ABSTRACT
The recognition of man’s realistic possibilities for material advancement increasingly stimulated the separation of ceremonial from functional elements in the endeavors to achieve wealth and status. The utilitarian mentality was therefore for a long time not only restricted to a relatively narrow, though very active and important, layer of society, but also permeated by other earlier ethical conceptions. It was this contamination which forced the bourgeoisie to moderate its otherwise self-destructive self-centered utilitarianism. The decline of the landed aristocracy did not put an end to bourgeois aspirations to land and titles; and the rise of utilitarianism did not wrench the universities out of church control, nor had the rational skepticism of the new ‘masters of society’ much impact on the thoughts of the majority of people who remained members of their churches and evangelical sects. Utilitarian individualism, or egoistic rational hedonism was spreading but as yet its spread was mainly confined to one class – the bourgeoisie.
