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13 UN DEEat : les mentalitEs collectives 569

through the traditional corresponding planes of the inner and the outer world. Progress in geography, physics and mathematicB developed the image of the “outer” world whioh gradually won predominance.

The image of man underwent a rapid change. Everyone saw his opportunities of existence progress though death was still endowed with nnexpected possibilities to crush life. Life needs were strong and families still large with a great number of children most of whom died in infancy. Marriages were still done at a young age. Foreign travelers such as Dr. Dallaway met young women of 16 who have been married for a long time. Besieged from outside by diseases, calamities, wars, man was oontinuously at war with forces which tended to destroy his “inner wisdom” ; man was not thought to be bora good but to carry in himmself good impulses as well as destructive ones. Petru Maior went on recommend-ing to his fellow countrymen to control the passions which he saw in the same light as Cantemir did in his Divan one century before. Petru Maior retold “the story” of love which lost its sightplaying with insanity, which in its tura was doomed to lead and serve love. Writers continued to praise the mental faculty which could maintain man safe and sane on “a sea of troubles” that is subjected to rapid and unexpected blows ; this faculty was a “diacritical” ability (“dreapta socotealś”) which did not let passions oyershadow the mind (mens = “minte”). Several psychical unrests were considered “glooms” and were cured with spiritual ailments rather than with medicines; mam as, drunkenness, violence, were punished by exile to the monasteries. But, at the same time, these very men besieged from outside and subject to inner reversals started being looked at morę and morę as part of a whole which was the “country”, the “nation”, the “society”. As a social being man was not only thought to have morał obligations towards his fellow countrymen, but also to-wards a body which imposed ever morę its presence among the collective mental representations : “tbe nation”. The “ideał man” was the “patriot” with a deep love for his motherland (“patria”) and for the cultural tradition which had its source in the Roman ciyilisation. The “patriot” was expected to act to the benefit of a better defined community than the whole world which was thought to take advantage of the “philo-sopher’s” plans. The imperatives of reform directed him rather towards ■concrete aspects than towards the intellectual debate in which the philo-sopher was mainly interested. The model proposed to humanity was madę ■up of'the common aspirations and the natural solidarities which held together families, rural and urban communities; such feelings and wishes sprung up from the consciousness of those who considered morę important the common language, habits and ways of thinking than the well-estab-lished duties towards “the State and thę emperor”. New theoretical explanations of the origins and purposes of common life were inspired by the new solidarities.

There is another image which deyeloped rapidly during this period :the image of “enlightened Europę”, The image got gradually new dimensions as it fed on information gathered from books and especially periodicals, from orał information spread by the merchants concejrning technical reeults which changed life and work conditions and especially because it attracted youngsters from the very training years. This is the reason