During the deep sleep of the interval (circa A.D. 375-675) which, intervened between the break-up of the Roman Empire and the gradual emergence of ou… - Arnold J. Toynbee

If we take the antiquity of Man to be something like 300,000 years, then the antiquity of civilizations, so far from being coeval with human history, will be found to cover less than 2 percent of its present span: less than 6,000 years out of 300,000 . On this time-scale , the lives of our twenty-one civilizations-distributed over not more than three generations of societies and concentrated within less than one-fiftieth part of the lifetime of Mankind- must be regarded, on a philosophic view, as contemporary with one another.

We may express the historical function of the Abbassid Caliphate as a 'reintegration' or 'resumption' of the Achaemenian Empire-the reintegration of a political structure which had been broken up by the impact of an external force, and the resumption of a phase of social life which had been interrupted by an alien intrusion.

On the political plane for example, the illusion, projected as 'patriotism', is still 'the last infirmity of noble minds' as well as 'the last refuge of a scoundrel'. In the Western World of our day, almost every Englishman, Frenchman, Czechoslovak, and Lithuanian is influenced in his political feelings, thoughts, and actions, by the irrational assumption that his own national state is a more precious institution than his neighbour's.