[367] In all these men there was not the tendency to deny what is always present in expressionistic^a styles^b, namely the ultimate^c breaking into the surface of reality. But they believed that the surface of reality in its anticipatory form--as beauty^d, as perfection--is able to take into itself the ultimate^e itself. Now I leave, for a certain time, the artistic^f realm and come to the sociological^g reality which is expressed IN the artistic creativity^h. The naturalismⁱ that starts with the early Renaissance^j is an expression of the general attitude of industrial^k society. The naturalism of modern^l

art^m, starting with the Renaissance and interrupted only briefly in the Baroque period, is an expression of the ultimate self-interpretation of industrialⁿ society in the Western world. From here I want to characterize now this Western world in which we are living. First in a very general way, and then going down to many concrete elements which confirm this general statement. Now the general statement is: MAN CONTROLLING NATURE AND SOCIETY, IN THE POWER^o OF THE LOGOS^p. I avoid the word ''reason,'' which I could use, if that deteriorization [sic.] of the word had not occurred, so that if I say ''reason'' today, you immediately think of the calculating businessman or the analytic philosopher^q. But I don't mean either of them--although they belong to it of course, and I will show this as clearly as I can--but I mean also critical reason of the revolutionary^r bourgeoisie of the 18th century, and I mean constructive reason in the romantic period of victorious bourgeoisie, etc. So reason is a much larger concept than it is usually used, and therefore I speak here of logos: man controlling nature and society in the power of the logos. This started around 1450 and went on till at least 1850 or 1900. Such periodizations