The Exchange of
Enlightenment:
Eighteenth-Century
Thought
CHAPTER 22
FOCUS QUESTIONS
WHAT WAS the Enlightenment and how did it influence
Western social, political, and economic thinking?
HOW DID China and Japan view Europe in the eighteenth century?
WHY WERE the ideas of Rousseau so influential?
WHY WAS there a reaction against the cult of reason, and what
forms did it take?
HOW DID Enlightenment ideas influence the course of the
French Revolution and Napoleon’s policies?
WHAT INTELLECTUAL trends did Europe, the Americas,
Islam, and east Asia have in common in the eighteenth century?
BASIC IDEAS OF ENLIGHTENMENT AND
ROMANTIC THINKERS
People are good.
 Political freedom, economic freedom (laissez-faire), social
equality

John Locke and the Baron de Montesquieu
 Rule of law, “Natural Rights”

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
 “Invisible hand” of the market

All men are created equal: John Locke
 Montesquieu and Wollstonecraft: women too
 Romanticism: “Noble Savage”

Jean Rousseau
 Intuition is stronger than culture.
Organized religion is bad.
 Atheism, reason, scientism, mysticism, enthusiasm, trust in
sensibility are all possible responses.

Enlightenment: reason can uncover truth.

Romantics: trust in intuition, sensibility.
Progress is good.
 Trust in science and reason.
 Lack of progress in science becomes a mark of a
stagnant/primitive society.
GLOBAL INFLUENCES ON THE
ENLIGHTENMENT
China and Japan: ideas about government
(Confucianism) are idealized or despised.


Enlightened despotism (Voltaire)
Oriental despotism (Montesquieu)
Ottoman Empire: admiration for religious
toleration, generosity, good hygiene, education,
and respect for law and minorities; loathed by
others as arbitrary, despotic, and promoting
docility among its subjects
INFLUENCES ON THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT
Development of the Cult of Nature
 Power of the New World
 Exploration of the Americas: Baron Alexander von Humboldt

Impact on John Keats’ poetry
 Rousseau and the “Noble Savage”

William Wordsworth and Johann Herder
Exploration of the Pacific: Captain James Cook
 Myths destroyed: mapping of the Pacific
 Colonization of Australia and New Zealand suggested a new
“New World”
ENLIGHTENMENT INFLUENCES REVOLUTION IN
FRANCE AND IN NORTH AMERICA
France



Overthrow of the monarchy
Radical new “rights” for citizens announced
Marquis de Sade and Napoleon


Perversion of the Enlightenment and of romanticism
Wars with European states leads to global conflict
North America

American Revolution
CONCLUSION
Europe’s new global connections profoundly influenced the ideas of
the Enlightenment and of the romantic movement. The Enlightenment
was a revolution in human thought that opened up new possibilities
for every facet of society, culture, and life. As Napoleon and de
Sade illustrated, it could also lead to dangerous extremes of
egoism and brutality that, because of the global nature of Europe’s
empires, could affect all humanity.
TODAY’S QUESTION
Is the Enlightenment dead?
Consider

Spreading fundamentalist rejection of science

The return of torture, outlawed by all major European states during the Enlightenment, as
a tool even of states such as the U.S. that espouse Enlightenment principles of human
rights.

The obvious downsides of technological development (nuclear weapons, environmental
degradation) that call into question Enlightenment belief in “progress.”
Are Enlightenment principles of rationalism, optimism, and secularism a thing of the past?
Or does belief in science, progress, and religious freedom and toleration mean that we are
still followers of the Enlightenment?
Should we be?