Most Europeans, satisfied with the axiom "old fashions please me best"
were stand-patters in the early stages of this transformation. As the
conversion of Europe from feudal status to urban dynamism continued,
however, an ever larger part of the population became aware of the
change through which their society was passing. With the Renaissance and
the Enlightenment inert unawareness gave place to enthusiastic
propaganda in the writings of pamphleteers, essayists, poets, novelists
and social reformers who set the intellectual tone for the new society.
In a very real sense, the bourgeois Europe which emerged after 1750 was
something new under the sun. Large elements of the population,
previously engaged in producing and consuming the bare necessaries of
food, shelter and clothing were increasingly engaged in trades and
professions and rendering services unknown to the feudal countryside. As
the expansion of western civilization continued, entire European nations
like the Low Countries, England and Germany turned to trade, commerce,
industry, leaving only a dwindling minority engaged in agricultural
pursuits. The change was speeded by the revolution in science and
technology.
Changes in economic and social relations are paralleled by corresponding
alterations in the total way of living. Western civilization was, in its
entirety, a cultural departure from the pattern of any preceding
experiment with civilization because of the drastic changes that the
revolution in science and technology had introduced into human society.
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