POLONICA SERIES
No 2
edited by Jędrzej Giertych
ON THE PLURALITY
OF CIVILISATIONS
by
FELIKS KONECZNY
Translated from the Polish
Introduction
ANTON HILCKMAN
Professor at the University of Mainz (Germany)
Preface
ARNOLD TOYNBEE
LONDON 1962
POLONICA PUBLICATIONS
First Published 1962
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 2
PREFACE by Arnold Toynbee 4
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE by Jędrzej Giertych 6
INTRODUCTION by Anton Hilckman 9
FELIKS KONECZNY 14
FELIKS KONECZNY AND THE COMPARATIVE SCIENCE OF CIVILISATION by Anton Hilckman 14
THE MODERN ROAD OF PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 14
ON WHAT IS CIVILISATION BASED? — THE QUINCUNX OF EXISTENTIAL VALUES 16
THE CENTRAL PROBLEM OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: WHERE DOES THE DIFFERENCE OF CIVILISATIONS COME FROM? 18
CIVILISATIONS AND RELIGIONS. ARE THE CIVILISATIONS PRODUCTS OF RELIGIONS? 18
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION 19
THE POSITIVE ANSWER: THE PRINCIPAL FACTORS OF DIFFERENTIATION OF CIVILISATIONS 22
LAWS OF HISTORY 24
THE ONLY LAW OF HISTORY: CAUSALITY AND FINALITY 25
EAST, WEST. ROME AND BYZANTIUM. TURAN. THE PRESSURE OF THE EAST UPON THE WEST GERMANY 26
CHAPTER I FROM BACON TO MAJEWSKI 30
I INTRODUCTION 30
II A NOTE ON KOŁŁĄTAJ (Substantially abridged) 46
CHAPTER II NUCLEI OF ALL CULTURE 50
I FIRE 50
II DOMESTIC ANIMALS 54
III THE OLDEST ASSOCIATIONS 62
IV NUCLEI OF TRADITION 68
V PREHISTORIC ECONOMY 71
CHAPTER III THE TRIPLE LAW 79
I NOMENCLATURE 79
II THE FIVE TIPES OF CLAN 80
III FAMLIY LAW 87
IV PROPERTY LAW 93
V CLAN LAW AND THE TRIPLE LAW 98
CHAPTER IV ASSOCIATIONS AND SYSTEMS 102
I SYSTEM IN THE QUINCUNX OF SOCIETY 102
II NATURAL ETHICS 105
III THE CONDITION OF COMMENSURABILITY 109
IV WHAT IS CIVILISATION? 113
V HOMO FABER 118
CHAPTER V CIVILISATION AND RACE 122
I RACIAL MIXTURE 122
II WHAT RACES ARE THERE? 126
III THE SO-CALLED SOCIOLOGICAL RACES 132
IV PSYCHOLOGICAL RESULTS OF CROSSING 137
V THE SO-CALLED HIERARCHY OF RACES 139
VI RESULTS 144
CHAPTER VI CIVILISATION AND LANGUAGE 146
I NOMENCLATURE 146
II MULTIPLICITY AND DISAPPEARANCE OF LANGUAGES 147
III WEALTH AND POVERTY 152
IV UNEQUAL CAPACITY 156
V RELATIONSHIP TO COMMUNAL MENTALITY 159
VI CONCLUSIONS 163
CHAPTER VII CIVILISATION AND RELIGION 165
I INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 165
II JUDAISM 167
III BRAHMJNISM 172
IV BUDDHISM 174
V ISLAM 176
VI ORIENTAL CHRISTIANITY 180
VII CATHOLICISM 182
VIII SUMMARY 187
CHAPTER VIII ATTEMPTED SYSTEMATIZATION 190
I PROVISO 190
II CONTROL OF TIME 192
III PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LAW 196
IV ETHICS AND LAW 199
V NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 203
VI TENTATIVE SYSTEMATIZATION 207
VII CHANCES AND SYNTHESES 209
VIII CONCLUSION 213
INDEX 216
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.
The publishers of "Polonica Series" have decided to publish an English translation of the present book, because they believe that Koneczny's investigations of the problem of civilisation are important and relevant to the crisis of the Western world: also that his principal work may prove useful and stimulating to the Western reader looking for spiritual and moral orientation.
For two reasons the whole heritage of the Western civilization is now endangered. First at all, the life of the Western world itself las become transformed by becoming more and more materialist. All the traditional spiritual values of the old Western civilization are now put in doubt and the illusory, external brilliance of Western life cannot conceal the restlessness, discontent and even despair of numerous and ^creasing sections of Western society; they "never had it so good" in a material sense, but are perfectly aware that this is insufficient and is sometimes even destructive to happiness. Clearly, the Western world now treads the path towards disintegration: ultimately it is impossible to live only for material aims, and a hedonistic society no longer aware of its spiritual foundations. cannot last.
Secondly, Western civilisation has taken and is still taking a wrong turn in directing the fate of European expansion through out the globe. The colonial empires and the political influence of Europe in other parts of the world are rapidly breaking down, and this breeds in many strata of Western public opinion the suspicion that something was wrong with the basic political and cultural ideas of the West: that the comfortable belief of a historical mission and of a cultural superiority was mistaken, and that Europe did not perform the role of a civil user and educator of the world, but on the contrary, only exploited it. This means a breakdown of faith in Western civilisation, its. Uniqueness and its universal value.
On the other hand. the whole world has been conquered and continues to be conquered by cultural forms which come either from Europe, or from other parts of the world inhabited by descendants of European colonists; though these forms are quite different from what for centuries was considered to be the essence of European civilisation. Throughout the whole world people now use the same or almost the same cars, telephones, television sets, machine guns, watches and fountain pens as are used in Europe. They wear the same clothes, sit and sleep on the same furniture, cook and eat the same food. They read the same news in similar newspapers, read also the same books, see the same plays and films, listen to the same music, paint similar pictures and construct similar buildings. They learn the same subjects in similar schools. They have the same manners and customs and often the same morality. They recognise to some extent the same basic principles of law, order, decency and politics. Often, even such things as the Christian era and calendar, the Christian week, the Christian Sunday are accepted in countries, which are otherwise quite opposed to Christianity. European ideas are thriving throughout the world. Communism is no exception here: this doctrine which is being so widely used as a tool for the destruction of European political and cultural influence, is in fact a product of Europe.
But in this cosmopolitan uniformity of material existence, of social life and even of intellectual trends moral ideas, the separateness of Western civilisation is being effaced. It is only the superficial side of Western culture, which has spread over the world. In consequence, even the notion of what really is and what in fact is not Western is beginning to be lost. There are many people nowadays who are inclined to consider Ankara and Tel-Aviv as belonging to the West. but at the same time to doubt if a poor and backward, but traditionally moral and orderly mountain village in Calabria or even in Old Castile can really be considered as Western.
For many people — those who speak about the ."post-Christian era" and who view mankind in a biologistic manner as anincessant flow of change, in which there is nothing permanent and/enduring — the civilisation of old Europe is a thing of me past, or at the best. of a present time which is quickly coming to an end. They have lost faith in Western civilisation; they accept its decline, and even more: they do not regret it. They believe in the advent of a new civilisation, materialist and cosmopolitan, which will be as different from the old civilisation of the Christian West as the Christian West was different from the antique world, or as the civilisations of Arab Islam are different from old Babylonia, Assyria and Egypt.
We do not share their views. And we are sure that millions of people in every country think as we do. We believe that the fundamental values of the Christian West have not lost and will not loose their validity. We believe that the Christian West need not die and we hope that it never will die. We believe that the material achievements of the Western civilisation are not its principal element but are only accessory, and that the real substance of this civilization consists in spiritual and moral principles. We believe, that the uniqueness of Western Christian civilisation is not an illusion or a lie, and that this civilisation has truly achieved a height not yet reached by other civilisations; the disintegration, which is now destroying its foundations in many places, does not affect this truth. (Feliks Koneczny said: "do not let us suppose that Latin — or Western Christian — civilisation will fall; we shall fall"). We believe that the Christian West has not lost its historical mission in the world: it still has the duty to spread Christianity among other peoples, to disseminate Christian moral ideals and principles, and to help other civilisations to rise to a higher moral level and to become fundamentally transformed thereby. We believe in all this perhaps more firmly than others — because we are Poles. We did not share in the centuries of Western pride and wealth and we are not guilty of the Western sins towards the rest of the world. which were born from an abandonment of Christian moral principles. We knew only misfortunes, sacrifice and effort. But this allows us to see more acutely the essentials: we are not affected by the disappointment of the present Western political decline; we see nothing new and unusual in disasters and ruins. But we know that life continues to flow after the earthquakes, that moral and cultural values do not cease to be valid, and that we still have to perform our duties. We do not despair of Western Christian civilisation; on the contrary we believe that the West, purified by misfortune and repentant of its sins. will raise its forces for new efforts and will become more faithful than before to its obligations, and will again achieve great things.
Koneczny is a thinker who analyses the merits of existing civilisations and who rates Western Christian civilisation very high: -— not in what is accidental in its achievements, but in what essential in its foundations. During his long lifetime he studied the problem of civilisations in all its aspects, and arrived by inductive, objective investigation to conclusions, which allow us to understand better what are the essential elements of the Western Christian, or, as he calls it, the Latin*) civilisation: what makes this civilisation to differ, not superficially, but organically from other civilisations, and what is indispensable to its survival, health, and strength. Koneczny's work is interesting for two reasons. First, he invented a new method of investigating the life of human societies. He is an opponent of a priori judgements about civilisation an believes that problems connected with it should be weighed on the ground of accumulated facts taken from historical and social experience with the same impartiality and minuteness as in the problems of natural sciences. By the way. this inductive method, similar to the methods of investigation in natural sciences, has lead him to the rejection of some social theories drawn by other thinkers by analogy from those sciences.
Secondly, he arrived at the conclusions which we mentioned above. He sees in the Latin (Western Christian) civilisation the highest achievement so far of the historical development of humanity; he states what are the essential elements of this civilization and he teaches us a lot about what we should do to protect this civilisation from disintegration or decline. His practical lessons — intended by himself for the Polish nation which was and is permanently endangered by disintegrating influences from alien spiritual and cultural worlds — are similarly valid and useful for the nations of Western Europe or of America, which are subject, sometimes in lesser, sometimes even in greater degree, to the same disintegrating influences and pressures as Poland is.
We hope that English and American readers will find Koneczny's work interesting and valuable, and with this hope we hand this book in to them. We asked a Western European admirer of Feliks Koneczny's thought. Professor Anton Hilckman of the Mainz University in Western Germany, to be so kind as to introduce the present book to the English-speaking reader by evaluating Koneczny's contribution to modern thought, and by summarizing his main ideas. We hope that Professor Hilckman's introduction will stimulate the reader and attract him to read Koneczny's book itself — and perhaps in future also other Koneczny's books.
Ph.D. (Milan), Rerum Pol.D. (Freiburg in Br.)
Professor ai the University of Mainz (Germany).
One of the great spiritual aims of our time is the endeavour to understand history as a whole; several attempts have been made to achieve a universal historical synthesis, a general survey of universal history. This did not seem so pressing and urgent a task to the people of previous centuries as it does to us. of today. (This "today" we may understand as the period from the beginning of the present century.)
Oswald Spengler's theory of history and culture was an attempt of this kind: planned on the grand scale and in parts splendid even if in detail it was vulnerable to criticism and if as a whole it was a miscarriage. There was no humanity for Spengler: bunwity, was for him only an abstract notion, something non-existent, void of reality: ...
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