Science and the educated man

In the summer of 1900 the city of Paris celebrated the arrival of the 20th Century with a Great Exposition. That was a year of almost universal hope and confidence in the future, and accordingly the Exposition was directed towards a Golden Age of science and industry. Among the 39000000 visitors who passed by those exhibits was an American by the name of Henry Adams, and in a famous autobiography he has recorded his thoughts on this preview of things to come. Henry Adams was the product of a tradition of unity and stability. Under the conflicting forces of the 19th Century he had seen that unity breaking up, and he was searching for what he called a dynamics of history that would anticipate the changing course of mankind. In the Gallery of Machinery at Paris he thought that at last he had found a solution in science.

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