The Political Philosophy of Henry Adams

The use of superlatives is always dangerous, but it may be said, with little exaggeration, that Henry Adams was the Aristotle of America. His similarity to the great pupil of Plato, however, lies not so much in his influence upon subsequent thinkers as in the astonishing range of his interests and studies. Probably no other man of recent times has made such an ambitious effort as he to explore the entire realm of human knowledge and to deduce from it some logical answer to the riddle of the universe, with particular reference to the destiny of society. At a time when specialization had become the order of the day, and when it was considered presumptuous for a man to attempt to master more than one tiny segment of knowledge, he ranged the whole field like a titan, concerning himself with history, politics, economics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, mathematics, geology, anthropology, and psychology.