ABSTRACT
The words are those of the British philosopher and liberal pundit Herbert Spencer; the date is 1850, the year before the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations was held at Hyde Park. This essay will examine how the enhanced plausibility of such progressive ideas in much of Europe around that time can be related to contemporary perceptions, not just of economic and political improvement but also of scientific and technological achievement in particular. It will also survey the implications of such a linkage for some wider aspects of European intellectual and cultural life. This involves some reference to religious issues, as well as to the work of certain social thinkers, novelists, and painters who were active during the heyday of the movements known as ‘positivism’, ‘realism’, and ‘naturalism’.
