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246

The Origin of Civilisation

are all graphic i 1lustrations of autonomous rising cultures moving fitfully along the classic culture curve. The key difference between the ancient civilisations and the recent experience seems to reside in the morę cohesiue internationalism that marks the modern age. There is a stronger trend towards a unification, as described by Chester Starr, which was only fleetingly established during the Classicai era. However, the Renaissance must be judged to haue been far morę than merely a rebirth. Durrant thinks it should not be judged as a period in time. Rather, it was a "modę of life and thought moying from Italy through Europę with the course of commerce, war and ideas."⁹⁰ Rowse notes a new historiography, radically different from the universalism of the Middle Ages. He stresses national and secular interests, far superior in organisation, accuracy and critical acumen, to the medieual chronicles.⁹¹ An intense self-awareness was expressed in the dewelopment of portraiture, the literary device of biography,⁹² and the whoie concept of 'humanism' emerged. This system of thought elevated man, his interests and development at the expense of the clerical and religious ideals which had doounated feudal life.

Hicks draws attention to the thrust of financial deuelopments occurring at this time. Money, he suggests, was changing lts character, beginning to link up with both credit and finance, in spite of the ewident problems associated with hawing to operate within” the rigid confines of a theologically imposed usury doctrine. This saw the taking of interest as usury, making it sinful to Christians. The rise of financial intermediaries as middlemen, and the growth of surety or guarantees, soch as the Bill of Exchange, were financial devices that arose to circumvent these difficulties.⁹³ Although within this blended mix of venerating the Classicai Age while tentatiuely adopting a morę modern outlook we can detect the stirrings of an erupting burst of ciuilising energy, was it a fuli explosiye genesis?®* The evidence implies the flowering was predominately cent red on the knowledge subsystem. Architecture and the arts were wery much to the fore in the field of innowatiwe advance.

Interestingly, this lopsided pattern of progress appears to have been re-peated through the next two centunes. We can take the forty year span of AO 1660-1700 to illustrate the main trends involved. Henry Kamen notes that in many Europęan states the economic problems of the early century, revolving around a rampant inflation and escalating taxation, to fund Continental wars, had led to a social crisis which culminated in the economic and political crisis of the decade 1640-W).⁹® The turbulence of that decade he describes as:

It was a turning point with unmistakable consequences, not all of them negative: in philosophy the era of doubt, represented by Descartes, was succeeded by the aasurance of the age of Locke; the irresolution of state authority was succeeded by an emphasis on power, most notably through the role of armies; the social crisis in the east and central Europę was resolwed in favour of stability and serfdom; the primacy of the northern European nations was established, in contrast to the decay of the Hediterranęan, which

247

The Civilisation Phenomenon

slipped int o the role of being a colony of the north; the period of a sharp population and price rise was followed, after the epoch of crisis, by one of relative stability and moderate expansion in the later sewenteenth century.^M

A period of gradual consolidation cannot be deseribed by recourse to the wiwid language of nuclear explosions. Yet this was the age of Newton and the scientific revolution; the Royal Society was founded in 1660;⁹⁷ new moods were ewolwing in philosophy and reason; it was the age of Christopher Wren, the age of Absolutism for most of the ruling houses of Europę, centred on the mercantilist economic ideas and the supremacy of personal rule.⁹⁸ If we are seeking for the innouatiue 'firsts’ that we hawe already seen marked the rapid confluence of a 'swift crystallisation' for Sumer and the early stages of Classicai Greece, we will not find many during this period. Certainly, in England, the Bill of Rights of 1688 ushered in the first experiment with constitutional monarchy. Commerce and International trade flourished, centred increasingly on Amsterdam and London?⁹but the great financial innovations had been introduced at the turn of the century, including the first joint stock company and the first national Bank, (of Amsterdam).¹⁰⁰ While the role of International bankers, money lenders and commercial Bi lis of Exchange were securely established financial instruments of long standing. Across Europę, the modernising continent, in Kamen's words, "The way lay open to ...... un-

challenged conservatism. The Iron Age madę way for an age of aristocracy." ¹⁰¹

Here again, the euidence suggests nouel ideas and innovations were mainly sectional in naturę, and not sufficiently broadly based to activate all the fiue subsystems with an equally forceful impact. The scientific revolution and new political and philosophical notions remained essentially a partial synthesis only, but this can really best be judged by companson with later periods which do have all the hallmarks of a fuli bodied explosive blast.

Isolating a Five-Subsystem ExpIosive Burst

Earlier, we explored the background to the gradual advance of the modern aoe by looking briefly at W.W.Rostow's stages of economic growth, his trend periods and leading sectors. We suggested that eddying chain reactions lie at the heart of dynamie cultural change. With morę than two hundred years of a continuously moving frontier along all the five subsystems, how are we to identify the moment of birth of a true ciuilisation euent? The history of the last two centuries shows the Total Culture System vigorously adapting to the gradual spread of industrialism worldwide. Hence, any module of fifty years that we examine in detail, from AD 1740 to the present day, will reveal the eruption of one monumental phase after another in an unprecedented awalanche of change. The age of steam anc then of steel, was rapidly followed by the age of the automobile and the age of piastics. This generation has taced an even fiercer onslaught of change, with the onrush of the atomie age. the