Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was one of the most significant figures of the French enlightenment. His political writings cover the period from the first volume of the Encyclopedie (1751), of which he was principal editor, to the third edition of Raynal's Histoire des Deux Indes (1780), one of the most [...]
In the middle of the 19th century a new value began to appear in Western Europe - the belief that (in the words of Matthew Arnold) "the exercise of a creative activity is the true function of man". This text gives an account of the stages by which, and the reasons why, this development occurred at t[...]