与历史有关的几个理论(3/6)

A second theory of history is held by those men

who see man's history as something quite different from a simple progression

from a lower to a higher state.

They see it as a cycle of stages of development,

which are predictable in their broad outlines and main features.

As surely as a civilization rises and comes into being,

so also must it decline and fall.

The chief pattern one sees in history is the rise and fall of civilization.

Man, according to this theory,

is warlike in one stage of his history and humane in another.

This is not due to individual human beings or to general progress,

but rather to determining socioeconomic patterns that are not,

as yet, understood.

To holders of this theory,

modern man is not looked upon as the most superior social being yet produced.

He is simply the typical product

of the current stage in the cycle of our civilization.

In fact,

he may actually be inferior to members of past civilizations.