The Philosophy of History and the Stability of Civilizations

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AND THE STABILITY 01!~ CIVILIZATIONS My purpose is to examine philosophically the cycles of growth and decline of past civilizations in order to see what it is that has prevented these societies from being stable, and to discover the means that would cause a civilization to be stabilized in its growth. The reader will see that the essay is based on the studies of the problem made by Professor Toynbee. He has shown convincingly in the latest volumes of his Study of History that there are no laws of historical cycles by which mankind is inexorably bound to live through one civilization after another, that is, to undergo one such historical cycle after another.1 He does not, however, definitely answer the question as to the source of regularities in the history of civilizations. Instead, using the terminology of C. G. Jung, he mentions the possibility that cyclical" laws" of history may be imbedded in the collective unconscious of man.2 Consequently, he does not propose as definite a solution as he might to the problem of cycles. In carrying the work of Professor Toynbee further in these pages, I take the opportunity of utilizing the philosophy of history as I understand it. At the beginning I describe what the philosophy of history seems to be to me and then I apply it to the problem. In turn, the analysis of the question of cultural stability enables me, in the last pages, to clarify further the nature of the philosophy of history. The reader will find that my view of the philosophy of history is decidedly ethical and that the virtues and their derivatives occupy the central place 1 A. J. Toynbee, A Study of History (Oxford, 1984, vols. i-iii, 1989, vols. iv-vi, 1958, vols. vii-x), Vol. IX, pp. 888 ff.: "Are Laws of Nature Current in History Inexorable or Controllable? " • Ibid., pp. 8fl8 ff. 158 HISTORY AND THE STABILITY OF CIVILIZATIONS 159 in the scheme. My theories on the philosophy of history have been caused in part by the work of Professor Toynbee. Yet he is, as he has told me, an historian, not a philosopher by training, and the profound and obscure philosophy of history that lies in his work is the result, not of philosophical speculation , but of humane and empirical study of history, characterized by a deep religiousness. I think the philosophy of history, described philosophically below, secundum quid, is a continuance of that of Professor Toynbee. The definitely Christian and Catholic orientation of my theory is opposed to the indefiniteness of his religious views, but that does not prevent mine from being the continuance of his philosophy. In using the term civilization, I am taking a word which was not used until the eighteenth century and, like the term culture, did not signify" society" until the nineteenth century.3 .But I do not use the term, civilization, in a special sense which would distinguish between a civilization and a culture; rather, I follow the usage of Professors Maritain and Toynbee, who prefer to make the two terms synonymous. The words, civilization and culture, do not only indicate a special quality of a society or commonwealth, but also signify the general society or commonwealth itself.4 It seems to be more faithful to the way in which the facts of history really happen to assert the identity of culture and civilization instead of any difference between them. I. THE NEED FOR PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY The philosophy of history, as I understand it, is the fourth part of a " quadrumvirate " of four ethical disciplines, Monastica (personal ethics) , Oeconomica (domestic ethics) , Politica (political ethics), and Histmica (cultural ethics). I assume 3 Cf. civility, civilization and culture in: A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, edited by J. A. H. Murray (Oxford, 1893), Vol. HI. • A Study of History, Vol. HI, p. Q2l n. 3; J. Maritain, True Humanism, trans. M. R. Adamson (London, 1950), p. 88. However, it is important to distinguish between what Professor P. A. Sorokin calls the "meaningful" and the (efficient) " causal " aspects of the civilization; or between what he also terms the " cultural 160 DAVID B. RICHARDSON...