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1. What did Paul Valery mean in saying that the mind of Europe doubted itself profoundly? Before 1914, people in Europe believed in progress, peace, prosperity, reason, and rights of individuals. During that time, people began to believe in the Enlightenment, indu ....

Middle of Essay
.... anymore. They did not know what was going to happen after the war. They're so devastated by the war that many who were still alive lost faith and all hopes. Many intellectuals began to doubt the Enlightenment and even the future of Western civilization. This state of uncertainty and unpredictability brought out many modern philosophers of that time. One of them was a French poet and critic Paul Valery. He stated that "Europe was looking at its future with dark foreboding." In his writings, he said that "The storm has died away, and still we are restless, uneasy, as if the storm were about to break." The storm in this case was the war. People were ....