The intellectual consciousness of modern Europe as commonly delineated and accepted even in our day proclaimed those three ideas: a Nature subsisting in itself; an autonomous personality of the human subject; a culture self-created out of norms intrinsic to its own essence.  The European mind believed further that the constant creation and perfection of this “culture” constituted the final goal of history.  This was all a mistake.

Romano Guardini, The End of the Modern World, 50