50
PARTISAN REVIEW
the world historian who meets his qualifications; but he will not find
a substantial reason for regarding this method as "historical science."
Pareto simply asserted the elite theory of history with an ill-tempered
crankishness; Toynbee, on the other hand,
drifts
toward it, out of a
deep religious reverence for sainthood. But the result is the
s~e.
Toynbee believes that civilizations are led "upward" by "gifted
in–
dividuals," who form "creative minorities." The creative minority acts
as a kind of middleman between God and the masses.
It
does not, ac–
cording to Toynbee rule y force while a civilization
is
still growing;
it persuades the masses by "charm' and unconscious suggestion. The
""""-
.~
masses follow by acts of "mimesis," though just what these acts are
~~"""'..
is never made clear. The "gifted individuals" are those who can
~ystically
relive
in
their souls the death and resurrection of the divine
hero. They, and the civilization they lead, attain their goal by "the
movement of Withdrawal-and-Return." They withdraw from the
world, that is, when some great task faces them;
in
the privacy of the
spirit they prepare themselves to return reborn to the world and take
up the challenge.
At this point we begin to understand that Toynbee is writing
a vast drama; in fact, a Greek tragedy. His idea of Greek tragedy is
that of his fellow nglish anthropologist-Hellenists, Frazer, Jane Har–
/ rison and Gilbert Murray. In the hands of these scholars the Greek
I
tragedy has come to mean the drama of the "eniautos daimon" or
year spirit.
The Golden Bough
described the worldwide foundations
~
of the ritual death and rebirth of the fertility god. Jane Harrison in
her
Prolegomena to Greek R eligion
and
Themis
took this cycle of the
death and rebirth of vegetation to be the central fact of
Gre~agedy.
But like Toynbee, she found it
nece._<~Sary
to convert the Greeks to Berg–
sonism. The Greek<s, we are told, worshipped
elan vital
through its
representative, the spirit of the year. According to this school of
thought the main elements of a Greek tragedy (1111ore or less ap–
parent
in
all the extant plays) are 1. the Agon or contest between
the vegetative fertility of summer and the death-dealing winter; 2.
the Pathos or the ritual slaying of the "eniautos daimon," which
signified the temporary success of winter; and 3. the Epiphany or
resurrection of the god with the promise of renewed life. In the Agon
of the Greek divinity we perceive the Toynbeean contest of God in
man~
with the Devil in the environment. The Pathos of a civilization
occurs when it "withdraws" from the world, turning in upon itself
~ ~-M
.
v
I
k .
