harmony between man and the divine which is beyond our boldest dreams, since it was maintained by divine power which had taken charge of the affairs of man in the person of Pharaoh. Society moved in unison with nature. Justice, which was the social aspect of the cosmic order, pervaded the commonwealth. The “trust” which the people put in their “shepherds” was by no means what Toynbee imagines; their trust was that Pharaoh should wield to the full the absolute power to which his divinity entitled him, and which enabled him—as nothing else could—to ensure the well-being of the whole community. It seems to me that these discussions have cleared the ground for our understanding. Generalizations based on a limited historical experience, and theorizing, however ingeniously conducted, _must_ fail to disclose the individual character of any one civilization or of any one series of events. We must concentrate on what Ruth Benedict called the “selected segment of the arc of possible human behaviour,” “the characteristic purposes not necessarily shared by other types of society.” In our own terms: In studying the birth of a civilization we are concerned with the emergence of its “form.” II. THE PREHISTORY OF THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST At the end of our last chapter we said that the study of the birth of a civilization means watching the emergence of its “form.” We have also seen that this “form” is elusive, that it is not a concrete mould, or a standard which we can apply to our observations to see whether they conform with it. We have described it as “a certain consistency in orientation, a cultural style.” Recognizing it amounts to discovering a point of view from where seemingly unrelated facts acquire coherence and meaning. Even so the “form” of a civilization remains intangible; it is implicit in the preoccupations and valuations of the people. It imparts to their achievements—to their arts and institutions, their literature, their theology—something distinct and final, something which has its own peculiar perfection. Therefore a discussion of the emergence of form entails a knowledge of a civilization in its maturity, a familiarity with its classical expression in every field. Then it should be possible to work backwards from better-known to early times until the point is reached where the familiar phenomena are lost sight of and where, conversely, their emergence must be postulated.[36]