History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c96.s1.10

v7.c96.s1.10

Prof. Toynbee in 'Civilizations on trial' (1948) states (p. 223) 'I mean by a civilization the smallest unit of historical study at which one arrives when one tries to understand the history of his own country, U. S. A., say, or U. K.' Prof. Toynbee in his latest work 'Reconsiderations' (vol. XII pp. 76-77, of his Study of History) adopts Bagbey's definition of culture as meaning 'regularities in the behaviour, internal and external, of the members of a Society, excluding those regularities which are clearly hereditary in origin' and adds that 'religious practices and institutions and, by implication, also religious beliefs and experiences are certainly a part of culture as thus defined' and mentions religion together with art, technology, social structure as examples of the elements of which culture consists (pp. 84, 95). Prof. Toynbee further says that in his volumes he employed the word 'culture' in two different senses, viz. (1) the comprehensive one in which it is used by Bagby and (2) in an exclusive sense in which the word has been current in contemporary English since the time of Matthew Arnold (*ibid.* p. 272). As regards the word 'civilization' he remarks (p. 273) that civilization is a hybrid word of modern French coinage and Johnson refused to include it in his dictionary.