"Based on Professor Chadwick's Gifford Lectures in the University of Edinburgh 1973-74, this is a many sided study of the declining hold of the Church and its doctrines on men's minds and lives. The historian must examine what men believed and how strongly they held their beliefs, as well as statistics of church attendance. The use of new machinery, the growth of big cities, a cheap press, attitudes to popular representation, and the impact of Marx are all relevant, as well as the development of evolutionary science and scientific history. Professor Chadwick studies each of these themes, and the Church's reactions to change, in penetrating detail. Woven into the broad themes of the book are brief but illuminating studies of major thinkers like Marx, Darwin, Mill, Comte, Renan, Taine and Michelet, as well as other nowadays less regarded such as Vogt, Draper, Buchner, Brunetiere and Vogue."--Back cover.