birth or begins to develop
from the first days. It seems that after the first challenges
are surmounted, the subsequent problemation, in Toynbee's terms,
is set in ever narrower limit.

The dilemma of necessity and freedom stands unresolved.
The inadequacy of utilizing history as a technical proof of nor-
mative concepts has become more apparent.

1. The fact that Toynbee's mimesis is very close to a concept of the soul will be developed see post "Conclusions".

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The Breakdown of Civilizations.

The breakdown of Civilizations can never for Toynbee contain the sanction of an unavoidable fatality. If growth is a process of progressive etherealization, breakdown must result from a failure of self-determination. A challenge that does not evoke a successful response, constantly faces a failing civilization with its threatening presence. Under its impact the reactive capacity of the civilization becomes exhausted; the creative majority loses its charm for the uninspired majority. Mimesis breaks down and society degenerates into antagonistic classes. To escape these tensions of the now dominant minority, develops a universal state as an instrument of repression. The internal proletariat gives expression to the frustration in its soul by the creation of a universal church, the repository of the meaning of history. His metaphysical dilemma ever accompany Toynbee on his journey through history. The difficulty of uniting normative concepts with empirical deduction becomes more pronounced. If all civilizations have collapsed or exhibit symptoms of breakdown how can the necessity of a society's decline be consistently denied? Why is Christianity of absolute validity in a cosmology which produces higher religions as the accidental consequence of social breakdown? These are the questions that dominate Toynbee's analysis of the breakdown of civilizations.

All civilizations that have heretofore existed have either

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1

broken down or exhibit all symptom of decay. An empirical
survey can not draw conclusions from this phenomena until all
possible theories have been examined. Toynbee rejects the argu-
ment that the decline of civilizations results from a general
aging of the earth, with an assertion of the relative youth of
the species in terms of its life span.

The racial theory presents no greater difficulties.

Based on Plato and Aristotle, it insists that all creative ad-
vance results from the infusion of virile blood into static
civilizations, all decline from the degeneration of this race.
Thus the Renaissance is conceived as due to the Lombard invas-
lions, the beneficial effects of which took several centuries
to appear. Nevertheless, according to Toynbee, empirical data
falls to support this thesis. The bloom of the Risorgimento
occurred without any preceding barbarian invasion.

What of the cyclical theory? Does the repetitive move-
ment of the stars find its counterpart in human history? At
first blush, Toynbee's assumption of an elemental rhythm that
expresses itself in alternate states of Yin and Yang, and With-
drawal-and-Return lends support to this thesis. Toynbee denies
that this constitutes a correct inference. Though the shuttle
that weaves the web of time moves up and down, its movements
serve as the condition for the creation of a meaningful pattern.
The wheel must turn in order to advance. Withdrawal-and-Return,

3

1. Toynbee wavers on the question of Western civilization but on the whole seems to include it among the decaying societies.

2. This seems an unhappy choice for the refutation of the very likely, untenable race theory. The Risorgimento is hardly comparable in creative effectiveness to the Renaissance.

3. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. IV. p. 35.

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Yin and Yang do not disclose senseless cycles but requisites
for the liberation of the Promethean Elan of creativity.<sup>1</sup>

Breakdowns of Civilizations do not result from the opera-
tion of cosmic forces then but from factors within human con-
trol. Yet what criteria for the evaluation of decline exist?
Toynbee again examines the relation of the civilization to its
physical and human environment.<sup>2</sup>

Loss of control over the physical environment does not
cause the breakdown of a civilization. On the contrary tech-
nique may improve in many fields long after the decline has set
in. Wherever the command over the physical environment does
diminish, it exhibits the consequences not the cause of social
breakdown. The ability to construct roads did not decline
after Marcus Aurelius, but Roman willingness to do so degener-
ated. The technical knowledge for draining swamps existed
throughout Rome's history, yet the capacity to respond to this
continuing challenge suffered and so the campagna became, in
time, malaria-ridden.

Loss of command over the human environment also fails
to qualify as a criterion for the breakdown of civilizations
in Toynbee's scheme. Indeed the early stage of decline reveals
a great increase in the mastery of the human environment. As

1. This argument does not however, refute the necessity of a civilization's decline. However purposeful the movement of the shuttle in objective terms, subjectively it involves the growth and decline of civilizations. See post Conclusions.

2. These arguments are presented at such length because without some glimpse of his methodology, Toynbee's philosophy becomes meaningless.

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the breakdown proceeds and the inner strength of society dissipates itself in domestic strife, the barbarians beyond the borders cease to be charmed by the civilization's creativeness and overrun large areas. This, again, is a result not a cause of the inner decline. The barbarians appearance on the civilizations geographical field heralds the beginning of the time of troubles from which in time a new civilization emerges.

Similarly Toynbee denies that the impact of an alien civilization may cause a society's breakdown. An alien civilization succeeds in making its domination effective only in the advanced stages of social breakdown. A society that has undergone a prolonged "Time of Troubles", without being able to create a universal state may welcome an alien intrusion that affords relief from the intolerable warfare. This was the service performed by the Osmanlis for the Orthodox-Christian civilization which had broken down in the Bulgar wars of the 11th century.

The internecine warfare of the subsequent centuries had not given way to the peace of a universal state and in these circumstances the Ottoman Empire represented a relief from an oppressive situation. This, too, according to Toynbee, seems the condition of Russia, Japan and India all of which achieved universal states under Western inspiration.

Its human environment may absorb a society in two ways.

The more painful process of apparetation-and-affiliation really

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. IV. p. 89.

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hypnotism they deliberately instilled in their followers. This
1
will transform the purposeful advance into robot-like activity.
The loss of creativeness destroys their claim to leadership.
The magic charm evaporates and the multitude which heretofore
followed unquestioningly mutinies. Power replaces inspiration
as the social tie. The exercise of force constitutes an abuse
of trust which eventually dooms its perpetrators. The failure
of the Promethean elan leads to a loss of harmony. The society
articulates itself into classes and dissipates its strength in
2
inner conflict.

The intractability of institutions provides another
obstacle to the uniform growth of civilizations. The precept
that the best adapted methods yield maximum results contained,
in Christ's saying that new wine should not be placed in old
3
bottles, can be successfully applied only in a family. Society,
however, as the common ground of many person's field of action,
severely limits the range of possible adaptation.

Social readjustments have to contend with the vis inertia
that attempts at all times to keep the structure static. Creat-
ive forces can overcome these tendencies by gradual adjustment,
by utilizing old institutions for new purposes or by violently
eliminating the inelastic structure. The violent removal of the
obstruction is revolution, a process of retarded mimesis, the

1. See post. This according to Toynbee is the condition of the arrested civilizations.

2. See post "The Disintegration of Civilizations."

3. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. IV. p. 133. See post "Conclusions".

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intensity of which is proportional to the anachronism to be
overcome. Social enormities utilize old institutions for pur-
poses they were never meant to fit. If the response accomplishes
itself through adjustments, growth is assured. Revolutions,
too, may assist growth by removing impediments to progress,
though the resort to force ever constitutes a moral blight.
Enormities are the very embodiments of social breakdown, how-
ever, their perversion of institutions resulting in that rigid-
ity of outlook which characterizes arrested and declining civil-
izations.

Toynbee ascribes a large measure of the inconstancy of
human fortunes, the recurrent growth and decline of civiliza-
tions, to the nemesis of creativity. Creative responses to
successive challenges are extremely rare. Indeed, it seems
that the successful solution of one problem severely limits the
reactive capacity to the next ordeal. The insight and upright-
ness which enabled the Pharisees to guide Jewry in its Babylon-
ian captivity, failed them when faced with the greater treasure
of a supra-mundane kingdom promised by Christ.

This, too, is the motif of the Actic drama which as-
ccribes the sudden change in human fortunes to the envy of the
Gods. Herotodus' fable of the ring of Polycrates exhibits the

1. For illustrations see Vol. IV p. 137-245, for discussion of
incommensurability of illustrations see post "Conclusions".

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sudden negation of being brought on by Divine disfavor. But
In the legend of the end of Croesus emerges a deepening of the
understanding. And in Aeschylus the total collapse of all human
aspirations results not from the aberration of a fickle Deity,
but from a deficiency in the soul of the sufferer. Sin, not
Envy dooms human endeavor. The sinners' blight follows an inner
alienation from the Divine love, which makes him unworthy to
continue as God's instrument. The nemesis of creativity con-
stitutes one aspect of this drams of the doom of Man, with God's
role merely passive, revealing the inevitable consequence of
sinful conduct.

This aberration accomplishes itself in two possible modes.
The passive fault consists in resting on one's oars, in consid-
ering one's achievements a summit instead of a stepping stone,
in worshipping Time instead of eternity. The adoration of a
glorious past tends to induce passivity towards the tasks of
the moment. The exaltation of the creature in place of the
Creator, characterizes the arrested civilizations. This is idol-
atory, the replacement of the constantly true by the ephemeral.

The active aberration exhibits the denial of limit, that
rushes headlong into disaster, the psychological condition of
being spoilt by success with annihilation as its consequence.

Toynbee distinguishes several forms of idolatry. The
idolization of an ephemeral self led Jewry to disaster. After

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having divined a truth of eternal validity in the sublimity of
the One True God, Israel fell into the error of conceiving its
temporary spiritual eminence as an eternal Divine sanction.
Worshipping a past greatness, that had been sterilized by the
self-adoration of the "Chosen People", Jewry was unable to
accept the greater treasure offered to it by Christ. Thus
Israel atrophied while Christianity was preached by Galileans
and accepted by Gentiles.

Similarly Athens had become the "education of Hellas"
in the 5th and 6th century. But this magnificent success blinded
Athens to the import of new problems. The inadequacy of the
poli organization as a stable base for further Hellenic growth
was the most pressing challenge of the 4th century Hellenic civil-
ization. Athens could react only by attempting to assert a mil-
itary hegemony and the limit of her physical strength was quickly
reached. The polis were finally transcended by peripheral
powers, Macedonia and Rome, whose prospects had initially seemed
much less bright than those of Athens. - Moreover, the glory of
its philosophy evoked such an idolat ion, that the divine truth
preached by Paul fell on deaf ears in Athens.

Enormities result from the idolization of an ephemeral
institution exhibited by the limitations of the Greek city states,
whose constant warfare led to the breakdown of the Hellenic

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. IV. p. 263.

2. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. IV. p. 273. This illustration Toynbee's confusion of the normative and the empirical. See post "Conclusions". Further illustrated p. 274-303.

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civilization. Even after disintegration had run its course and
the barbarians had occupied Rome, Justinian attempted to invoke
the Ghost of the Roman Empire for Belisarius' campaign in Italy.
This futile effort so depleted the resources of Anatolia, that
the Sanassid Empire succeeded in annexing most of Byzantium's
Eastern territories and caused the breakdown of that civiliza-
tion. Similarly, the Parliament of Westminster, is performing
functions for which it is organizationally unsuited. The re-
presentation of territorial units is the most effective demo-
cratic device in an agricultural society. The complexities of
modern industrialism, on the other hand, require a Parliament
based on a corporate structure. Yet the worship of this ephemeral
institution will in all likelihood prevent England from finding
a solution to this 20th century challenge.

The arrested civilizations testify to the final nemesis
of idolatry, the idolization of ephemeral techniques. They
possess biological counterparts in those organism, whose overly
successful adaptation to an environment has accounted for their
retardation on the evolutionary scale. In the industrial sphere
an initial technological advantage is often purchased at the
price of flexibility exemplified by the gradual decline of Ven-
chester's commercial position. The excessive reliance on an
ephemeral military technique leads to that sudden collapse of
an apparent colossus, of which David's encounter with Goliath

1. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. IV. p. 320-404. This contradicts an earlier assertion that the Bulgar war caused the breakdown of the Orthodox-Christian civilization.

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1. constitutes the mythological intuition. Thus Toynbee has accounted for three types of idolatry, the idolization of an ephemeral self, an ephemeral institution, and an ephemeral technique, all manifestations of the passive form of the nemesis of creativity.

If idolatry exhibits the sin of resting on one's oar, the active nemesis of creativity accomplishes itself through dynamism in three stages. It begins with the psychological condition of being spoilt by success. The consequent loss of mental and moral balance results in a blind impulse that tempts the soul to attempt the impossible. Here, too, Toynbee distinguishes several forms.

The suicidalness of militarism derives from an arrogance in the exploitation of success, which fails to appreciate the limits of its own physical strength. The hatred of the subject populations is compounded by the fear of all neighboring states, whose decision to end the constant state of insecurity leads to the inevitable extermination of the militarist. This was the case of Assyria, which escaped the nemesis of the idolization of an ephemeral technique, but whose recurrent resort to force caused a coalition of all neighboring societies to wipe it off the face of the earth.

1. For other illustrations see Toynbee op. cit. Vol. IV. p. 423-465.

2. Toynbee op. cit. Vol. IV. p. 258.