“Because in our view there has been steadily growing, during the last twelve years, a desire to know which has had no parallel since the Renaissance, and which is now felt by relatively a far larger class of men and women than it was then. Under the surface of a vulgarity, a triviality, and a noisiness which (because they have been the most blatant) have seemed the most characteristic stigmata of our time, everywhere and in ever-widening circles educated people have been becoming philosophers—have wished to understand as clearly as they might the meaning of their own life and that of the Universe.”