Impartiality: The Secret of Success

for trade with that country and, obviously, the ensuing gains would be immense. Relations between Britain and China had been uneasy over the previous hundred years, but with the Queen’s historic visit—the first ever made to China by a member of a British Royal family—the gates to trade were thrown open. A successful piece of diplomacy, it paved the way to an annual trade agreement of over one and a half billion dollars. A jewel may have been lost from the crown, but the subsequent benefits were enormous. Clearly, we have to give in order to take. That is the way of the world. The Creative Impulse Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975), a renowned historian and philosopher of history, published his famous work, A Study of History, between the years 1934 and 1961. This book, running to twelve volumes, is a philosophic study of twenty-three civilizations. Toynbee has shown in this book that “the rise of a civilization was not the result of such factors as superior racial qualities or geographical environment but was rather a people’s response to a challenge in a situation of special difficulty that roused them to make an unprecedented effort. Difficult rather than easy conditions prompted men to cultural achievement.” (vol. 4, p. 659) According to Toynbee, civilization is always born out of a creative impulse towards betterment. It is, in fact, a challenge-response mechanism which can develop in any nation and make it the leader of the world. Moreover, deprivation in this world is not something valueless; deprivation gives rise to the passion for enterprise. And in this way, it makes groups more active