Friday 27 October 2017

Disenchantment




It is undoubtedly true that in the minds of many, in recent times, a shadow has been cast over this aspect of our lives. The cause of this is to be sought for in the fact which explains so much of the mental unrest of the present time,— namely, that we live in an age of transition. In the field of which I am speaking the last two or three generations have witnessed a species of disenchantment. In the less sophisticated ages of 
the world, which are sometimes called the " ages of faith," the relations of man to the order of nature and the government of the world were depicted in forms which M. Arnold called " fairy-tales." Feeling was permitted to grow and entwine itself round a picturesque view of the origin and history of the cosmos. 
(from The Inner Life in Relation to Morality by John Henry Muirhead)




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