History Among the Ruins

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 783, 23 July 1954, Page 12

History Among the Ruins

FROM AN ANTIQUE LAND, by Julian Huxley; Max Parrish. Enéglish price 25/-.

(Reviewed by

Anton

Vogt

have to write their own books between the lines of those they read, building dreamworlds on superficial observation and bad prose. But travelling through the Middle East with Julian Huxley as observer and recorder may be more satisfying than going oneself. There is so much he knows about so many things that a grand tour without equivalent company could be an _ indifferent substitute, He calls the area "solid history,’ and speculatively restores each ruin to its past magnificence. Countries visited include Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Turkey. Places exerting a. special fascination include Byblos, Baalbek, Petra, Damascus and Baghdad. Profuse illustrations, including nearly 30 four-colour photogravures, are in exquisite taste. Huxley, in short, lives up to his credo: that it is "one of the duties... of men ., . to bear witness to the wonder of the’ world in which he finds himself,". and his publishers have helped him handsomely. Huxley, who comes to the social sciences frem biology, was Directortravellers usually

General of Unesco when he toured the Middle East. He is inevitably concerned with present and future, even in the arena of man’s past. I am sorry that I cannot quote his introduction in full; but I am prepared to assert my agreement with his assumption that "the general aim of history is to record the progress made by various segments of our species in realising human potentialities. . ." This is the viewpoint from which "the evolutionary humanist ... prompts the historian to put the facts of history." It is at once less, vague than Toynbee’s generalisation of challenge and response, and less presumptuous than faith in a millenary goal, In Huxley’s words, the questions are these: "How are cultural patterns transmitted and developed? How do new discoveries and new modes of realisation become incorporated in cultural traditions, how are they modified by the political framework of the societies in which they operate? What have been the obstacles to advance, what the new. difficulties resulting from each successful step? What are the blind alleys to avoid:. 2.2" It would be altogether too facile to dismiss these questions as the new jar~ gon of ‘the social scientist. As we move towards one world or none, survival for the species depends increasingly on

asking the right questions. The future, like the past, stands or falls on a hypothesis: that man has some say in his own destiny, if he is man enough to see it.