develop into wide-spread colossal complexes of wealth and power, and
then, after longer or shorter periods of existence, break up and
disappear from the stage of social history?"

Such questions are far removed from the lives of people who are busy
with everyday affairs. In one sense they _are_ remote; in the larger
picture, however, they are of vital concern to anyone and everyone now
living in civilized communities. If Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans
and Carthaginians built extensive empires and massive civilizations that
flourished for a time, then broke up and disappeared, are we to follow
blindly and unthinkingly in their footsteps? Or do we study their
experiences, benefit from their successes and learn from their mistakes?
Can we not take lessons out of their voluminous notebooks, avoid their
blunders and direct our own feet along paths that fulfil our lives at
the same time that they meet the widespread demand for survival and
well-being?

Civilization has been extensively experimental. Several thousand years,
during which civilizations have appeared, disappeared and reappeared,
have been too brief to establish and stabilize a hard and fast social
pattern. As the complexity of civilizations has increased, variations
and deviations have grown in number and intensity. With the advent of
western civilization a culture pattern is being put together which
differs widely from its predecessors.

All civilized peoples seem to have developed from simple beginnings and
experimented with broader and more complicated life styles. In western
civilization the number of experiments has increased and the span of
their deviations seems to have broadened. Under the circumstances an
analysis of civilization must take for granted not only social change