Between Literature and Science

The theme of this book is the conflict which arose in the early nineteenth century between the literary and the scientific intellectuals of Europe, as they competed for recognition as the chief analysts of the new industrial society in which they lived. This conflict was epitomizd in the confrontation between Matthew Arnold and T.H.Huxley, and later in that between F.R.Leavis and C.P.Snow. Sociology was born as the third major discipline, though in many ways a hybrid of the literary and the scientific traditions. The author chronicles the rise of the new discipline by discussing the lives and work of the most prominent thinkers at the time, in England, France and Germany. These include John Stuart Mill, H.G.Wells, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, T.S.Eliot, Charles Pegny, Emile Durkheim, Auguste Comte, Stefan George, Thomas Mann, Max Weber and Karl Mannheim. At stake was the right to formulate a philosophy of life for contemporary society, and to predict and pre-empt the worst consequences of industrialization. The book presents a penetrating study of idealists grappling with reality, when industrial society was in its infancy.