bonds between people. The king and the peasant worshipped the same God, they prayed in the same building using the same words. They were offered precisely the same sacraments. Riches, status and power were of no direct spiritual value. Capitalism had nothing to replace this with. Science certainly did not offer the same opportunities for powerful shared experiences. The periodic table might well possess transcendent beauty and be a marvel of intellectual elegance – but it couldn’t draw a society together around it.
