POLONICA SERIES
No 2
edited by Jędrzej Giertych
ON THE PLURALITY
OF CIVILISATIONS
by
FELIKS KONECZNY
Translated from the Polish
Introduction
by
ANTON HILCKMAN
Professor at the University of Mainz (Germany)
Preface
by
ARNOLD TOYNBEE
LONDON 1962
POLONICA PUBLICATIONS
First Published 1962
by
POLONICA PUBLICATIONS
16. Belmont Road, London, N.15. England
© Polonica Publications
Originally published in Polish in 1935 in Cracow
by Gebethner i Wolf under the title “O wielości cywilizacyj’
CONTENTS
POLONICA SERIES 1
No 2 1
edited by Jędrzej Giertych 1
ON THE PLURALITY 1
OF CIVILISATIONS 1
Translated from the Polish 1
CONTENTS 2
PREFACE 5
by 5
Arnold Toynbee 5
PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE 7
by 7
Jędrzej Giertych 7
INTRODUCTION 10
by Anton Hilckman 10
FELIKS KONECZNY 15
AND THE COMPARATIVE SCIENCE OF CIVILISATION 15
by Anton Hilckman 15
THE MODERN ROAD OF PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 15
ON WHAT IS CIVILISATION BASED? — THE QUINCUNX OF EXISTENTIAL VALUES 17
THE CENTRAL PROBLEM OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: 19
WHERE DOES THE DIFFERENCE OF CIVILISATIONS COME FROM? 19
CIVILISATIONS AND RELIGIONS. 19
ARE THE CIVILISATIONS PRODUCTS OF RELIGIONS? 19
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 20
THE POSITIVE ANSWER: THE PRINCIPAL FACTORS OF DIFFERENTIATION OF CIVILISATIONS 23
LAWS OF HISTORY 25
THE ONLY LAW OF HISTORY: CAUSALITY AND FINALITY 26
EAST, WEST, ROME AND BYZANTIUM. TURAN. THE PRESSURE OF THE EAST UPON THE WEST. GERMANY 27
CHAPTER I 31
FROM BACON TO MAJEWSKI 31
I INTRODUCTION 31
II A NOTE ON KOŁŁĄTAJ 47
(Substantially abridged) 47
CHAPTER II 50
NUCLEI OF ALL CULTURE 50
I FIRE 50
II DOMESTIC ANIMALS 54
III THE OLDEST ASSOCIATIONS 61
IV NUCLEI OF TRADITION 68
V PREHISTORIC ECONOMY 71
CHAPTER III 78
THE TRIPLE LAW 78
I NOMENCLATURE 78
II THE FIVE TYPES OF CLAN 79
III FAMILY LAW 86
IV PROPERTY LAW 92
V CLAN LAW AND THE TRIPLE LAW 96
CHAPTER IV 101
ASSOCIATIONS AND SYSTEMS 101
I SYSTEM IN THE QUINCUNX OF SOCIETY 101
II NATURAL ETHICS 104
III THE CONDITION OF COMMENSURABILITY 108
IV WHAT IS CIVILISATION? 112
V HOMO FABER 117
CHAPTER V 121
CIVILISATION AND RACE 121
I RACIAL MIXTURE 121
II WHAT RACES ARE THERE? 125
III THE SO-CALLED SOCIOLOGICAL RACES 130
IV PSYCHOLOGICAL RESULTS OF CROSSING 135
V THE SO-CALLED HIERARCHY OF RACES 138
VI RESULTS 142
CHAPTER VI 144
CIVILISATION AND LANGUAGE 144
I NOMENCLATURE 144
II MULTIPLICITY AND DISAPPEARANCE OF LANGUAGES 145
III WEALTH AND POVERTY 150
IV UNEQUAL CAPACITY 153
V RELATIONSHIP TO COMMUNAL MENTALITY 157
VI CONCLUSIONS 160
CHAPTER VII 163
CIVILISATION AND RELIGION 163
I INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 163
II JUDAISM 165
III BRAHMINISM 170
IV BUDDHISM 172
V ISLAM 174
VI ORIENTAL CHRISTIANITY 177
VII CATHOLICISM 180
VIII SUMMARY 184
CHAPTER VIII 188
ATTEMPTED SYSTEMATIZATION 188
I PROVISO 188
II CONTROL OF TIME 190
III PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LAW 193
IV ETHICS AND LAW 197
V NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 201
VI TENTATIVE SYSTEMATIZATION 205
VII CHANCES AND SYNTHESES 207
VIII CONCLUSION 211
INDEX 214
PREFACE by
Polonica Publications have done a service to the study of human affairs in publishing the recent English translation of Feliks Koneczny’s greatest work. It is one of several mutually independent studies of the structure of human affairs on the largest scale that have appeared in different parts of the Western World within the last two generations. Koneczny published the original Polish edition of this book after he had turned seventy, and he had the leisure to write it because he had been compulsorily retired from his chair as a penalty for having been outspoken in the cause of civic freedom. In short compass, Koneczny has discussed the fundamental questions raised by the study of civilizations, and he arrives at definite and valuable conclusions. After sketching the structure of society, he considers and rejects the thesis that differences in civilization are byproducts of differences in physical race. Indeed, he rejects the suggestion that these physical differences are in any way correlated with the spiritual ones. Turning to language, he does conclude that different languages are of unequal value for serving as vehicles for civilisations, but he refrains from taking these qualitative differences between different languages as being the explanation of the differences that he finds in the spiritual value of different civilizations. Turning to religion, he insists on the mutual independence of the “higher” religions and the civilizations.
Koneczny believed in the possibility, and value, of a general study of human affairs. His own important contribution to this was the crown of his life-work as an historian. He approached his generalisations from the four standpoints of a student of East European and Central Asian history, a Pole, a Roman Catholic Christian, and a Westerner. Since the tenth century, Poland has been one of the eastern marches of the Western World. Koneczny’s specialist studies as an historian worked together with his national heritage as a Pole to make him sensitive to the differences between civilizations, and this inspired him to study the sum of human history from the standpoint of the plurality of civilizations. It also made him an ardent patriot of the Western World. This did not prevent Koneczny from being also a patriotic Pole and a devout Roman Catholic Christian. But, for him, Poland’s national culture has value as one of a number of national versions of a common Western or, as he prefers to call it, Latin culture; and Roman Catholic Christianity has value as being the Western form of Christianity par excellence.
This has made Koneczny generous-minded towards Protestants. He sees in them, not dissenters from the Catholic fold but Western Christians who, in ceasing to be Catholics, have continued to be Western, fortunately for the West and for themselves. The same standpoint has made it difficult for Koneczny to appreciate Eastern Orthodox, Monophysite, and Nestorian Christianity and the non-Christian higher religions. He appreciates Ancient Rome perhaps excessively, to the detriment of Ancient Greece. And he is hard on both the Byzantine and the Turanian (i.e. the Eurasian nomad) civilization. He classifies the civilization of Muscovite Russia as being Turanian; but, if Russia had been classified by him as being Byzantine, she probably would not have fared much better.
Every student of human affairs, however eminent, is a child of his own social and cultural environment, besides being a unique personality with his own individual outlook on the Universe. He is limited, besides being stimulated, by his own particular historical standing-ground, which has been imposed on him by the accident that he has been born at a particular date in a particular place. Naturally, Koneczny’s highly individual approach to his work is partly conditioned — like for instance, Danilevsky’s and Spengler’s and Vico’s — by his cultural environment. It is fortunate that there should have been a number of thinkers wrestling with the same problem from different standing-grounds in time and space. It is also fortunate that one of these voices should have been a Polish voice, since Poland has a word to say to the present-day West, as Mr. Giertych points out in the Publisher’s Preface to the present English translation of Koneczny’s major work.
Koneczny achieved all that he did achieve in a life that was stormy and tragic yet long. This Polish thinker’s personal history is an epitome of the Polish nation’s history. ‘Indomitable’ is the adjective that the name ‘Poland’ calls up in non-Polish minds.
This foreword can, and should, be brief, because the Publisher’s Preface, together with the illuminating introduction by my friend and colleague Professor Anton Hilckman, are all that is required for introducing Koneczny’s work to the English-reading public.
Share with your friends: |