ABSTRACT

Between 1880 and 1918, there flourished key intellectual movements that were to be extremely influential during the twentieth century. These included Modernism, Darwinism, Marxism, Freudianism and feminism. Modernism was a movement that sought to improve the understanding of the human condition in conjunction with science, social science and the overturning of tradition. The timing of the spread of Marxian socialist ideas was fortuitous since there was growing disillusionment with Liberalism and a questioning of the ability of the laissez-faire state to create the good society after which people strove. The work of Charles Darwin fostered an intellectual revolution that continued into the late nineteenth century. The world of science was opened up by the spreading implications of his thinking, and by the advance of new technology. Sigmund Freud was a physician, a neurologist, and the founder of psychoanalysis. He was driven by an intense desire to study natural science and to solve some of the challenging problems confronting contemporary scientists.