Anyone who has had a read of Toynbee's "A Study of History" in 11 volumes and some 6000 pages knows that he brings to the discussion of Arab-Israeli conflict some very useful perspectives. I've been reading Toynbee for over 30 years and find him to be a universal historian.-Ron Price, Tasmania....I wrote the following piece yesterday after reading some Toynbee_____________ _________________ THE FIRE GOING OUT Bahais believe they are taking part in the career of the growth of a world civilization. As Toynbee points out and as human experience thusfar suggests, the exercise is a dangerous one. Toynbee argues that the danger is constant and acute because it lies in the very nature of the course which a growing civilization is constrained to take.1 -Ron Price with thanks to 1Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol.4, Oxford UP, 1962(1939), p.122. Toynbee goes on to say that certain creative personalities who set a civilization in motion and carry it forward feel the need to carry their fellows with them or to make a movement out of something which is a halt.2 This tour de force requires strenuous communion and intimate intercourse to impart the divine fire from one soul to another. There is an inward spiritual grace through which the unillumined soul is fired. But the firing takes place through the principle of mimesis and the process is essentially precarious unless it is crystallized in the form of habit or custom.-Ron Price with thanks to Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, Alcan, 1932, p.251. You said it Arnold, as you so often do buried in volumes of your endless pages of your Study of History. Its a dangerous exercise for the individual too, Arnold, one continually revealed by abnormal changes and chances, accidents of life like shipwrecks and fires I have observed for half a century in the lives of others and my own dear self: theres often demoralization of an inner man and heroism--difficult it is to admit & even define in our age, often subtle, with initiative lost, a kind of burn-out, a kind of salt losing its savour, a flagging of the Promethean elan, the fire going out. --Ron Price June 6th 2006 _______________________ Message was edited by: RonPrice