Chapter 17: Revolution and
Enlightenment (1550-1800)
Section 1: The Scientific
Revolution

Causes of the Scientific Revolution
◦ “Natural Philosophers” – medieval scientists – Aristotle
◦ Impact of the Renaissance
 Greek and Latin languages
◦ Ptolemy, Archimedes, and Plato
 New Technology and Mathematics
◦ Ships - trade
 New instruments
◦ Telescope and microscope
◦ Printing press
 Searching for scientific discoveries
 James Cook
◦ chronometer
◦ scurvy
 Francois Viete
 foundation for the invention of Trigonometry
 Simon Stevin
 decimal system
 John Napier
 table of logarithms
 Study of mathematics
 Nicolas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton
Scientific Revolution
◦ With the development of algebra, geometry and trigonometry

Scientific Breakthroughs
 Ptolemaic System
◦ Geocentric
◦ “prime mover”
 Nicolas Copernicus
◦ On Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
◦ Heliocentric
 Johannes Kepler
◦ Kepler’s First Law
 Galileo Galilei
◦ The Starry Messenger
 Isaac Newton
◦ Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Principia)
◦ “World Machine”
◦ Breakthroughs in Medicine
 Galen – Greek Physician
 Revolution in Medicine:
◦ Andreas Vesalius and William Harvey
◦ Breakthroughs in Chemistry
 Robert Boyle
 Antoine Lavoisier

Women’s Contributions
◦ Margaret Cavendish
 Received a traditional female education – no
science
 Wrote a number of works on scientific
matters
◦ Maria Winkelmann
 Astronomer - her husband Gottfried Kirch
 Discovered a comet
 University of Berlin

Philosophy and Reason
◦ Descartes and Rationalism
 Rene Descartes
 Discourse on Method
◦ “I think therefore I am”
◦ Separation of mind and matter
◦ Father of Modern Rationalism
◦ Bacon and the Scientific Method
 Creation of the Scientific Method
◦ Francis Bacon
 Believed the scientific method would benefit science
that would benefit industry, agriculture, and trade –
and help to control and dominate nature

Section 2: The Enlightenment

Path to the Enlightenment
◦ Enlightenment was a philosophical
movement Scientific Revolution
 Reason was the key word for the
philosophers
◦ Reason, natural law, hope, progress
◦ John Locke
◦ Essay Concerning Human Understanding
 tabula rasa
◦ Isaac Newton
 “World Machine
 Enlightenment thinkers

Ideas of the Philosophers
◦ Intellectuals of the Enlightenment were known as
Philosophe
◦ Role of Philosophy
◦ “applies himself to the study of society with the purpose of
making his kind better and happier”
◦ Use reason and facts
◦ Montesquieu
◦ Charles-Louis de Secondat, the baron de Montesquieu
 The Sprit of the Laws
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Scientific Method
3 basic kinds of governments:
Three Branches
Separation of Powers
Checks and Balances
 Francois-Marie Arouet – simply know as Voltaire
◦ Treatise on Toleration
◦ “all men are brothers under God”
◦ Promoted Deism
 Denis Diderot
◦ Encyclopedia, or Classified Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts,
and Trades

New Social Sciences
◦ Social Sciences
◦ Smith on Economics
 Physiocrats
◦ individuals were free to pursue their own economic
self-interest,
◦ Laissez-faire – (to let people do what they want)
 Adam Smith
◦ The Wealth of Nations – the state should not interfere
in economic matters
 Role of government
 Cesare Beccaria
◦ On Crimes and Punishment
◦ “Is it not absurd, that the laws, which punish murder,
should, in order to prevent murder, publicly commit
murder themselves?”

The spread of Ideas
◦ The social Contract
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
◦ Discourse on the Origins of the Inequality of Mankind
◦ The Social Contract
◦ Emile
◦ Women’s Rights
 Mary Wollstonecraft
◦ A Vindication of the Rights of women
◦ The Growth of Reading
 18th century growth of publishing and the reading public
 Development of magazines and newspapers
◦ First daily newspaper was printed in London in 1702
◦ The Salon
 Salons – drawing rooms of the wealthy upper class’s
houses
◦ Religion in the Enlightenment
 Europeans remained devoutly Catholic
 Protestant Churches developed but were weak
 Methodism- John Wesley
 Gave the lower and middle class

Section 3: The Impact of the
Enlightenment

Enlightenment and Absolutism
◦ Philosophes believed in Natural rights for all
people:
 Equality before the law
 Freedom of Religious worship
 Freedom of speech
 Freedom of the press
 Right to assemble, hold property and to
pursue happiness
◦ Enlightened rulers
◦ Enlightened Absolutism
 New type of monarch
◦ But did they really change?
◦ Prussia: Army Bureaucracy
 Fredrick William I
◦ Highly efficient Bureaucracy
◦ Civil Servants
◦ Nobility
 Fredrick William II (Fredrick the Great)
◦ Educated
◦ Voltaire
◦ Dedicated ruler
◦ Nobility
◦ Limited reforms
◦ Enlightenment reforms
◦ The Austrian Empire
 largest and most powerful Empires
 Difficult to rule
 Maria Theresa
◦ Inherited the throne in 1740
◦ Worked to control the empire
 Joseph II
◦ Most of the reforms failed
◦ Russian Empire
 Catherine the Great
◦ Peter the Great
 Six successors
 Peter III
◦ Catherine II Catherine the Great
◦ Enlightenment reforms
 Denis Diderot
 Nobility
 Rebellion led by Yemelyan Pugachov

The Seven Years’ War
◦ Austrian Succession
 Charles VI
 Maria Theresa
 Fredrick II of Prussia
 Austrian Silesia
 France - Prussia and Great Britain - Austria
 The war of Austrian Succession (1740 – 1748)
◦ 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle(1748)
◦ Silesia
◦ The War in Europe
 Change of alliances
 1756 – 1763 The Seven Years’ War:
◦ War – Europe, India and North America
◦ Silesia
◦ The War in India
 Great Britain and France
 Treaty of Paris 1763
◦ The War in North America
 British and French Colonies – Trade
 French and Indian War
 Treaty of Paris

Enlightenment and the Arts
◦ Architecture
 Versailles (Louis XIV)
 Unique Architectural Style
 Balthasar Neumann
 Church of the Fourteen Saints
 Palace of Prince-bishop Wurzburg
◦ Art
◦ Baroque and neoclassical styles
◦ 1730’s – Rococo
◦ Rococo Style
 Emphasized
 Highly secular
◦ Antonie Watteau
 Embarkation for Cythera
◦ Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
 Fresco painting
 Allegory of the Planets and Continents
◦ Music
◦ Johann Sebastian Bach
 Mass in B Minor
◦ George Frederic Handel
 Messiah
◦ Franz Joseph Hayden
 The Creation and The Seasons
◦ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
◦ The Marriage of Figaro
◦ The Magic Flute
◦ Don Giovanni
◦ Literature
 Henry Fielding – English writer
◦ The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling