MR. TOYNBEE'S CITY OF GOD
serve as an argument for a kind of Leibnitzian cultural pluralism or
"compossibility" in international affairs. Provided, of course, we already
believed in it.
To take this as anything more than a poetic or prophetic excursion
in order to amplify the
meaning
of a vision is to confuse historical
illustration with historical proof. Toynbee systematically falls into this
confusion wherever he ventures beyond the discussion of a specific
problem ·such as, say, why Monophysite Christianity survived in Abys–
sinia. Before a historical illustration can be considered part of a his–
torical proof of the principle it illustrates, it must be shown that it follows
logically from the principle and that alternative principles cannot explain
it more adequately. And if ever the truth of the illustration is successfully
challenged, the validity of the principle itself must henceforth be ques–
tioned. Mr. Toynbee's empirical "laws," however, are so vague that it
is hard to see what kind of empirical evidence could possibly refute them.
Many of the historical illustrations he cites could have been otherwise
and still serve as historical illustrations of the thesis, e.g., that "schism in
the soul" is at the heart of the "schism in the body social" which is a
necessary phase of social disintegration. He nowhere comes to grips
with the view that the spiritual crisis of our time, as of other times,
is a consequence of profound dislocations in economic and social insti–
tutions, and that the cure of the business cycle will affect the incidence
of neurotic anxieties over salvation much more decisively than spiritual
therapy will affect the business cycle.
Toynbee's conception of historical proof, and of the truths it can
establish, is expressed in one of the most revealing sentences any his–
torian has ever written: "Christians
believe-and a study of History
assuredly proves them
right-that ... the brotherhood of Man is im–
possible for Man to achieve in any other way than by enrolling himself
as a citizen of a
Civitas Dei
which transcends the human world and has
God himself for its King."
(A Study of History,
Vol. V, p. 585, my italics,
cf.
also Vol. VI, p. 167.)
If
History can prove that, it can prove anything.
Note that Mr. Toynbee is ostensibly not writing the quoted lines as a
Christian but dissociates himself for the moment from Christians as an
objective historian, who adds his testimony to theirs. It is not surprising
therefore that hard upon this he proclaims that anyone aware of what
the study of history proves "will feel certain
a priori"
that Marxism
or any form of socialism which is not Christian is bound to fail. What is
surprising is that on the basis of the failures in the past a self-proclaimed
empirical historian should be so confident about the
only
way the bro–
therhood of man can be reached in the future . And no less surprising,
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