POWER AND IDEOLOGY
demand for America's allies to present to America today. To be
taxed without being given a say was provocative, but to be
annihilated without being given a say would be intolerable.
(p.
33)
243
This is a bigger issue than rudeness to natives, and Dr. Toynbee
feels impelled to recall "the history of Rome's constitutional relations
with her Italian allies," which led to a civil war being fought before
the "system of alliances between a paramount power and its satel–
lites" was placed upon a more acceptable basis. "As you will see," he
says with disarming candor, "I am suggesting that America has ac–
quired an empire and that, though this Empire is today still in an
early stage of its development, it has been evolving, in some respects,
along the same lines as at least one of the notorious empires of the
past." This cautious formulation strikes the proper balance between
Dr. Toynbee's basic commitment to Spengler's fatalism, and his oc–
casional lapses into religious idealism: the future is not
quite
de–
termined. The degree of indeterminacy (as we have learned by now)
depends upon men's ability to raise themselves above the material level.
"The true end of Man is
not
to possess the maximum amount of con–
sumer goods per head." "See how Christian monks or Buddhist monks
live. This will give you a fair measure of what the genuine necessities
of life truly amount to" (pp. 69-9) .
If
we restrict our "bogus wants,"
we can aid the poorer countries, regain their esteem, and perhaps
save our souls in the bargain.
II
It is fair to say, then, that Dr. Toynbee opened on a note of
prophecy and concluded with a sermon. Something of its spirit is
echoed in a tract for the times recently published by a distinguished
representative of what for want of a better term must be called the
American Establishment: Mr. Louis Halle.
2
A retired diplomat and
a scholar, Mr. Halle embodies a well-defined tradition which the
British used to think they had a monopoly of: that of the cultivated
gentleman who in his leisure hours reflects upon the lessons of history
and the meaning of events. Mr. Halle does not appear to be a
philosopher by training, but neither was Arthur Balfour, whose writings
-composed before he became Prime Minister- are still listed in
reference books, though not perhaps very closely studied these days.
2. Men and Nations.
By Louis
J.
Halle. Princeton University Press. $4.75.
