CIVILIZATION

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

—II Tim. 3:1

711 200 Years As Average Civilization

What is past is prologue. History repeats itself as time marches on. A study of history shows that the great civilizations of the world have averaged about 200 years. The people of the world have followed this timetable.

The people go:

From slavery to spiritual faith

From spiritual faith to courage

From courage to liberty

From liberty to abundance

From abundance to selfishness

From selfishness to apathy

From apathy to dependence

From dependence back to slavery.

—The Bible Friend

712 Toynbee Still Insisting

Arnold Toynbee, the great British historian, was asked if he had changed his mind about Western civilization. Toynbee had written, “Out of 21 civilizations preceding this one, 19 of them have been destroyed by a mixture of atheism, materialism, socialism, and alcoholism.”

In answer to the inquiry he replied: “Only this, that it looks now as if the number one enemy of the American way of life is drunkenness. If your people continue the present increase of drunkenness, nothing can save you from destruction. History is altogether against you.”

—Christian Victory

713 Why Rome Fell

In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, completed in 1787, Edward Gibbon lists the following reasons for that fall:

1. The rapid increase of divorce; the undermining of dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.

2. Higher and higher taxes and the spending of public money for free bread and circuses for the populace.

3. The mad craze for pleasure; sports becoming every year more exciting and more brutal.

4. The building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy was within: the decadence of the people.

5. The decay of religion—faith fading into mere form—losing touch with life and becoming impotent to guide the people.

Do these five reasons for the fall of Rome tell us anything about our present national situation?

—Baptist Message

714 “Wonders” Of Twentieth Century

Some interesting “wonders” were placed in a “time capsule” and buried at the 1964–65 World’s Fair: a bikini bathing suit, credit cards, an electric toothbrush, tranquilizing pills, detergent, a guide to the English language, a recording by the Beatles, and many other products of twentieth-century culture.

715 Western Collapse?

According to Malcolm W. Browne of The New York Times’ Moscow bureau, “There is cautious but growing optimism among Soviet and East European leaders that the long unfulfilled Marxist prediction of the spontaneous collapse of Western capitalism may finally be at hand.

“Communist predictions during past economic crises that the collapse of the West was imminent have proved unfounded, so the language currently in use is fairly restrained.

“But leading economists and political theorists in the Soviet bloc leave no doubt that they believe the current economic crisis in the West is qualitatively different from earlier ones, and that it will be vastly more destructive to Western economic and political traditions than any of its predecessors.”

716 Epigram On Civilization

•     History repeats itself.

—English Proverb

•     “History teaches us that man learns nothing from history.”

—Hegel

•     “Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

—George Santayana

See also: Luke 21:25.