LI2a04_t05

Prévia do material em texto

Historical Background 
 
These people found themselves competing for a few available jobs in 
what was becoming a highly mechanized economy. A middle class of 
merchants was formed out of the aristocracy who found their taxes 
reducing, and of the lower class that aspired to get more. Business 
ventures collapsed, but other commercial ventures, flourished. 
Ideologically, this was a time of trouble, as the many discoveries of 
science led to a crisis of faith in God. Soon, educated men divided 
themselves into two principal schools: the utilitarians, who based 
everything upon the utility of the objects; and those who were firm 
believers in faith. Although we have the impression that the Victorian 
Age was the time of a repressive and repressed society, it was one of the 
most vital periods of English history, lively and full of controversy. Belief 
in technology was at its height and medical science was improving 
radically, while the superstitions of magic had been swept away. Living 
conditions were terrible but England was by that time well on he way to 
become the dominant nation in the world, and London the jewel in the 
crown of the British Empire.