the cognitive structure of Islamic civilization was organized around submission to God and gave primacy to faith, Chinese civilization was organized around social cohesion and gave primacy to harmonizing with the Tao. By virtue of their cognitive structures, neither civilization was headed in the direction of a scientific revolution, and it seems unlikely that such a cognitive upheaval would ever have occurred in either of them. However, neither of these great civilizations would be a match for the cataclysmic confrontation with the forces that were unleashed in Europe
