There may or may not be only one single absolute truth and only one single ultimate way of salvation. We do not know. But we do know that there are m… - Arnold J. Toynbee

Compared with the life-span of a human being the time-span of a civilization is so vast that a human observer cannot hope to take the measure of its curve unless he is in a position to view it in a distant perspective; and he can only obtain this perspective vis-a-vis some society that is extinct. He can never stand back sufficiently far from the history of the society in which he himself lives and moves and has his being. In other words, to assert of any living society, at any moment in its life, that it is the consummation of human history is to hazard a guess which is intrinsically unsusceptible of immediate verification. When we find that a majority of the members of all societies at all times make this assertion about their own civilizations, it becomes evident that their guesses have really nothing to do with any objective calculation of probabilities but are pure expressions of the egocentric illusion.

Thus three factors mark the transition from the old to the new society: a universal state as the final stage of the old society; a church developed in the old society and in turn developing the new; and the chaotic intrusion of a barbarian heroic age. Of these factors, the second is the most, and the third the least, significant.

Toynbee predicted: "At the close of this century, the world would be dominated by the West, but that in the 21st century 'India will conquer her conquerors.'"