At the opening of the twentieth century, the Einsteinian revo-
lution brought a new scientific paradigm; but its presupposi-
tions have not yet penetrated such aspects of society as are not
directly concerned with scientific research. These are still domi-
nated by Newtonian habits of thinking. In philosophy this hang-
over is perhaps more apparent than elsewhere, but it is traceable
also in ethics and moral practice, in politics and economics, and
in the relations between religion and science.

In one stream of contemporary philosophy, there has been a
reaction against Newtonianism, but it was not derived from
the new twentieth-century scientific concepts, and its effect has
been merely negative. Husserl became conscious of a crisis in
European science, but his diagnosis was rather a throwback to
Kant and Fichte, who had sought to counteract the epistemo-
logical difficulties of Empiricism and the ethical dereliction of

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