The Scientific Revolution was the single most important event that fostered the creation of a new intellectual movement in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries called the Enlightenment, or, sometimes, the Age of Reason – a time period defining the generation that came of age between the publication of Newton’s ideas in 1687, and the death of Louis XIV in 1715. The Enlightenment’s core of thought was that natural law could be used to examine and understand all aspects of society.
The Enlightenment’s leaders believed that by using scientific method they could explain the laws of society and human nature. It was an optimistic creed – armed with the proper methods of discovering the laws of human nature, Enlightened thinkers were convinced they could solve all problems. They believed it was possible to create a better society and people and that progress was inevitable. They were free from the restraints of religion and focused instead on improving economic and social conditions. Consequently, the movement was profoundly secular.
Some important Enlightened thinkers include the following:
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) An English writer, Hobbes was influenced by the experimental attitude toward nature and decided to apply it to politics. Writing at the time of the English Civil War, Hobbes was forced to flee London to Paris in 1648 because he feared for his life. In 1651 he wrote Leviathan, a title he chose after the sea monster from the biblical book of Job. Hobbes believed that humans in their original state of nature were unhappy. In the state of nature, Hobbes asserted that man was quarrelsome, turbulent, and forever locked in a war against all. He supported an absolute monarch (although he did not support the Divine Right Theory of government) because he thought that man needed protection from destroying himself and an all-powerful ruler was the best source of such protection. Thus, man enters a social contract to surrender his freedom to an absolute ruler, in order to maintain law and order. The subject could never rebel and the monarchs had the right to put down any rebellion by any means possible.
Hobbes’s ideas never won great popularity. In England, Royal Absolutism, a cause he supported, never gained acceptance. He was overshadowed by his contemporary John Locke.
John Locke (1632-1704) Like Hobbes, Locke was interested in the world of science. His book, Two Treatises on Government (1690) was written as a philosophical justification for the Glorious Revolution, which refers to the bloodless overthrow of James II in 1689 and the end of absolutism in England. This work translated his belief in natural law into a theory of government that became known as The Social Contract. Locke argued that man is born basically good and has certain natural rights of life, liberty, and property. To protect these natural rights, people enter into a social contract to create a government with limited powers. Locke believed that if a government did not protect these rights or exceeded its authority, the people have a right to revolt, if necessary. Locke’s ideas of consent of the governed, social contract, and the right of revolution influenced the writing of the United States Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Locke’s ideas also laid the foundation for the criticisms of absolute government in France.
It was in France that the Enlightenment reached its highest development.
Some of the reasons for this were the following:
The French used the term philosopher (philosophe) to describe the thinkers of the age. The philosophers were committed to bringing new thought to all of Europe. They wanted to educate the economic and social elite but not necessarily the masses. Philosophers who were not allowed to criticize either the church or state openly, circulated their work in the form of books, plays, novels, dictionaries, and encyclopedias, using satire and double meaning to spread their messages and thus prevented their writings from being burned or banned. Salons, gatherings organized by wealthy women held in large drawing rooms in their homes, were also used to help philosophers avoid trouble with authorities. At these meetings, philosophers would gather to discuss politics, philosophy, and current issues. These discussions allowed the writers greater freedom to spread their words. Enlightened thinkers considered themselves part of an intellectual community. They shared their ideas through books, personal letters, and visits back and forth amongst themselves.
Some of the important French philosophers were the following:
Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) A French aristocrat who wanted to limit royal absolutism. In his book, The Spirit of Laws (1748), he urged that power be separated among three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. Each branch would check the other branches, thus preventing despotism and preserving freedom. Montesquieu admired the British system of government and was critical of the absolutism of the French monarchy because all power was concentrated on one person. His theory of the separation of powers greatly influenced the framers of the United States Constitution.
Voltaire (1694-1778) Born François-Marie Arouet, Voltaire is considered to be the greatest of all the Enlightened philosophers. Educated by Jesuits, he challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. Although he believed in God, his God was a distant deistic God – a clockmaker who built an orderly universe and then let it operate under the laws of science. Voltaire hated religious intolerance, urged religious freedom, and thought that religion crushed the human spirit. In his book, Candide, he wrote against the evils of organized religion, and in his Treatise on Toleration, he argued for religious tolerance. Voltaire denounced organized religion because it exploited people’s ignorance and superstitions.
Deism was intended to construct a more natural religion based on reason and natural law. His most famous anti-religious statement was “Ecrasez l’infame,” (“Crush the horrible thing.”)
In 1717, he was imprisoned in the Bastille for eleven months, after which he was forced to live in exile for three years in Great Britain, a period of time that greatly influenced the rest of his life. Like Montesquieu, Voltaire came to admire Britain’s system of government. He praised their limited monarchy, respect for civil liberties, and freedom of thought. He promoted freedom of thought and respect for all. Typical of his outlook is the statement attributed to him: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Voltaire became a European celebrity who in 1743 lived in the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia, and became a supporter of Enlightened Despotism.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Like other Enlightened writers, Rousseau was committed to individual freedom. However, he attacked rationalism and civilization, considering them to be destroying rather than liberating man. Instead, spontaneous feeling was to replace and complement the coldness of intellectualism. According to Rousseau, man was basically born good and needed protecting from the corrupting influences of civilization. These ideas would later greatly influence the Romantic Movement of the nineteenth century, which rebelled against the culture of the Enlightenment.
Rousseau’s book, The Social Contract, published in 1762, begins with the famous line, “All men are born free but everywhere they are in chains.” He believed that as social inequalities develop, people enter into a social contract agreeing to surrender their individual rights to the community and the general will, or the will of the majority, in order to be free – thus creating a government as a necessary evil to carry out the general will. If the government fails, people have the right to replace it. Although Rousseau’s concept of the General Will appealed to democrats and nationalists after the French Revolution of 1789, it has also been used by dictators like Adolf Hitler to justify totalitarian rule by claiming that a dictator or one-party ruler speaks for the General Will to which all citizens owe obedience.
In 1762, Rousseau also published Émile, a book that stirred controversy because of its attacks on civilization and its new theory of education. He criticized education that focused on the development of reason and logical thinking and advocated greater love, tenderness, and understanding towards children. Rousseau argued for more humane treatment of children and for children to develop naturally and spontaneously. Children had to explore nature as a way to raise their emotional awareness. Emile helped to change the educational and child rearing practices in eighteenth-century Europe.
Denis Diderot (1713-1784) Diderot published his writings and the ideas of many Enlightened philosophers in his Encyclopedia (1751). This 25-volume collection of political and social critiques, which included writers such as Voltaire and Montesquieu, attacked abuses of the French government, including religious intolerance and unjust taxation. The Encyclopedia was an example of the eighteenth-century belief that all knowledge could be organized in a systematic and scientific fashion. Diderot hoped that this information would help people to think and act rationally and critically.
The Physiocrats were economic thinkers in eighteenth-century France who developed the first complete system of economics. Like the philosophes, the Physiocrats looked for natural laws to define a rational economic system. However, the Physiocrats, unlike the philosophes, were close to the government as advisors.
Some famous Physiocrats include the following:
François Quesnay (1694-1774) Quesnay was the French leader of the Physiocrats and a physician to Louis XV. He supported a hands-off, or laissez-faire approach to the government’s involvement in the economy.
Adam Smith (1727-1790) He was a Scottish economist. While not an actual Physiocrat member, Smith had met with the Physiocrats on the continent and adopted and refined many of their ideas. In his Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, the same year as the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Smith argues against strict government control of mercantilism. He outlined the nucleus of the economic system that came to be known as capitalism. Smith believed in a hands-off, or laissez-faire approach to business. He argued that individuals should be left to pursue their own economic gain. The role of the state is to act as a policeman who intervenes only when necessary. Smith thought that the invisible hand of supply, demand, and competition would ensure that people would act in the best interest of everyone.