ABSTRACT
The great crisis that began in the nineteenth, and came to a head in the twentieth century, has undermined the concept of mankind as a coherent body, together with the concept of history as the consistent evolution of mankind. The development of a species of animal goes no further than the development of its physical type, of its anatomical, physiological, biological features. Throughout the modern era, belief in historical evolution has been synonymous with a belief in progress, in the ever-increasing perfection and happiness of man. People began to realize that man was far from growing better and happier, that, on the contrary, barbarism and anarchy were springing up among apparently civilized peoples, they abandoned in their disillusionment the idea of human evolution too. Accordingly, the subject of human history is man's relation to the world that surrounds him. This world consists of a broader, non-human sphere, the universe, and a narrower, human sphere, the human community.
