142. Karen ArmstrongThe new society of Europe and its American colonies had
a different economic basis. Instead of relying upon a surplus
of agricultural produce, it was founded on a technology and
an investment of capital that enabled the West to reproduce
its resources indefinitely, so that Western society was no
longer subject to the same constraints as an agrarian culture.
This major revolution in reality constituted a second Axial
Age, which demanded a revolution of the established mores
on several fronts at the same time: political, social and intel-
lectual. It had not been planned or thought out in advance,
but had been the result of a complex process which had led to
the creation of democratic, secular social structures. By the
sixteenth century Europeans had achieved a scientific revo-
lution that gave them greater control over the environment
than anybody had achieved before. There were new inven-
tions in medicine, navigation, agriculture and industry. None
of these was in itself decisive, but their cumulative effect was
radical. By 1600 innovations were occurring on such a scale
that progress seemed irreversible: a discovery in one field
would often lead to fresh insights in another. Instead of seeing
the world as governed by immutable laws, Europeans had
found that they could alter the course of nature. Where the
conservative society created by agrarian culture had not been
able to afford such change, people in Europe and America
were becoming more confident. They were now prepared to
invest and reinvest capital in the firm expectation of continu-
ing progress and the continuous improvement of trade. By
the time this technicalization of society had resulted in the
industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, Westerners
felt such assurance that they no longer looked back to the past
for inspiration, as in the agrarian cultures and religions, but
looked forward to the future.
The modernization of society involved social and intellec-
tual change. The watchword was efficiency: an invention or a