ABSTRACT
In the period between the Reformation and the French Revolution a new social class established its title to a full share in the control of the state. A world-market had come into being, and capital had accumulated upon so immense a scale that its search for profit affected the lives and fortunes of societies to which European civilization had previously been without meaning. If learning and science were still the handmaids of property, their significance was appreciated by every class in society. The state which is still widely regarded as a beneficent agent of capitalist purposes, has, by its end, come to be regarded as almost their natural foe. The banker, the trader, the manufacturer, began to replace the landowner, the ecclesiastic, and the warrior, as the types of predominant social influence. The idea of social initiative and social control surrendered to the idea of individual initiative and individual control.
