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The Universal State. At that point the internal proletariat ("a social element which is in but not of any given society") no longer follows the lead of the no longer creative minority which, threatened by the internal proletariat, becomes a dominant minority, ruling by force. A "time of troubles" ensues—a time of internal struggle and foreign wars, which more & more take the form of world wars. This period is terminated only when one nation, among its distracted fellows, delivers a knockout blow to all its rivals and becomes a "universal state." Rome, having knocked out Carthage and Macedonia, thus became the universal state of Hellenic civilization.
The Universal Church. Universal states, which look strong, are one of history's great illusions. In the past, Toynbee finds, a universal state is almost invariably a symptom that the civilization it represents is far gone in decline. This symptom is almost always accompanied by another: the emergence among the internal proletariat of a "universal church." Christianity was the universal church of Hellenic civilization, Islam of Syriac civilization, Mahayanian Buddhism of Sinic civilization.
The downfall of the universal state is characterized by "schism in the body social," which in turn reflects a "schism in the soul" of the mortally sick society. "The schism in the body social ... is an experience which is collective and therefore superficial. Its significance lies in its being the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual rift."
In this disintegrative process, the manners of the external proletariat become freer, those of the dominant minority more vulgar. But, as in Western civilization today, the equivalents of chewing gum and jazz become the common cultural bond of all classes. The division between proletariat and dominant minority tends to disappear as both are lapped and welded in one indiscriminate vulgarity.
Then the saviors appear. For the creative spark, though it has died out of the dominant minority, still exists in other men. "Such saviors will be of diverse types. . . . There will be would-be saviors of a disintegrating society who . . . will lead forlorn hopes in an endeavor to convert the rout into a fresh advance. These would-be saviors will be men of the dominant minority, and their common characteristic will be their ultimate failure to save. But there will be also saviors from a disintegrating society. . . . The savior-archaist [Gandhi and his spinning wheel] will try to reconstruct an imaginary past; the savior-futurist [Lenin] will attempt a leap into an imagined future. The savior who points the way to detachment will present himself as a philosopher taking cover behind the mask of a king; the savior who points the way to transfiguration will appear as a god incarnate in a man."
Only one transfiguring Savior has ever appeared in human history: Christ—the highest symbol of man's triumph through ordeal and death.