ABSTRACT
In 1880 millions of Europeans still lived in a theocentric universe; whether they could put it clearly or not, they thought they believed in a God, and probably in the God of the Christian or Jewish faith. This was perhaps somewhat less true in 1914, but it was still then an important fact, easily overlooked. One reason it is sometimes overlooked is that we tend to write the history of ideas in terms of the innovators. That is sensible, in that the successful innovators put into circulation ideas which, in the long run, change society. But at the moment of their introduction they are likely to be taken up only by an 'advanced' intellectual elite, while the popular, widely diffused ideas which shape the ideas of many people are still those first noted generations before. This is one reason why it is hard to pin down the intellectual style of an era. What is more, thought about different human concerns changes at different speeds. Political and social thinking may be moving slowly while thinking in the natural sciences is changing very fast (as was, in fact, true in Europe for most of the years covered in this book). Some parts of the intellectual equipment of an age crumble while others are renewed. Each age of European civilization, too, has always carried in itself forces which begin to break it up even before it has worked out its full potential.
