The French philosopher and historian Élie Halévy (1870-1937) wrote studies of the British utilitarians and a history of 19th-century England.

Elie Halévy was born on Sept. 6, 1870, at Étretat, where his mother had fled as the German army marched on Paris. His father was the playwright Ludovic Halévy, and Élie grew up surrounded by musicians, scholars, and politicians. After studying at the École Normale, he received his doctorate in philosophy in 1901 with the theses The Platonic Theory of Knowledge and The Origins of Philosophical Radicalism. The latter formed the base of his first major study, The Formation of English Philosophical Radicalism (3 vols., 1901-1904).

In an article of 1893 Halévy suggested that the great moral question of modern thought was how the abstract idea of duty could become a concrete aim of society. This question had first attracted him...