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The Age of the Enlightenment
By Gerhard Rempel
We can call the eighteenth century the age of the enlightenment because it was both a
culmination and a new beginning. Fresh currents of thought were wearing down institutionalized
traditions. New ideas and new approaches to old institutions were setting the stage for great
revolutions to come.
I. Social Milieu
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1. autonomy of reason
2. perfectibility and progress
3. confidence in the ability to discover causality
4. principles governing nature, man and society
5. assault on authority
6. cosmopolitan solidarity of enlightened intellectuals
7. disgust with nationalism.
These enlightened philosophes made extravagant claims, but there was more to them than merely
negations and disinfectants. It was primarily a French movement because French culture
dominated Europe and because their ideas were expressed in the environment of the Parisian
salon. Therefore, it was basically a middle-class movement. They, nevertheless labored for man
in general, for humanity.
Clearly the feudal edifice was crumbling, but there was no real antagonism between the
bourgeoisie and the aristocracy as yet. One can detect the bourgeoisie struggling for freedom
from state regulations and for liberty of commercial activity. It is also evident that a wave of
prosperity brought a greater degree of self-confidence to the bourgeoisie. Great fortunes were
made every town. Mercantilism was loosening its hold on the economy. By 1750 the reading
public came into existence because of increasing literacy. Yet the philosophes lived a precarious
life. They never knew whether they would be imprisoned or courted. Yet they assumed the air of
an army on the march.
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II. Intellectual Setting
From the 17th century the philosophes inherited the rationalism of Descartes. but the impulse of
natural science alchemized into the Enlightenment. Newton had discovered a fundamental
cosmic law which was susceptible to mathematical proof and applicable to the minutest object as
well as to the universe as a whole. Maupertuis and Voltaire made Newton common property by
1750. John Locke had denied innate ideas and derived all knowledge, opinions and behavior
from sense experience. Condillac carried this to its conclusion by insisting that even perception
was transformed sensation.
So the traditional anthropocentric view of the universe lay in ruins and with it the
anthropomorphic conception of God. Hence Montesquieu, Voltaire, the encyclopedists and
physiocrats created the synthesis of social science which was based on past progress. All of this
was done in an atmosphere of religious, political and economic controversy. Biblical criticism
came from Hugo Grotius. Political economists, shocked by the difference between prosperous
Holland and backward Spain, first posited precious metals as the source of wealth, then
commerce, and then agricultural production (as developed by the physiocrats).
In all this controversy, social science was beginning to yield evidence--the critical and historical
method of Pierre Bayle. Exotic travel literature had its effect as well. It supported the positivist,
experimental mentality of the 18th century. It brought the aura of the "noble savage" into
prominence. There was a moral sense in natural man. Rousseau and the encyclopedists
succumbed to this idea. But that was not the case with Montesquieu and Voltaire. By 1750 the
social sciences had already become inductive, historical, anthropological, comparative, and
critical.
III. Method
There was great faith in the instrument of reason rather than mere accumulation of knowledge.
Doctrinal substance was not as important as overall philosophy. We need to keep this in mind if
we want to understand the Enlightenment. It was not so much Descartes "reason" but rather
Newton's laws--not abstraction and definition, but observation and experience were points of
departure. 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
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analysis of observed facts. Lessing said that the real power of reason lay not in the possession but
in the acquisition of truth. So pure analysis was applied to psychological and social processes.
From here on out the doctrine of historical and sociological determinism (the application of the
principle of causality to social science) was generally accepted. Many historicists have ridiculed
this naive scientific positivism. By facile dogmatism the philosophes frequently ignored their
own method.
Their new ideal of knowledge was simply a further development of 17th century logic and
science. But there was a new emphasis on
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1. the particular rather than the general
2. observable facts rather than principles
3. experience rather than rational speculation.
Except for David Hume's skepticism, the philosophes' faith in reason remained unshaken.
IV. Enlightenment and Religion
It was an age of reason based on faith, not an age of faith based on reason. The enlightenment
spiritualized the principle of religious authority, humanized theological systems, and
emancipated individuals from physical coercion. It was the Enlightenment, not the Reformation
or the Renaissance that dislodged the ecclesiastical establishment from central control of cultural
and intellectual life. by emancipating science from the trammels of theological tradition the
Enlightenment rendered possible the autonomous evolution of modern culture. Diderot said, if
you forbid me to speak on religion and government, I have nothing to say. Hence natural science
occupied the front of the stage.
Most of the philosophes wrote on natural science. To Diderot, d'Holbach and the encyclopedists
all religious dogma was absurd and obscure. LeMettrie and d'Holbach were consistent
determinists. Voltaire disagreed with them and said they had a dogmatism of their own. Diderot
too 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.
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English deism, however, was more pervasive in the Enlightenment. It emphasized an impersonal
deity, natural religion and the common morality of all human beings. Deism was a logical
outgrowth of scientific inquiry, rational faith in humanity, and the study of comparative religion.
All religions could be reduced to worship God and a commonsense moral code. There was a
universal natural religion.
Yet, it was David Hume, the Englishman, who cut the ground from under his deist friends
(Natural History of Religion). Natural religion rested on the basic assumption that man is guided
by the dictates of reason. Mind is the scene of the uniform play of motive. The motives of man
are quantitatively and qualitatively the same at all times and in all places. 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. A rational religion is a contradiction in terms. Hume here
comes close to demolishing the entire rationalist philosophy of the Enlightenment--its natural
rights, its self-evident truths and its universal and immutable laws of morality.
Voltaire is in the middle between the materialism of the Encyclopedists and the skepticism of
Hume. His ruthless and comic deflation of theological sophism prevented him from recognizing
the deepest drives of Catholicism. He conveyed the power of intellect to his generation, but also
saw the limitations of reason. Reason was, after all, a poor instrument, but it was the only
weapon that raised man above the animals. He believed in the argument from design or "first
cause." But this no longer sufficed Diderot and Hume. Voltaire accepted the classical ideal of the
brotherhood of man and the universal morality of man. He was essentially a humanist--the
greatest humanist of the Enlightenment. He had not the depth of David Hume or Immanuel Kant,
but they could not have done his work. Voltaire had only one absolute value: the human race.
The central theme of the Enlightenment is the effort to humanize religion. All philosophes
rejected original sin. Here Pascal became a problem for them. For Pascal used their method of
analytic logic to prove the existence of original sin and the utter inability of the unaided human
reason o solve the problem without accepting the authority of faith. How do you explain the
"double nature" of mankind? It becomes intelligible only through the doctrine of the fall of man.
Pascal haunted Voltaire all his life. The cruel laughter of the Candide could not suppress the
problem of evil. In the upshot he accepted Pascal's analysis of human nature. By becoming an
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agnostic he became prisoner of Pascal's argument--reason without faith ends in skepticism.
Rousseau had a more original solution to Pascal's problem. In his two discourses he painted a
picture of depravity of society that would have delighted Pascal. If he accepted degeneration how
was he to explain radical evil? He discovered a new agent of degeneration--the "fall of man"--not
god or individual man but society. Thus salvation comes through the social contract. Man must
save himself. In social justice is the meaning of life. It was neither a theological or metaphysical
solution but a modern solution.
V. History
The Enlightenment rescued history from the antiquarians and the philologists: Voltaire, Hume,
and Gibbon. Pierre Bayle was the real founder of historical criticism and the intellectual father of
the historians of the Enlightenment (Historical and Critical Dictionary, 1697). To get at the
reliable and incontrovertible facts of history was for him not a point of departure, but an end in
itself. His Dictionary was a record of errors and historical falsehoods. He transformed the dictum
that history was nothing more than a record of crimes and misfortunes of mankind. He did for
history what Galileo did for science.
Historical truth could only come from the objective examination of the human record. The
Enlightenment ideas made meaning out of this record. Empirical causation and human solidarity,
despite incessant warfare, and the idea of progress made a conceptual mastery of the chaotic and
meaningless facts of history. Enlightenment historians applied the whole culture of their age to
the past. Not the "unique event" of Leopold von Ranke, but the evolution of generic man--the
spirit of the times and nations--are the essence of history.
At the base of Voltaire's conception of civilization lay the great monarchies of Europe with their
institutions, their quests for power, but also their promotion of economic welfare, the basis of
cultural progress. Voltaire believed in the republic of scholars and in the primacy of ideas in
historical evolution. Ideas were the motive force. Thus he became the prophet of progress
(Century of Louis XIV and his more important Essay). But how does one reconcile progress and
the universality of human nature? Human nature reveals itself only in historical evolution.
Progress is the gradual assertion of reason. To some degree, this was didactic history.
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Hume also accepted the uniformity of man and failed to grasp the irrational factors in human
history. But he too asserted the primacy of ideology. Yet this static view began to change. He
believed neither in reason or in progress and was profoundly occupied with the historical
process--that is with change as such. He put facts above theory and the unique aspects were more
significant than the common occurrence (History of England). Hume, of course, was horrorstruck with Voltaire's sweeping generalizations.
VI. Social Science and Political Thought
The philosophes did not discover natural rights theory, but they made it the foundation of the
ethical and social gospel. They introduced natural rights into practical politics. 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. 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 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. So, he influenced both the aristocratic
reactionaries who wanted to revitalize feudal estates and parliaments, and the honest liberals who
idealized English constitutionalism with its principle of separation of powers, the basis of
modern constitution-making. This book 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. He is the founder of the typology of constitutional patterns.
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The Encyclopedists had a more dynamic conception. But they also believed in metaphysical
norms to which societies must conform. Hence natural religion, natural morality, natural rights,
and natural economies should prevail. They also popularized the idea of progress, stated more
clearly later by Turgot and Condorcet. They used the Leibnitz idea of continuity.
The Physiocrats shared with the philosophes a rationalist, hedonist and utilitarian outlook.
Natural rights were thought to be necessary for economic progress. They were opposed to the
rivalry and jealousies of mercantilism. They reduced all social science to economics. Quesnay
started with an examination of the agricultural situation in France. He wanted protection for
agriculture and promoted the Third Estate. But agriculture came first and liberalism second. He
thought there should be harmony between positive laws and natural laws and that this harmony
could be established via reason. The sovereign was to be a "legal despot." This vague utopian
constitutionalism was a regressive step from the ideas of Montesquieu.
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. 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.
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 is necessary. He demanded man's mastery over nature and
projected a moral rationalism.