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6INTELLECTUAL TRENDS OF

THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES

You read in the previous chapter about the major streams ofhuman thought in the early modern world. The 19th century sawnew patterns in the thought process of the people. The intellectualdevelopments of the 19th and early 20th century world were largelydominated by the ideas and concepts that had their roots inEurope.

This chapter will introduce you to the major developments in1) philosophy, literature, and art, and 2) science and technology,which influenced the cultural, social and political movements ofthe 19th and 20th centuries.

Decline of the EnlightenmentBy the end of the 18th century, the ideals of the Enlightenment nolonger inspired the imagination of a group of philosophers inEurope. Men of letters and artists, too, began to doubt theessential tenets of the Enlightenment. Philosophers began toquestion whether rationality, scientific temperament, and logicalthought of the Enlightenment were really good to mankind.

This skepticism regarding the ideals of the Enlightenmentexpressed itself in two ways: Romanticism and Idealism. In fact,both these streams of thought had their source in the philosophyof the Enlightenment. Subsequently, these developed intomovements affecting political and cultural life, includingliterature and art. Germany, France, and England were the threeregions where the impact of the new thoughts was felt first.

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Beauty of nature, romance, and freedom ofthought were the themes dealt with by theRomanticists. These became the favouredthemes of men of letters in all Europeanlanguages. It was also during this periodthat novel as a literary form became popular.The novels of Charles Dickens (1812-1870)of England told the stories of the miserablelife led by children who had to work in themines and factories, and by people living inthe slums of the industrial cities. The Englishpoet William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850), in apoem, 'Tintern Abbey', described his intenseromance with nature. The 'Solitary Reaper'who sings and reaps corn in the field and

The Romantic Movement in19th Century EuropeRomanticism was the most significantdevelopment of the late 18th and early 19th

centuries in philosophy, literature and art.It began first as a continuation of, and lateras a reaction to the Enlightenment in Europe.

Romanticism was a break with the idealsenshrined by the Enlightenment. It was arevolt against classicism in the art andliterature of the Enlightenment. Thus, itquestioned the primacy of Reason, Orderand Science. Instead, Romanticismemphasized the subjective, the imaginative,the personal, the emotional and thespontaneous. It stood for the precedence ofemotion over reason, and senses overintellect. The interests of an observer wouldinfluence his observations. The varyinginterests of individuals have a role in suchobservations. The emotions elicited by anobject would be felt or experienceddifferently by the observers. The beauty ofnature was to be the guiding principle.

Charles Dickens

William Wordsworth

Victor Hugo

The basis of Romanticism and idealism lay in the ideas developed in the Age ofEnlightenment. Discuss.

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'Lucy Gray' who is lost for ever in thesolitude of a beautiful landscape are twoother famous poems of Wordsworth. Thecelebration of nature, which visualises God'spresence in all the phenomena of nature,formed the main theme of the Romanticpoets.

Victor Hugo (1802-1885), the French poet,dramatist and novelist, was an importantfigure of French Romanticism. His LesMiserables influenced people all over theworld.

Artists of the Romantic Movement preferredlandscape painting to the earlier tradition ofthe Greek or Roman themes in the classicalstyle.

The French artist Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) and the British artist John Constable(1776-1837) typify this shift in artisticexpressions.

In architecture, there was a consciousattempt at going back to the Gothic style ofMedieval Europe. It is best represented bythe construction of the British Houses ofParliament in London.

European Music of the age of Romanticismreached its height in Ludwig van Beethoven(1770-1827), the German composer andpianist.

With the birth of the Romantic Movement,there was a new emphasis uponindividualism, human rights, and the valueof human emotions and imagination. Apartfrom its influence in literature and art,Romanticism began to affect, and be affectedby, the political and economic perceptionsof 19th century Europe. Moreover, there wasa renewed interest in the Middle Ages, andin discovering past cultures and epochs.

Eugene Delacroix John Constable

Painting drawn by John ConstablePainting drawn by Eugene Delacroix

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In politics, Romanticism inspirednationalism in Europe. It developed as amovement to assert the sovereignty of thestate and self-determination of the people.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831),who advocated a philosophy of the state, wasthe supreme spokesman of this politicalimagination.

Ludwig Van BeethovenBritish Parliament Friedrich Hegel

LiberalismClosely allied to nationalism was thepolitical philosophy known as Liberalism.It was mainly an expression of the politicalsentiments of the Middle Class. In Britain,where the Industrial Revolution created anactive Middle Class by the middle of the 19th

century, Parliamentarianism was gainingground. Its spokesmen demanded aconstitution, a bill of rights, and adultsuffrage.

RealismA new trend in literature and art began inthe second half of the 19 th century,emphasizing the desire to present things asthey were. Artists and men of lettersapproached their themes and questions noton the basis of emotions. They stood for theirobjective or accurate portrayal. Therefore,this style in art and literature has been calledRealism.

Realism was a reaction against theRomanticism of the late 18th and 19th

centuries. This change of style could beattributed to two causes. 1) the rise ofmodern science as a form of human thought,and 2) the disillusionment caused by thefailure of the Revolutions of 1848 in differentparts of Europe.

The progress of science in the 19th centuryaccelerated the decline of the RomanticMovement. The increasing importance

Lord Tennyson

Romanticism was the triumph of emotion over reason and imagination overintellect - examine.

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attached to machines, as if these wouldsubstitute human labour, impliedtrivializing human abilities. Tracing theorigin of species to evolution brought aboutchanges in the belief in the role of God inCreation. These challenged the romanticvision of litterateurs. The Realists arguedthat things were to be presented as they werewithout being influenced by imagination.Alfred Lord Tennyson, Malthew Arnold andRobert Browning represented thismovement of Realism in English literature.Realism was the result of the progress ofscience and the political developments of the19th century.

German IdealismIn the second half of the eighteenth century,there took place a revival of Idealism.Idealism is a branch of philosophy that gaveprimacy to mind and took matter only assecondary. It stressed the role of the ideal orthe spiritual. German philosophers were thechief exponents of Idealism. Immanuel Kant(1724-1804) and Georg Hegel (1770-1831)gave a new lease of life to the Idealistphilosophy. The German Idealists arguedthat Idea could transform socio-economicand political life. This was different from theearlier stress on spiritualism and denial ofthe importance of socio-economic andpolitical life.

PositivismWhile Kant and Hegel argued that Idea wasderived from mind, another group ofphilosophers called the Positivists arguedthat material circumstances determinedideas. This was a departure from the earlieremphasis on spiritualism.

MaterialismBasing himself on the arguments of thePositivists, the German Philosopher KarlMarx developed a new theory. While Hegelbelieved that Idea transformed the world,Marx thought that material forcestransformed the world. Marx believed thatwhile philosophers had so far onlyinterpreted the world, what was moreimportant was to change the world. Marxcontended that philosophy must become areality, for which man should transform theworld. You have already studied thepolitical and economic ideas of Marx in anearlier chapter.

Science in the 19th CenturyThe 19th century was an age of discoveriesin science and technological advancements.Different branches of Physics and MedicalScience made great strides. With the growthof industrialization, technology was pressedinto in the service of the common man inEurope.

Robert Browning Immanuel Kant

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The Theory of Evolution was the single mostsignificant doctrine that changed man'soutlook in the 19th century. It argued that allliving organisms developed from simpleearly forms. It argued further that no specieswas changeless.

It was the English naturalist Charles RobertDarwin (1809-1882) who presented thehypothesis of evolution as a theory. Hisarguments were published under the titlesOn the Origin of Species in 1859 and The Descentof Man in 1871.

Great strides were made in genetics by Rev.Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), an Austrianmonk.

The theory of evolution influenced not onlythe biological sciences, but all branches ofknowledge, including the humanities andsocial sciences. It questioned the notion of a

created world and offered that of an evolvingworld.

The concept of evolution brought aboutfundamental changes in history, sociology,and anthropology. The application of thetheory of evolution in the social sciences isoften referred to as Social Darwinism. Thetheory of 'survival of the fittest', implicit inthe theory of evolution, has often been usedto justify Imperialism and Westerndominance in Asia and Africa. It was alsoabused by the Nazis for justifying the ideaof racial superiority.

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), a BritishSociologist, considered the theory ofevolution very useful in the study of society.

V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957), an Australianarcheologist, used the theory of evolutionfor explaining the primitive historical andcultural contexts.

Charles Darwin

Herbert Spencer

Gordon Childe

Scientific innovations were helpful in explainingchanges in history and society. Analyse this state-ment on the basis of Enlightenment and modernScientific Revolution.

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20th Century Science and NewPatterns of ThoughtThe influence of science on man and societyhas been very explicit in the 20th century. TheScience of the 20th century was no longer alone pursuit of certain scientists orlaboratories. It involved many disciplines,many people, and many nations.

nuclear bombs dropped at Hiroshima andNagasaki show the deadliest use ever of thisnew technology. These discoveriescontributed to further developments notonly in science but also in social sciences.

The potential of such theories of modernscience for military applications led to thedirect involvement of the state in science andtechnology in the 20th century.

New Trends in Literary Criticismand PhilosophyHuman life in the 20th century differedmarkedly from that of the 19th century as aresult of the revolutions in industry, science,and technology. As a result, literature soughtnew ways of expressions and styles.

Two important movements in philosophyand literary criticism of the 20th century areModernism and Post-Modernism.

Ever since the Enlightenment, theredeveloped a sense of confidence among theeducated middle class about man's masteryover nature and the world. Yet, by thebeginning of the 20th century, Europe andNorth America witnessed a reaction to theevil effects of the Industrial Revolution, andthe miseries of urban life. Such resentmentsfound expression in art and literature, too.This movement in literature and art isgenerally known as Modernism. TheModernists in art and literature reacted

Ernest Rutherford

Max Plank and Albert Einstein

Physics witnessed great strides in the early20th century. The Quantum Theory of MaxPlanck (1858-1947) and the Special Theoryof Relativity of Albert Einstein (1879-1955)represent the new heights in modern science.

Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) discoveredthat atoms, the smallest particles of matter,could be split up (i.e., nuclear fission)whereupon energy would be released. Itwas discovered subsequently that just as innuclear fission, nuclear fusion would alsolead to the releasing of energy. Though thiscould be put to several peaceful uses, the

Noam Chomsky

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sharply to the classical concepts and evolvedabstract patterns and styles.

After the 1960s, some philosophers,linguists, and social scientists startedexamining the problem of the meaning of thewritten word. They contested the traditionaldefinitions of meaning of the written text orliterary composition or artistic production.It began to be argued that a text carriesmultiple layers of meanings, and thatmultiple readings of the text are possible.Such contestations have been labeled Post-Modernism. Many advocates of this line ofinquiry affirm that post-modernism is moreof a living condition than a set of theories.

Some leading figures of this movement areMichel Foucault (1926-1984), a Frenchphilosopher and historian; Jacques Derrida(1930-2004), a French philosopher born inAlgeria; and Noam Chomsky (born 1928), anAmerican linguist and political philosopher.

A very notable achievement in Science afterthe Second World War is in Space Research.Such researches made possible vehicles thatcould defy the Earth's gravitation and go outto the Outer Space. Man landed on the Moonand sent space-shuttles to explore otherplanets of the Universe. It has been madepossible today to launch man-madesatellites for studying the natural resourcesand the changes in climate. The recentexplosionary developments intelecommunication is also directly relatedto these researches.

Exciting progress has been achieved inbiotechnology as well. It has been provedthat life can be created through cloning.

The progress in information technology hasbrought knowledge literally at the finger-tipof man. The application of this branch ofscience in the field of education has provedto be very effective.

Activities

Prepare a table showing the different intellectual trends and theirproponents.

• Prepare an essay on the changes in the cultural and politicalthoughts in France, Germany and England following the changesin the mode of production as a result of Industrial Revolution.

• Organize a seminar on the changes in human thought broughtabout by developments in the fields of science and technology inthe 19th and 20th centuries.