Sentence:  The consciousness it mirrors may have come earlier to <WSD>Europe</WSD> than to America , but it is the consciousness that most `` mature '' societies arrive at when their successes in technological and economic systematization propel them into a time of examining the not strictly practical ends of culture . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  the 2nd smallest continent (actually a vast peninsula of Eurasia); the British use `Europe' to refer to all of the continent except the British Isles