ABSTRACT
The revolutions, world-embracing wars, genocides, international tension, menacing new disasters, that have affected our times routed the complacencies of the ongoing social life, struck at long-cherished beliefs, and gave a shriller note to the nimble-witted interpreters of the times. A new line of sharply hostile division ran across the whole earth, both sides embattled under the false flags of irreconcilable ideologies. At the beginning of the twentieth century, after an unusually long period of relative peace, the minds of men were geared to the idea of progress, with increasing prosperity in a peaceful world. The cumulative tensions of a world beset by old and new troubles had inevitable effects on the moods and responses of men, more directly on the more imaginative, the more creative, and the more neurotic. The most characteristic philosophy of the passing times is existentialism. It represents more an attitude toward man’s life than an articulated system of thought.
