This is a short summary of the whole teaching on civilizations by Feliks Koneczny written shortly before his death. He believed that a view of history must be a posteriori, based on facts. When towards the end of his life, Koneczny asked whether there is any order in history analogous to that perceived in the natural sciences, he was not searching for some objective historical course leading inevitably to progress. He was looking only for a key to interpret social reactions that appear when conflicting ethical models of life meet. "History is governed by abstracts", he said, the ideas that people have about what they want to do. These abstracts he referred to as the quincunx, there being five of them, two spiritual, the notions of good and truth, two material, health and prosperity and one in between, beauty, linking the spiritual with the material. All civilizations have special attitudes to this quincunx.