For the moment, the distinction of form and dynamics enables us to bring some clarity into the problems connected with our present subject, the birth of Near Eastern civilization. Under the aspect of “form” we may ask: what actually does appear when this civilization comes into being? Is its form established piecemeal? If so, whence comes the coherence which characterizes it throughout its historical existence? Under the aspect of “dynamics” we may ask: is the emergence of this civilization a gradual process? Are earlier elements transmuted or combined by degrees, or is the peculiar coherence of a mature civilization the outcome of a sudden and intense change, a crisis in which its form—undeveloped but potentially a whole—crystallizes out, or rather, is born? The title of this book indicates the answer which I think the evidence compels us to accept as correct. But, before we consider the evidence, it will be profitable to discuss certain current opinions. For if it is true—as we have said before—that those best acquainted with the ancient Near East have rarely found occasion to consider our problem, it is equally true, of course, that we are not the first to discuss it. Curiously enough, the two men who have devoted their life’s work to the problem of the genesis of civilization have done so under a compelling awareness of its decline. Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee both wrote under the shadow of an impending world war; and their work is, to some extent, warped by their preoccupation with decay. Oswald Spengler’s _Decline of the West_ was first published in 1917 and bears the subtitle, _Outline of a Morphology of World History_.[2] This indicates that the aspect of form (as we have called it) is fully considered in his work. In this resides, as a matter of fact, the element of lasting worth of his sensational, arrogant, and pompous volumes. They were written as a reaction against the prevalent view of history which was prejudiced in two respects: it considered world history exclusively from the western standpoint; and it presumed, with evolutionary optimism, that history exemplified the progress of humanity. For Spengler the word “humanity” is merely an empty phrase. The great civilizations are unconnected. They are self-contained organisms of so individual a nature that people who belong to one cannot understand the achievements and modes of thought of another. He maintains that not even in science does knowledge show accumulations transcending the limits of one civilization.