38 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



Bedouin of the desert have settled down into communities in 

 Trans-Jordan as cukivators of the soil. And it is interesting 

 to notice that the fact that the cultivators are of the same 

 tribes as the Bedouin does not preserve them from raiding 

 by the nomads. With the integration of the individual into 

 a cultural coinmunity, subdivision of function develops, just 

 as the single cells develop special functions in the multicel- 

 lular organisms. Crawford concludes that, looking at the 

 process as a whole, we can see that life evolves in a spiral. It 

 begins with a single cell. After many ages of development, 

 an organism is evolved that finally becomes a huinan being. 

 Human beings may be considered to be, in turn, the units of 

 organized nations that will evolve until they, in turn, become 

 the units or individuals of yet another society, this last being, 

 perhaps, the world state from which those races and social 

 systems that cannot be incorporated will eventually die out. 

 The idea of a society as an organism is to be found, of course, 

 in Spencer's synthetic philosophy; and the ideas that Craw- 

 ford discusses are dealt with formally in J. Needham's 

 Herbert Spencer Lecture.^ 



Leaving these wider specidations, we may ask: What is the 

 value of this cyclic theory to a student of history? When we 

 study a comparatively brief period of ancient history, it is im- 

 possible to understand its relation to any general scheme of 

 ^vorld history. But if we accept the idea that civilization 

 moves in cycles, we can place any brief period in relation to 

 the events that preceded and followed it. As Petrie says, the 

 interpretation of the later Roman Empire is quite different 

 according to whether one assuines that the fall of Rome was 

 a unique phenomenon or whether one feels that the fall of 

 Rome was really one manifestation of the long decadence of 

 the classical cycle, to be follo^ved eventually by the archaic 

 period of the Middle Ages and the revival of the western 

 cycle. When discussing Roman law in Aspects of Social Be- 



* J. Needham, "Integrative Levels," p. 233, Time, the Refreshing 

 River, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1943. 



