 If some revolutionaries were primarily activists, others were primarily artists and intellectuals who became the voice of their generation. Such was the case of a young group of students who gathered in Mexico City and referred to themselves as the “Ateneo de la Juventud”. Antonio Caso (1883–1946) and José Vasconcelos (1882–1959) were two of its most prominent members, both of whom criticized the predominance of positivism, which they found culturally demoralizing. In particular, they rejected the positivist view that humanity is moved by selfish calculation, that morality is accountable to the laws of nature, and that the universe is governed by deterministic laws. The members of the Ateneo stated that humans are free, creative, and spiritual, capable of using intuition to understand the world, and inspired by moral feelings that transcend the laws of nature. This conception of human beings and the world can also be considered an essential part of the climate of ideas surrounding the Mexican Revolution.