1 PEACEFUL CHANGE OR WAR? 3when ‘one or several privileged souls, having dilated in themselves the
social soul, have broken the circle in drawing society after them.’^10
Toynbee assimilated Bergson’s theory of creative evolution to his civ-
ilisational template. What this theory suggested when imported into an
account of the history of civilisations is the following: whereas some civi-
lisations fall prey to ‘arrested’ development and ‘perilous immobility’ and
then go into decline, other civilisations surge ahead. Impelled by an élan,
some civilisation thrust onwards, managing through innovative adapta-
tions to overcome the almost insurmountable obstacles that they find in
their path.^11 Following Bergson, Toynbee contended that the élan by
means of which civilisations grow is conveyed by ‘creative pioneers,’ that
is, by ‘superhuman souls that break the vicious cycle of primitive social
life’ through bringing about in their social environment the ‘mutation’
which they have realised within themselves. Crucial to this transformative
process is the coming into play of what Toynbee referred to as the ‘fac-
ulty of sheer mimesis’: creative minorities are imitated by the ‘uncreative
rank and file’.^12
According to Toynbee, the social dynamic at the heart of the relation
between a creative minority and the uncreative majority is what drives
the growth of societies, this growth being in the direction of ‘progres-
sive self-determination or self-articulation’.^13 Societal growth involves
a process by which a civilisation becomes less and less concerned with
responding to challenges issuing from the ‘external environment’ be it
‘physical or human,’ and more and more concerned by challenges issued
‘by itself to itself ’ in its own ‘inner arena’.^14 In respect to civilisational
decay, Toynbee cited militarism as the main cause, the origins of which
concerned a ‘loss of creative power of creative individuals or minori-
ties’. Due to their loss of creative power, the individuals or minorities in
question are increasingly unable to sway the masses. In ‘rage and panic,’
they transform themselves into a ‘dominant minority’: they begin to rule
(^10) Bergson, Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion, 40. See also Toynbee, A Study of
History, vol. 3, 231.
(^11) Toynbee, A Study of History, vol. 3, 3.
(^12) Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, abridgement of vols. 1–6 by D. C. Somverville
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), 212–13, 216.
(^13) Ibid., 189.
(^14) Ibid., 208.