An Interpretation of Universal History

José Ortega y Gasset

Mildred Adams

The prospectus that announced the creation of The Institute of the Humanities promised an inaugural course of twelve lectures, to be given by its founder and entitled, &#8220;Concerning a New Interpretation of International History. (Exposition and Examination of A. J. Toynbee&#8217;s work, <em>A Study of History</em>.)&#8221; But the course as given (in 1948-49) went much farther than that announcement, for the &#8220;examination&#8221; consisted principally of a critique of Toynbee&#8217;s work from the point of view of Ortega&#8217;s own doctrines, together with the unfolding of his personal ideas about the science of history and the progress of peoples&#8212;in particular the Romans&#8212;with frequent side excursions, meant to be systematic, into the crisis of the present time. The central theme of these pages becomes &#8220;the analysis of life established in illegitimacy . . . of which the two gigantic examples are the declining days of the Roman Empire and the period in which we ourselves are living.&#8221; To the modern crisis, Ortega brings a basic analysis and a program of reform for intelligence by which contemporary life might emerge from the confusion it now suffers.

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Ortega traces the course of Western civilization backward, searching out what makes a civilization rise or fall and offering a way of looking at our own time. Based on a series of lectures on A. J. Toynbee's <em>A Study of History</em>.