Revolutions in Thought
(The Age of Reason)
I. Toward the French Revolution
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Two things would be needed for the French Revolution to occur
o One was the bankruptcy of France as a result of the Seven Years War and the American
Revolution, which we have already discussed
o The other was an atmosphere of critical thought from the Scientific Revolution and a
commitment to rational discussion known as the Enlightenment
Sometimes called the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment was predicated on the Scientific
Revolution which helped create a faith in reason and facts (what humans could detect with their
senses), as opposed to mere authority
o Secular in orientation, the Enlightenment was concerned with this world and how it works,
rather than ultimate salvation or damnation
 It showed an optimistic faith in progress and accepted that happiness was attainable
in this world
 It further demanded control over unrestrained emotion, preferring what Kenneth
Clark, the great art historian, called the "smile of reason," rather than the grimace
or the grin of Romanticism
o Enlightenment thinkers believed that humanity could be improved in a variety of ways
II. The Scientific Revolution
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The Scientific Revolution (which lasted from roughly 1500-1700) prepared the way for the
Enlightenment
o It was made possible by strong nation states which insured domestic political order and
stability, so that time could be spent for science instead of civil war
 Monarchs greatly increased their prestige by financing scientific writers
 Wealth from commerce allowed even independent merchant princes to dabble in
science, collecting specimens and building labs
o Moreover, new geographical discoveries gave new information to explain
o Most important was the lack of fear of the supernatural
 The witch craze had died out by the mid-17th century
 This reflected the fact that the European population was now increasingly living in
cities where they were less reliant on good weather and the lack of the soil's fertility
 thus, they no longer searched for scapegoats in the population
Inventions made the Scientific Revolution possible
o New purity in glass making allowed better telescopes and microscopes
o New developments in math, like decimals and logarithms, as well as the slide rule, allowed
calculation to proceed more quickly, and calculus was now able to describe algebra in
motion
o Scientific societies, such as the Royal Society of England founded in 1662, helped spread
that information
Leaders of the Scientific Revolution
o Nicolai Copernicus (1473-1543)
 Discovered the sun was the center of the solar system
 This discovery robbed humanity of its traditional place at the center of the universe
and created greate controversy
 Copernicus was condemned by the Inquisition following his death
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Johann Kepler (1571-1630)
 Kepler formulated the three laws of planetary motion
 this supported Copernicus' view that planets revolved around the sun, not the Earth
o Gallileo Gallilei (1564-1642)
 Gallileo constructed the first telescope
 he used the telescope to confirm Copernicus' theory about the sun as the center of
the solar system
 Gallileo was brought before the Inquisition where he recanted his support for
Copernicus (and basically placed under house arrest for the rest of his life)
o Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
 Bacon advocated the scientific method of reasoning--called inductive reasoning
 This method called for observation of a phenomenon, measurement of it and
experimentation, creating a hypothesis, and then verifying that hypothesis
o Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
 One of the great mathematicians of his age
 Descartes applied mathematical methods to explain the mysteries of the universe
Most famous for his quote, "I think, therefore I am."A
o Sir Isaac Newton
 Newton is probably the symbol of the age
 Building on the work of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, he unified the new
discoveries of the age into one unifying principle of gravitation
 he also developed calculus to help prove the new scientific theories
 this showed that celestial and terrestrial motion were governed by a single theory
which could be expressed in a mathematical formula
 In 1687, Newton published many of his theories in his masterwork Mathematica
Principia
 This work (one of the most influential books ever written) did much to
reshape scientific thought for many generations to come
 Its impace was felt not just in science, but in many other fields of study as
well
The impact of the Scientific Revolution outside of science
o Most important, the new developments of the Scientific Revolution affected political
thought
o If the universe could be understood by men, it must also be able to understand and devise
the best way to govern
 Hobbes was influenced greatly by the orderliness that the new mathematics and
scientific theories provided
 If the universe is like a machine governed by laws, so must governments be
o Not surprisingly, this is the age of constitution writing, as men tried to discover the laws
governing political arrangements and set them down, as Newton had done for gravity
 There was a contract between the people and their God, who did not make apples
fall upwards
 If God bound Himself by laws, so must kings, for to do otherwise would be to set
themselves above God.
III. The Englightenment
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The age of the Enlightenment began in the late seventeenth century and continued through most of
the eighteenth.
The philosophes
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It was led by the philosophes, an informal and unorganized group of critics, political
reformers, and religious skeptics in Europe and North America whose ideas touched on
almost every element of human existence.
o They often criticized and disagreed with one another as much as they criticized and
disagreed with the institutions they sought to reform.
o Historian Peter Gay called them a family, one that fought amongst one another, yet were
bound by a common goal.
o The philosophes found unity in an ambitious program to create a new worldview for
Europe.
o Key goal of the philosophes
 In Gay's words, this program focused most of all on freedom: "freedom in its many
forms-freedom from arbitrary power, freedom of speech, freedom of trade, freedom
of aesthetic response, freedom, in a word, of moral man to make his own way in the
world."
 In 1784, Immanuel Kant argued, in an essay entitled "What is Enlightenment," that
the motto of the philosophes was "Dare to know."
 In short, the philosophes sought to create a worldview based on humanity's claim to
be recognized as adult, responsible beings, dependent on no one nor on any
institution, whether it be the church or the state.
 The philosophes believed there was a moral sense in natural man
 The idea that the lot of humanity can be improved drove the Enlightenment
philosophes
 To improve humanity however, the new social sciences had employ
inductive and deductive reasoning, historical research, anthropological
methods, then compare and evaluate the information they have developed
Roots of the Enlightenment
o The roots of the Enlightenment lay in the views about the natural world and humanity
brought forth during the Scientific Revolution.
o Newton and Locke
 The ideas of Isaac Newton and John Locke provided a new framework for studying
the world and the people in it.
 Newton
 Newton encouraged Europeans to examine the workings of nature directly
through experimentation and concrete evidence.
 His studies uncovered what seemed to be rational laws of nature.
 Locke
 Locke applied Newton's ideas about experience to understanding the human
psyche and argued that human personalities developed through experience.
 John Locke had denied innate ideas and derived all knowledge, opinions
and behavior from sensory experiences
 He claimed that each person entered the world as a blank page, but as they
grew older, their experiences shaped their personalities.
 Thus, according to Locke, humans could take charge of their own destiny
and make ways to better their lives.
o At the same time Newton and Locke presented their ideas to the world, on the continent of
Europe, the philosophes were using the concepts of natural laws and human improvability
as the framework for their notions on how to improve the human condition.
o Impact of the Glorious Revolution in Britain
 At the same time, the philosophes drew upon British politics and society as a model
of a stable and tolerant system
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With a theoretical framework and a practical model to work from, the philosophes
needed a way to spread their message to a wide audience.
o Impact of printing press
 Fortunately, the relatively new printing press had become quite popular during the
seventeenth century.
 The volume of printed works-books, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, and
broadsides-rose dramatically throughout Europe
 The only thing that remained for the reformers was to provide the messages they
wanted to communicate.
Beginning of the Enlightenment
o The beginning of the Enlightenment can be identified as the period between the publication
of Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) and the death of Louis XIV (1715).
o The first generation of Enlightenment writers
 The first important writer in this generation was Bernard de Fontenelle
 Fontenelle sought to make the new science entertaining to a mass audience
 He, and other writers of his generation, not only brought science to a
wider group of people, but they also brought it into conflict with
organized religion
 Unlike Isaac Newton, who believed his work paid tribute to God,
Fontenelle and his fellow writers showed their skepticism for any
claims of absolute truth or divine authority
 Fontenelle frequently wrote about how rational, forward-thinking scientists
had to do battle with reactionary priests
 Voltaire
 The foremost of these critics was Voltaire, who challenged, usually
indirectly, the Catholic Church and Christian religious doctrine at
every turn
 He particularly hated what he saw as the fanaticism of
organized religion, which he blamed for many savage and
inhuman acts.
 Although many devout Christians saw Voltaire as a blasphemer, he
was in fact a Deist
The Philosophes
o The key to the philosophes' strength lay in their numbers, organization, and above all, their
dedication to reform.
o The Encyclopedia
 This ideal was perhaps best realized in a project begun by Denis Diderot and Jean
le Rond d'Alembert.
 These two men edited what became known as The Encyclopedia: The Rational
Dictionary of the Sciences, the Arts, and the Crafts
 In what became a seventeen-volume work, Diderot and d'Alembert set out
to teach people how to think critically and objectively about matters of all
different types
 They praised the sciences and industrial arts, questioned matters of religious
faith, and openly criticized social and political institutions for their
intolerance, injustices, and outmoded ways of operating
 Although censors frequently tried to halt the Encyclopedia, it became widely read
throughout France and western Europe.
o Efforts at Reform
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Although the philosophes frequently disagreed on the best ways to reform their
world, often criticizing each other as much as the institutions they wished to
change, they continued to work toward creating a new worldview
 Men such as the Baron de Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
challenged the political and social systems of Europe
 David Hume and the Marquis de Condorcet examined concepts of human
progress and the ways in which experiences can shape humanity
 In economics, Adam Smith rejected the prevailing theory of mercantilism in
favor of an economy based on individual freedom of choice
 Madame du Chatelet and Benjamin Franklin worked diligently to bring the
new scientific ways to the forefront of public attention
The Methods of Reform
 There was great faith in the instrument of reason rather than mere
accumulation of knowledge
 We need to keep this in mind if we want to understand the
Enlightenment
 This faith in reason was based on Newton's laws of nature--observation and
experience replaced abstract ideas as the point of departure for studies
 What placed the stamp on the Enlightenment was this analytical
method of Newtonian physics applied to the entire field of thought
and knowledge
 Order and regularity came from the analysis of observed facts
 So pure analysis was applied to psychological and social processes
 From here on out the doctrine of historical and sociological
determinism was generally accepted
 The new ideal of knowledge held by the philosophes was simply a
further development of 17th century logic and science
 But there was a new emphasis on:
 the particular rather than the general
 observable facts rather than principles
 experience rather than rational speculation
 Except for David Hume's skepticism, the philosophes' faith in reason
remained unshaken
Areas of Reform
 There were three major areas where the philosophes sought reform--religion, economics, and
politics
 Religion
 a central theme of the Enlightenment was religion
 The writers of this generation continually criticized the church (although often
indirectly to avoid reprisals from religious and political authorities) as being
full of superstition and backward, "barbarian" ways of thinking
 They also rejected the Christian idea that humans were stained with
original sin and therefore unable to create a better life for themselves on
earth
 Deism
 The Enlightenment was an age of reason based on faith, not an age of
faith based on reason
 Deism became quite popular with many of the major Enlightenment
figures
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It was a religious belief centered around a God who had created the
universe, set it to operating under a set of distinct, orderly laws, and had
then stepped aside to let it run
 The Deists often compared their view of God to that of a clockmaker
who, having once created a clock, then wound it up and let it operate in
an orderly fashion
 Deism was a logical outgrowth of scientific inquiry, rational faith in
humanity, and the study of comparative religion
 It emphasized an impersonal deity, natural religion and the
common morality of all human beings
 Deists believed that all religions could be reduced to worship
God and a commonsense moral code
 This idea of a rational, orderly God fit very nicely with the ideas of the
philosophes
Although some of the reformers completely rejected the notion of a God and
became atheists and others remained steadfastly loyal to the Christian church,
the majority preferred the rationality of Deism.
 In Europe, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Thomas Paine led the deists
 In America, the deists were led by Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and
Adams
Still, a significant number of philosophes rejected all religious beliefs and
dogma
 To Diderot, d'Holbach and the encyclopedists all religious dogma was
absurd and obscure
 Diderot insisted on the free play of reason
 But he was an unashamed pagan and believed in a kind
of pantheism or pan-psychism, not pure atheism or
materialism
 He was humanistic, secular, modern and scientific
 He expected from his method a regeneration of mankind
 Voltaire disagreed with the atheists and said their beliefs had a
religioius dogma of its own
 David Hume (If time permits)
 It was David Hume, the Englishman, who cut the ground from
under his deist friends (Natural History of Religion).
 An empirical study of the nature of man, said Hume,
reveals not an identical set of motives but a confusion of
impulses, not an orderly cosmos but chaos.
 The elemental passion, hopes and fears is the root of
religious experience.
 Religions may be socially convenient but being rooted in
sentiment they lack the validity of scientific
generalization
 To Hume, a rational religion is a contradiction in terms
It was the Enlightenment, not the Reformation or the Renaissance that
dislodged the religious establishment from central control of cultural and
intellectual life
 by liberating science from the restrictions of theological tradition the
Enlightenment rendered possible the changes that led to modern culture
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Diderot stated, "if you forbid me to speak on religion and government, I
have nothing to say"
Economics
 The assault on absolutism was fed by middle class discontent, and took the
form of an economic attack launched by the physiocrats and a political one
launched by the philosophes
 The middle class objected to the state controlled economy of mercantilism,
especially laws which controlled prices and limited access to raw materials
 They wanted free enterprise instead
 Likewise, the middle class objected to their lack of political power,
since they had no influence at court and could not vote
 They were further hurt by high taxation, since it was easier to tax their
sales than the property of aristocrats
 Finally, a full-fledged economic philosophy emerged, developed by the
physiocrats, to which the middle class gave their support.
 The physiocrats
 The Physiocrats represent the economic basis to the challenge to
absolutism
 By changing to a more democratic economic theory, they were in effect
challenging absolute government
 Under mercantilism, the state and economy were closely tied together
and the economy served only to enrich the state
 by challenging mercantilism as they did, the physiocrats in effect
had challenged absolute government
 Physiocrats believed money should circulate freely as blood does in the
human body, a concept they learned from the scientific revolution
 Physiocrats further argued that the laws of supply and demand
should regulate the economy without government interference
 often called laissez-faire, this idea that government should keep
hands off the economy rejected the prevailing ideas of
mercantilism associated with absolutist states
 Adam Smith
 The most influential physiocrat was Adam Smith, who argued that
individuals motivated by self interest alone would drive the economy
forward, not the mercantilist state
 He challenged the idea of scarce goods and resources which
mercantilism was based on, substituting instead an idea of the
boundless expanse of resources
 In short, one got a bigger pie by letting the pie grow, not by
taking more pie from someone else
 Smith provided a comprehensive philosophy to challenge mercantilism-which in effect meant an attack on absolutism itself
 His new philosophy--Capitalism--did not catch on immediately, but
gradually became the dominant economic theory of the Western world.
Politics
 The philosophes did not discover natural rights theory
 humans have certain natural (or inalienable in the words of Thomas
Jefferson) rights that cannot be denied them
 but they made it the foundation of the ethical and social gospel
 They introduced natural rights into practical politics
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They gave natural rights the dynamic force which revealed its explosive
energy in the French Revolution
But their argument moved steadily away from metaphysics toward empiricism-away from reason toward experience
 Liberty of the person, security of property and freedom of discussion
were less rooted in abstract reason than in commonsense views of
fundamental human needs, impulses and inclinations
 In spite of the utopianism of Rousseau, the rest had a sense of reality
 Reason is still primary, but it is not insurrectionary or bloodthirsty
 Only in society could man realize his full potential (shades of Aristotle)
 They believed in the social function of knowledge
Except for Rousseau, none of the philosophes agitated for a radical
transformation of society
All of them, like Voltaire, defended enlightened absolutism.
Montesquieu
 Montesquieu published his Spirit of the Laws in 1748.
 He expressed here real hatred of despotism, clericalism and
slavery
 Being a member of the petit noblesse, he called for an
"intermediary corps" and fundamental laws to temper the
monarchy
 His former colleague magistrates called it restitution of the ancient
constitution
 Thus, he influenced both the aristocratic reactionaries who
wanted to revitalize feudal estates and parlements, and the
honest liberals who idealized English constitutionalism with its
principle of separation of powers, the basis of modern
constitution-making
 Spirit of the Laws was the first study in ideal sociological patterns
 He advocated the examination of a variety of constitutional
forms to discover the republic and its inner law
 A network of interacting forces, if altered, affect the equilibrium
of the whole structure--this becomes the basis for the idea of a
balance of powers in government (U.S. Constitution)
 Montesquieu is the founder of the typology of constitutional patterns
Jean Jacques Rousseau
 Rousseau rejected all compromise with contemporary society
 He called for a moral reformation, a revival of religion, and a
purification of manners
 He passionately asserted the moral and legal equality of
man, the sovereignty of the people and the authority of
the general will
 He wanted a return to primitive simplicity
 While he realized that his "state of nature" never existed, he
asserted that self-knowledge was the source of his proofs
 In two discourses he exposed his unlimited personal individualism
 Yet in The Social Contract we get the glorification of unlimited
absolutism of the state
 Freedom for Rousseau is the submission to the law which the
individual has imposed on himself
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It is a voluntary consent to a necessary law
By entering this state, men gain the enlargement of their
perceptions and capacities.
 Political and intellectual freedom is worthless for man, if he does
not have moral freedom
 The function of the state is to bring legal and moral equality
about
Rousseau believed that physical, intellectual and economic equality are
beyond human remedy
 The state, according to Rousseau can interfere with property
only if legal and moral equality is jeopardized
In his book Emile he explains that the young must learn the compulsion
of things but be protected from the tyranny of men
 All must obey the general will as a law of nature, not as an alien
command but because of necessity
 This is only possible if society makes the laws which it obeys
 Hence a radical political and social revolution was necessary
Rousseau demanded man's mastery over nature and projected a moral
rationalism
Without a doubt Rousseau wanted to lead the French on the road to
revolution
IV. Enlightened Despotism and Revolution
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Debates over the best political system
o By the mid-eighteenth century, as the Enlightenment reached maturity, the philosophes
remained divided over which system of government was best
 Voltaire and Diderot favored retaining the power of the monarchs, so long as the
monarchs used that power to create rational political and economic systems and
allowed intellectuals to think and speak freely.
 Montesquieu based his model on the government of Great Britain, claiming that a
system which placed a series of checks and balances on the power of the monarch
would be best
 Rousseau was the most liberal, arguing that democracies were the best systems to
solve the problems of the day
o From this discord, two significant questions arose
 The first question was whether the European monarchs would even listen to the
opinions put forth by the philosophes
 The second was, if the monarchs did adopt any of the new ideas about government,
which one would they choose and to what extent would they use these proposals?
o To people living in the Western world today, the idea of a ruler with absolute power being
able to fulfill the ideas of the enlightenment might seem absurd
 However, keep in mind that the key changes that the philosophes wanted were
reform of the legal systems, curbing the power of the church, and eliminating
barriers to economic activity
 To men like Voltaire and Diderot, monarchs who wielded absolute power seemed
more likely to have the ability to carry out such changes than any other system of
government.
The Enlightened Despots?
o
Although Louis XV and Louis XVI of France largely ignored the ideas of the philosophes,
Enlightenment ideas prompted some favorable reactions in several of the major nations of
central and Eastern Europe among a group of rulers that became known as "enlightened
despots."
 Prussia--Frederick the Great
 In Prussia, Frederick II, also known as Frederick the Great, made efforts to
rationalize agricultural and business methods, to codify and simplify the
Prussian legal system, and to improve the conditions of peasants.
 Although Frederick made some gains in all three areas, long-standing
traditions and the power of the nobility prevented him from making
significant progress
 Austria--Maria Theresa and Joseph II
 Maria Theresa of Austria proved to have better success than Frederick
 During her forty-year rule (1740-1780), she worked to consolidate
and streamline the administration, military, and financial affairs of
the Austrian government
 One of her major accomplishments was reforming the tax system so
that the monarch would have easier access to the wealth of the
Austrian people
 She also created a new judicial system and placed limits on the
power that landlords had over their serfs
 Still, Maria Theresa found herself unable to modernize the Austrian
economy and government completely due to the resistance of
Austria's upper nobility.
 Joseph II
 Her son, Joseph II, who ruled from 1780 to 1790, continued his
mother's reforms and instituted some new ones.
 He eventually abolished serfdom in all the lands owned by the
crown
 He also began a program to increase the literacy of the Austrian
population, establish freedom of the press, and even grant limited
freedom of religion (the last two were reforms Maria Theresa had
strongly opposed)
 Unfortunately, Joseph's harsh personality and tendency to
sometimes override the wishes of the nobility created a backlash
against his reforms
 Some of them were overturned even before his death.
 Russia--Catherine the Great
 Perhaps the ablest of the "enlightened despots" was Catherine the Great of
Russia
 Born in Germany, Catherine had been brought to Russia to marry Tsar Peter
III
 After eight years of brutal treatment at his hands, she orchestrated a
coup in 1762 that saw Peter killed and left her on the throne
 Catherine saw herself as a true follower of the Enlightenment
 She frequently corresponded with Voltaire and acted as a patron to
Diderot.
 Catherine's Reign
 As ruler, she worked to construct a new legal system for Russia
(although the new laws actually favored the wealthy class at the
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expense of the serfs) and to bring a greater level of literacy and
education to the upper-class
 To accomplish the latter goal, Catherine licensed a number
of private printing firms, as opposed to only allowing
publishing houses that were run by the government, that
helped triple the number of books available in Russia
 Her boldest reform was to secularlize lands owned by the
Russian Orthodox Church-a move that not even Peter the
Great had dared to take
But despite these measures, Catherine remained in step with the
other major powers of central and eastern Europe to a large degree
 Like the rulers of Prussia and Austria, Catherine found she
had to share power with a class of nobles and thus had to
accede to their wishes on many major issues
 Her greatest failure to meet Enlightenment ideals, as was the
case of Frederick, Maria Theresa, and even Joseph II, was
her failure to improve the condition of the serfs living under
her rule
 For the majority of the people in Russia, Prussia, and
Austria, living conditions actually declined rather than
improved during the rule of the "enlightened despots."
An enlightened New World
o The ideals of the Enlightenment reached their pinnacle in lands controlled by a nation that
many philosophes already considered a model for other governments
o That nation was Great Britain
o British North American Colonies
 The British colonists in mainland North America exercised most of the rights and
liberties of citizens living in England
 However, beginning in the 1760s, many British colonists in North America became
dissatisfied with the way their mother country was ruling them-particularly in the
area of taxes
 This unrest grew until 1775, when thirteen of the colonies rose up in rebellion and
declared themselves to be an independent nation known as the United States of
America.
o The new United States Government
 Following their victory over the British in 1783, the new states struggled to form a
national government
 In 1787, delegates from twelve of those states met in Philadelphia and drafted a
new governing document-the Constitution of the United States-unique in the
Western world at that time
 The Constitution, along with the amendments that became known as the
Bill of Rights, created a system of government more in keeping with the
ideals put forth by the philosophes
 The new system centered around a government based on the concepts of
checks and balances developed by Montesquieu
 It offered freedom of expression, an end to internal economic barriers
(although external tariffs remained), freedom of religion that sharply
curtailed the power of the church in secular matters, and a legal system that
promised equal justice under law to everyone regardless of economic status.
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Although the system did not always live up to its promises and excluded significant
numbers of the population (women and African Americans-free as well as slaves)
from participating, its liberties and rights far exceeded those offered in Europe at
the time.
The forms of government, and the rights granted to those who lived under them, spurred by the
ideas of the Enlightenment differed greatly
o The monarchs known as the "enlightened despots" made some attempt to rationalize their
governments but failed to fully achieve most of the goals of the philosophes
o The new government of the United States held out the promise of fulfilling the ideals of
the Enlightenment, but in the late eighteenth century, it remained only a promise
As the era of the Enlightenment drew to a close in the latter part of the century, there remained the
question of how the ideas of the philosophes would affect the politics of France
o The nation's rulers so far had remained immune to the calls for change
o However, tensions were growing inside France among an educated middle-class that
wanted a far greater say in controlling the French political and economic system.
o During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, those tensions would reach the boiling
point and exploded into the French Revolution.