Civilization on Trial

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CIVILIZATION ON TRIAL

J.
ARNOLD TOYNBEE
CIVILIZATION
ON TRIAL
LONDON
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK TORONTO
Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4
GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI
CAPE TOWN IBADAN NAIROBI ACCRA SINGAPORE
First edition 1946
Reprinted 1949 (twice), 1953 and 1957
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PR[NTF.D IN GREAT BRITAIN
PREFACE
ALTHOUGH the essays collected in this volume have been
written at different dates-several as long as twenty years
ago, the majority within the last fifteen months-the book
has, in the writer's mind, a unity of outlook, aim, and idea
which, he hopes, will be felt by his readers. The unity of
outlook lies in the standpoint of a historian who sees the
Universe and all that therein is-souls and bodies, experi
ence and events-in irreversible movement through time
space. The common aim that runs through this series of
papers is to gain some gleam of insight into the meaning
of this mysterious spectacle. The governing idea is the
familiar one that the universe becomes intelligible to the
extent of our ability to apprehend it as a whole. This idea
has practical consequences for the historical method. An
intelligible field of historical study is not to be found
within any national framework; we must expand our his
torical horizon to think in terms of an entire civilization.
But this wider framework is still too narrowt for civiliza
tions, like nations, are plural, not singular; there are differ
ent civilizations which meet and, out of their encounters,
societies of another species, the higher religions, are born
into this world. That is not, however, the end of the his
torian's quest, for no higher religion is intelligible in terms
of this world only. The mundane history of the higher
religions is one aspect of the life of a Kingdom of Heaven,
of which this world is one province. So history passes over
into theology. 'To Him return ye every one.'
[v]
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
TEN out of the thirteen essays in this book were published separately
before being brought together here, and the writer and the publishers
take this opportunity of thanking the original publishers for their
courteous permission to reprint.
'My View of History' was first published in England in the Contact
publication Britain between 'East and Wist; 'The Present Point in History,'
copyright 1947 by Foreign Affairs; 'Docs History Repeat Itself?', copy
right 1947 by The New York Times; 'The International Outlook,' copy
right 1947 by International Affairs, is based on addresses given at Harvard
University on 7 April 1947, at the Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto
Branches of the Canadian Institute of International Relations during the
following week, and at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in
London on 22 May of the same year; 'Civilization· on Trial,' copyright
1947 by Tbe Atlantic Monthly, is based on a lecture delivered at Princeton
University on 20 February 1947; 'Russia's Byzantine Heritage,' published
in Horizon of August 1947, is based on a course of two lectures delivered
in April 1947 at the University of Toronto on the Armstrong Foundation;
'Encounters between Civilizations,' published in Harper's Magazine of
April 1947, is based on the first lecture in a series delivered at Bryn Mawr
College in February and March 1947 on the Mary Flexner Foundation;
'Christianity and Civilization,' copyright 1947 by Arnold J. Toynbee
(Pendle Hill Publications), is based on the Burge Memorial Lecture for
that year, which was delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford on
2 3 May 1940-at a critical moment, as it happened, in the history of both
the lecturer's own country and the world. 'The Meaning of History for
the Soul,' copyright 1947 by Christianilj1 ·and Crisis, is based on a lecture
delivered at Union Theological Seminary, New York, on 19 March 1947;
'The Gracco-Roman Civilization' is based on a lecture delivered at
Oxford University in the summer term of one of the ioterwar years, in a
course, organized by Professor Gilbert Murray, of prolegomena to vario1,1s
subjects studied in the Oxford School of Literae HuH1aniores; 'The Dwarf
ing of Europe is based on a lecture delivered in London on 27 October
1926, with Dr. Hugh Dalton in the chair, in a series organized by the
Fabian Society on 'The Shrinking World: Dangers and Possibilities';
'The Unification of the World and the Change in Historical Perspective'
is based on the Creighton Lecture delivered in the Senate House of the
University of London on 17 November 1947.
A. J. TOYNBEE
January 1948
[vi]
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CONTENTS
1. My View of History 3
2. The Present Point in History 16
3. Does History Repeat Itself? 29
4. The Graeco-Roman Civilization 42
5. The Unification of the World and the Change ·
in· Historical Perspectiv:e 62
6. The Dwarfing of Europe 97'
7. The International Outlook I 26
8. Civilization on Trial 150
9. Russia,s Byzantine Heritage 164
1 o. Islam, the West, and the Future I 84
11. Encounters between Civilizations 1 I 3
12. Christianity and Civilization 22 S
13._The Meaning of History for the Soul 253
[vii]