CHAPTER I
THE UNIQUENESS OF THE WEST
i. The Awakening into Dogma. The Manner of Western Dynamism
What does history tell us of the historical and sociological
peculiarities of the West and its development, which I have
described elsewhere in considerable detail?
A small peninsula of Eurasia stands to-day, it would seem,
together with all the glories it has brought forth, in the midst of a
crisis similar to the one in which its still smaller spur Greece,
with its equally multifarious cultures, once stood after the great
military decisions fought out in the Mediterranean Basin, namely,
the Peloponnesian War, the Persian and Punic Wars and the
later crises which made Macedonia and then Rome the dominant
factors in that area—such would seem to be the future picture,
as seen within the global frame of the present, of the Europe which
once ruled the world and history. It shows us a forlorn, diminutive
particle threatened, after its fall from power, with the fate of
pumping its "culture" into others, as was the case with the
Graeculi. The picture is by no means wholly unjust and yet the
comparison is deceptive if we want to see the peculiar nature of
Europe's past, its economic role in world politics and its spiritual
role in history, in true perspective and also recognize the funda-
mental conditions for its role in the future.
About the far-reaching effects of the external factors which
made Europe with its two capitalist nuclei, England and Ger- *
many, the industrial centre of the world second only to the
United States; its position of economic dominance woven out of
the imperialisms of England, France, Italy, Belgium and Holland
all supplying the world with industrial goods and capital; the
position of Germany on whom, as the centre of Europe's economic
integration, the emphasis of world supply fell, above all in respect
of machine tools and products dependent on science and highly
skilled labour—about this planetary power-position occupied by
Europe we shall speak later. It has recently been regarded as
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