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| 2. Intellectual and Religious Trends |
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(See 1843–45)| Europe in the late 19th century remained firmly devoted to science; the economy came to rely on the alliance of science and business, and many believed that life would continue to improve thanks to the marvels of modern science. Such views may not have been ill founded. Building on the work of scientists such as Louis Pasteur (1822–95), researchers had made great strides by the end of the century against deadly diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera, tetanus, and diphtheria. | 1 |
| Yet it was also a time when social, political, and religious thought faced difficult challenges from new theories and discoveries. The most important challenge to preexisting belief came in the form of Charles Darwin's (1809–82) theory of evolution (based on his book Origin of Species, 1859). Darwin argued that the species of the world, including human beings, have evolved over millennia. This represented a strong challenge to religious views of God's creation of the world, contributing to the secularization of life in western Europe. Gaining wide acceptance, Darwin's theories were incorporated in other, less scientific, arenas. Many used the concept of social Darwinism to justify nationalist animosities and Western imperialism. | 2 |
| Whereas Darwinism contributed to a middle-class view of the 19th century as one of progress amid struggle, Karl Marx's (1818–83) and Friedrich Engels's (1820–95) use of the scientific method represented a threat to all that the middle class valued. With the publication of the Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (three volumes: 1867, 1885, 1895), Marx established a brand of socialism based on an understanding of history and class struggle. He envisioned a world after the social revolution wherein both the state and the social classes would disappear, a view that became central to the socialist parties developing all across Europe. Many experienced battles between “orthodox” Marxists, who wanted only to work toward revolution, and “revisionists,” who argued that parties and unions should also work for concrete reforms. | 3 |
| Like Marxism, anarchism attacked capitalism and the society it fostered. Anarchists disagreed, however, on the means of attaining a stateless society. Many anarchists were also wary of what Marxists would do after the revolution. Anarchists like Mikhail Bakunin (1814–76) favored violent revolt, whereas others like Georges Sorel (1847–1922) supported the refusal to cooperate with the state (general strike) as a means of causing its downfall. At the end of the century, anarchists were responsible for a number of assassinations and bombings from Paris to Moscow, which caused great concern among European leaders, but overall they were too disorganized to launch a comprehensive revolution. | 4 |
| To meet new challenges, late-19th-century liberals moved to embrace more and more people, gradually extending suffrage to all men. Yet governments faced a new challenge with the rise of feminism. Using their accepted positions as moral guardians, women began to move more freely in the public world. It was not long before they called for the right to vote as a means of furthering that role. Only a few women linked their demand for the right to vote to their position as men's equals. Feminists met with little success before World War I, however. Although they were successful in acquiring more rights (English women won the right to own property in 1882, for example), only certain Scandinavian women voted before 1914. | 5 |
| The end of the 19th century (1880–1914) witnessed more profound challenges to accepted notions of progress and science. Philosophers and authors like Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), Fyodor Dostoyevski (1821–81), and Henri Bergson (1859–1941) all questioned the rationality of humankind. Instead of reason, these authors stressed animal instincts as the primary fact of human existence. They were joined by the father of psychology, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Meanwhile, sociologists Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) and Max Weber (1864–1920) questioned the benefits of modern society, arguing that the destruction of traditional, agrarian life left society groundless; individuals lost a purpose for living. | 6 |
| Europe on the verge of war in 1914 was thus divided between large segments of the middle class that viewed the development of 19th-century Europe with a sense of smug contentment, the product of evolution, and a growing number of intellectuals who sensed that Europe was about to embark upon a time of turmoil, where many cherished beliefs would provide little comfort. | 7 |
| Some of the important publications and movements that marked the development of philosophical, religious, and social thought from 1848 to 1914 included: | 8 |
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| 1848 |
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| John Stuart Mill's (1806–73) Principles of Political Economy was the most logical and persuasive exposition of classical economics, with some concessions to state intervention where private initiative could not work. | 9 |
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| 1848 |
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| Karl Marx (1818–83) and Friedrich Engels (1820–95) issued the Communist Manifesto, a fiery appeal to the workers of all countries to unite in the struggle against capitalist exploitation; it was a succinct presentation of “scientific” as contrasted with “utopian” socialism. | 10 |
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| 1851 |
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| Herbert Spencer's (1820–1903) Social Statics, the first work of the author of Synthetic Philosophy (First Principles, 1862), was an attempt to organize the corpus of human knowledge and to establish the laws of social evolution. | 11 |
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| 1851 |
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| The Ensayo sobre el Catolicismo, el Liberalismo y el Socialismo was published by Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–53), the Spanish statesman who clearly reflected the fears inspired by the revolutions of 1848 and the ensuing disillusionment with liberalism and radicalism. | 12 |
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| 1853–55 |
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| Count Joseph de Gobineau's (1816–82) Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines formed the basis for much later writing on racial superiority. | 13 |
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| 1855 |
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| Kraft und Stoff by Ludwig Büchner (1824–99) was a classic of modern materialism. | 14 |
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| 1857 |
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| Publication of the first volume of Henry T. Buckle's (1821–62) History of Civilisation in England, a valiant attempt to approach history scientifically. | 15 |
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| 1860 |
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| Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, by the Swiss historian Jakob Burckhardt (1818–97), was a masterpiece of cultural history and a brilliant essay in interpretation. Likewise Burckhardt's posthumous Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen (1898) was a highly provocative critique of the materialistic, democratic culture in which he lived. | 16 |
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| 1861 |
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| Johann J. Bachofen's (1815–87) study Das Mutterrecht explored the matriarchal institutions of primitive man and greatly stimulated anthropological investigations. | 17 |
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| 1863 |
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| Ernest Renan's (1823–92) Vie de Jésus was the first of a series of studies of the origins of Christianity. Translated into all European languages, it was a classic of urbane skepticism and rationalism. In his Réforme intellectuelle et morale (1871) he questioned the democratic system and envisaged government by an intellectual elite. | 18 |
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| 1864 |
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| The foundation of the First International Workingmen's Association by Karl Marx, with headquarters first in London, then in New York. Designed to unite the workers of all countries in support of Marxist socialism, it was eventually wrecked (1876) by the conflict between Marx and Bakunin, who advocated “direct action” to hasten the advent of anarchy. After Bakunin's death, anarchist doctrine was further elaborated by Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) and in the later 19th century gained many adherents, especially in the Latin countries, where a series of assassinations and other attacks were committed in the 1880s and 1890s. | 19 |
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