Click to edit Master text styles

Second level

Third level

Fourth level

Fifth level

S‹#›

The era known historically as the Enlightenment marks the intellectual beginning of the modern world. Ideas originating in this era would gradually spread around the world creating challenges to existing traditions and ways of governing. Many governments today have Enlightenment principles as the basis of their constitutions and forms of government. In addition, the expansion of suffrage to women, blacks, and people of all classes is a legacy of the Enlightenment. Enlightenment ideas on equality also helped end the dominance of social elites such as the aristocracy and the church. Enlightenment thought also led many countries to establish systems of public schools and put an end to the idea that education was only a privilege for the upper classes.

Note to teacher: The image in this slide is Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s “Inspiration,” which shows a philosophe at his desk lost deep in thought.

When historians discuss the “Enlightenment,” they are usually referring to 18th-century Europe (France and England in particular), although other parts of the world (including the U.S.) are often included as well. The Enlightenment was a period of intellectual ferment that gave rise to a range of new theories about society, government, philosophy, economics, and religion. The period produced more than just abstract theorizing, however: it offered a whole new way of conceptualizing the world and one’s place in it. In many ways, this change in perception marked the beginning of the modern era, as institutions and traditions of the past began to shift—and even crumble—in the face of new ideas and approaches.

Note to teacher: The painting in this slide is Une soirée chez Madame Geoffrin. Created in 1755, it shows a French salon. Among the notable philosophes depicted in the painting are Diderot, d’Alembert, Turgot, and Condillac. A bust of Voltaire appears in the background.

The term “enlightenment” was first coined by Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher. “Sapere aude” means “dare to know” in Latin. Kant also wrote in this essay, “All that is required for this enlightenment is freedom; and particularly the least harmful of all that may be called freedom, namely, the freedom for man to make public use of his reason in all matters.” In other words, in order to be “enlightened,” a person had to think independently rather than simply follow society’s customs and traditions. Thus, the Enlightenment encouraged free thought (or at least freer and more wide-ranging thought than had occurred in the recent past).

The Enlightenment era was characterized by secularism, challenges to authority, and the glorification of reason.

Bullet #1 Many Enlightenment thinkers felt that although the great minds of the medieval and Renaissance eras had achieved much, they also had been overly constrained by religion, tradition, and superstition. To truly achieve independent thought, one had to throw off all limits and rely solely on reason.

Bullet #2 Like the pioneers of the Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment thinkers also strove to make conclusions based on observation, logic, and reason, rather than on faith.

Bullet #3 Enlightenment thinkers revived the spirit of the Renaissance quest for knowledge, choosing to focus on human nature and the workings of society rather than on spiritual matters and religious tenets. This secular approach led to the development of the social sciences.

Many Enlightenment thinkers were also mathematicians and scientists. They viewed changes in science as going hand in hand with changes in philosophy.

René Descartes was one of the most important philosophers and mathematicians of the modern era. In Discourse on Method and The Meditations, he reasoned that all of his prior knowledge was subject to doubt because it was based on traditional beliefs rather than in rational, empirical thought. He pondered what he could honestly say he knew to be true, going so far as to doubt whether he was awake or dreaming—or if he even existed. He then began to reconstruct his world view: he knew that his thoughts existed, which then suggested the existence of a thinking being—himself. Descartes then came to his famous conclusion, “Cogito ergo sum,” which means “I think, therefore, I am.”

Madame de Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XV of France, was a devotee of art and philosophy. Around the middle of the 18th century, she began holding what became known as the salon. Salons were a sort of high class cocktail party for socialites, aristocrats, and intellectuals, where people demonstrated their knowledge of new theories and tried to outwit each other. Madame de Pompadour held the most famous and best attended salons in Paris.

Enlightenment thinkers in France who went to salons were known as philosophes. For a salon to be truly successful, it had to have a philosophe in attendance as a sort of showpiece.

S10

François-Marie Arouet, known more famously as Voltaire, was the most renowned of the philosophes. A prolific writer, much of his work either satirized or attacked what he called the “relics” of the medieval social order—in particular, the church and the aristocracy. Despite—or perhaps because of—his controversial ideas, he was in high demand at salons not just in France but throughout Europe as well. He lived in the court of Frederick the Great for a time, and he was friends with Catherine the Great.

Above all, Voltaire attacked intolerance in society, politics, and religion. A famous quote usually attributed to Voltaire states, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” He felt that all governments were susceptible to tyranny, but he greatly admired the British model.

S11

Perhaps the most notable achievement of the philosophes as a group was the 17-volume Encyclopédie, known in English as Encyclopedia: The Rational Dictionary of the Sciences, the Arts, and the Crafts. In 1745, French publisher André le Breton asked writer Denis Diderot to help him translate the seminal English Cyclopedia into French. Diderot served as co-editor of the project along with mathematician Jean Le Rond d’Alembert.

S12

Shortly after beginning, Diderot came up with a much more ambitious goal than a mere translation. He wanted instead to create a comprehensive work that would include the most up-to-date knowledge on the sciences, arts, and crafts. To this end, he enlisted several of the best thinkers of the era—many of whom were well-known philosophes—to write new articles for the Encyclopédie. He also wanted to make the work accessible to a wide audience rather than just for scholars.

Although Diderot and d’Alembert ended up writing the majority of the articles, contributions also came from many noted figures (especially Voltaire, as well as Rousseau and Montesquieu). By the time the Encyclopédie finally reached completion, it contained nearly 72,000 articles accompanied by numerous illustrations.

The work as a whole represents an outstanding example of Enlightenment thought: it praised science while also questioning religion, social institutions, the legal system, and more. As a result, the Catholic Church viewed it as undermining its authority and placed the Encyclopédie on its index of forbidden works. Nevertheless, it was widely read, with people often obtaining cheaper reprint editions published in Switzerland.

S13

Englishman Thomas Hobbes was one of the first thinkers to apply rational analysis to the study of government. In his famous work Leviathan, Hobbes attacked the notion of the “divine right of kings,” which held that monarchs ruled because they had been appointed by God. Instead, he believed that a ruler derived sovereignty from the implicit consent of the people. Not surprisingly, this radical concept met with near-universal disdain.

Although it seemed to many that Hobbes was attacking monarchy, in reality he favored having strong, authoritarian rulers because of conclusions he drew about human nature. Hobbes somewhat pessimistically believed that people were driven by their passions, and that only a powerful ruler could keep society from degenerating into conflict and chaos. Without a monarch to exercise control, Hobbes wrote that people’s lives would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

S14

Bullet #1 John Locke, another English theorist, also disagreed with the notion of divine right; however, he held a very different view of human nature than Hobbes did. Locke posited that in the past, before people formed societies, they lived in a “state of nature.” He believed that all men were equal in the state of nature because they were “creatures of the same species and rank” with the “same advantages” and “same faculties.”

Bullet #2 Locke also had an interest in how humans learn. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he argued that the mind of a newborn baby was a “tabula rasa”—a “blank slate” upon which environment and experience would transcribe ideas and beliefs. Locke saw human nature as something that was externally determined rather than internally determined; correspondingly, he stressed the importance of education.

S15

Bullet #1 In his two Treatises of Government, Locke attacked the divine right of kings and authoritarian government. He promoted a constitutional monarchy that derived its power from the law and from the consent of the people. He also believed that a government’s primary responsibility was to protect individual property: he wrote, “The great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property; to which in the state of Nature there are many things wanting.”

Bullet #2 Locke believed that in the state of nature, individuals had natural rights, which he referred to as “all the rights and privileges of the law of Nature.” Locke claimed that one such right was to defend one’s “property” (which he defined as “his life, liberty, and estate”) against the “injuries and attempts of other men.” Locke built on this assumption, suggesting that if any ruler or government violated these natural rights, the people would have the right to change the government—by force if necessary.

S16

Like Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau also used the concept of a “state of nature” to draw conclusions about society and government.

Rousseau is probably best known for his idea of the “social compact,” which he outlined in his book The Social Contract. Locke had viewed societies as having been created through mutual consent of all members. Rousseau went a step further, claiming that instead of mere consent, individuals forming a society entered into a “social compact” with one another. The social compact balanced benefits with obligations. Those who entered into it would receive mutual protection and defense, along with assistance in overcoming obstacles that they could not conquer individually. In return, the social compact obligated members of society to subordinate their “natural liberty” (i.e., the freedom enjoyed by individuals in the state of nature) to “the supreme direction of the general will.”

S17

The Baron de Montesquieu was a French nobleman whose primary contributions to the Enlightenment’s political thought came in his 1748 treatise The Spirit of the Laws. Years before writing the treatise, Montesquieu had visited several European countries, carefully observing the workings of each nation’s government. In The Spirit of the Laws, he laid out a comparative study of types of governments, then put forward his own theory of government.

S18

Montesquieu identified three sorts of governmental power: legislative, executive “in respect to things dependent on the law of nations,” and executive “in regard to those things that depend on civil law” (i.e., the judiciary). Montesquieu believed that if one person or group of people held any two or all three of these powers, it would result in “tyrannical laws” executed in a “tyrannical manner.” His ideas here provided the basis for the doctrine known as “separation of powers,” which significantly influenced the framers of the U.S. Constitution and thus the shaping of the American government.

Montesquieu did not believe that democracy was the best form of government. Instead, he favored a constitutional monarchy based on the British model. He greatly admired Britain’s government because he felt that Parliament, the king, and the courts worked separately and efficiently since each could limit the power of the other. This idea of the different branches of government each preventing the others from obtaining too much power later led to the theory of “checks and balances,” which also influenced the framers of the U.S. Constitution.

S19

One of the offshoots of Enlightenment philosophy was a changed view of the role of women in society. Enlightenment thinkers held reason supreme and valued education as the best way to develop a person. They also viewed education as crucial for moral development and for society to function as close to ideal as possible. Many thinkers, therefore, advocated education for women; however, they differed on the specific things they believed women should be taught, and most male thinkers did not extend their arguments to advocate full equality for women. Not surprisingly, some women disagreed with this position and wrote important works advocating equality for women.

S20

During the early days of the French Revolution, the National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The document drew equally upon Enlightenment ideas and current events at the time to make statements both about basic political rights and the particular abuses which many had suffered under the rule of Louis XVI.

In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, a teacher and writer from Great Britain, composed A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Wollstonecraft had been living in Paris during the French Revolution and knew many of its leaders. The publication of the Declaration prompted her to outline her philosophy on the inequalities that existed between the sexes. She was disheartened by the fact that in spite of their belief in equality, the leaders of the Revolution did not extend that equality to women. She saw this as hypocritical and hoped her work would convince French leaders (especially Talleyrand, to whom she dedicated the book) to recognize that women had the same natural rights and intellectual capacity as men.

S21

Wollstonecraft believed women were kept in ignorance “under the specious name of innocence.” She refers here to a common argument of the time which held that women should not be educated because it would ruin their natural “innocence” and have a detrimental effect on their character. She felt that denying education to women would deprive them of the tools they needed to properly exercise their reason.

In the first chapter of her book, Wollstonecraft proclaimed, “It is time to effect a revolution in female manners—time to restore to them their lost dignity—and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world.” Many regard A Vindication of the Rights of Women as marking the beginning of the modern women’s rights movement.

S22

Olympe de Gouges also lived in Paris during the French Revolution and also produced a response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Her 1791 work, The Rights of Women, criticized the leaders of the Revolution for continuing to “oppress” women even though they had just been freed from oppression themselves. The heart of The Rights of Women consisted of a “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen” that mimicked the language of the Declaration. For example, while Article 1 of the original Declaration stated that, “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.” Article 1 of de Gouges’ declaration says, “Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only on the common utility.”

De Gouges also included a form for a “Social Contract Between Men and Women.” Much more strident in tone than Wollstonecraft, de Gouges urged women to “wake up” and “discover your rights.” She harshly criticized the Revolution, asking, “Oh, women, women! When will you cease to be blind? What advantage have you received from the Revolution? A more pronounced scorn, a more marked disdain.” She also decried the bloodshed of the Revolution, which led many to label her as a reactionary. In 1793, she was guillotined.

S23

During the time of the Enlightenment, most of the countries in continental Europe were ruled by monarchs who exercised absolute power. Many of these monarchs read Enlightenment works and were intrigued by the new ideas thinkers put forth. The philosophes thought that an “enlightened” monarch could implement their ideas, which would result in better laws and a general improvement in the quality of life for all citizens. Some thinkers did end up corresponding with or advising European monarchs and eventually influenced many to put a range of Enlightenment ideals into practice.

S24

Frederick II of Prussia, often called “Frederick the Great,” was fascinated with Enlightenment philosophy. He also was drawn to the arts: not only did he strongly support them during his reign, he also composed poems, essays, and several pieces of music. Frederick also loved all things French: he was such a Francophile that he preferred to speak and write in French rather than German. He greatly admired Voltaire and invited him to come to Prussia as his personal guest. Voltaire accepted and ended up living in Berlin and Potsdam for two years.

S25

When Frederick ascended to the throne, Prussia had a strong military but remained rather backward in its customs and government. Frederick wanted to transform Prussia into a modern state and introduced many reforms that drew upon Enlightenment ideas. He granted religious freedom, improved education, systematized the government to make it more efficient, simplified many laws, and outlawed torture.

Though most historians do regard Frederick as “enlightened,” he only went so far in implementing Enlightenment ideas. For example, his support of the nobility and the fact that he made no attempt to abolish serfdom demonstrate the limitations of his devotion to Enlightenment ideals.

S26

Catherine II of Russia, often called “Catherine the Great,” was also attracted to Enlightenment ideas. She immersed herself in the works of leading thinkers, focusing in particular on the French philosophes. She corresponded with such notables as Voltaire and Diderot and also composed several comedies, works of fiction, and memoirs.

During her reign, she made determined efforts to “westernize” Russia. In the cultural arena, she brought in several leading European intellectuals in order to introduce the Russian elite to Enlightenment ideas. She also bought and imported a vast amount of art. Economically, she made attempts to get foreign capitalists to invest in Russia; she also championed efforts to modernize industry and agriculture.

S27

Domestically, Catherine focused a great deal of effort on reforming and improving Russian law and society. Inspired by the ideas of Enlightenment political thinkers like Montesquieu, she composed a plan to completely overhaul the legal code. Other measures she instituted promoted education, relaxed the censorship law, and restricted the use of torture.

In a 1773–1774 uprising, peasants in southwestern Russia revolted and took control of several forts and cities. Although Catherine’s army put down the insurgents before they progressed any further, the revolt had a major effect on any ideas she had on reforming serfdom. Instead, she reorganized local governments so that they would become more efficient and better able to control the serfs. In 1785, she enacted reforms that strengthened the nobility. She granted them absolute control of the serfs, freed them from taxation, confiscated church land and gave it to nobles, opened up new areas to serfdom, and made nobility hereditary. Thus, like Frederick, Catherine’s devotion to Enlightenment ideals only went so far.

S28

Austrian ruler Maria Theresa started many reforms, but it was really her son, Joseph II, who is better characterized as an “enlightened” monarch.

Maria Theresa centralized and streamlined many aspects of government and the military. In addition, in the later years of her rule she strove to improve the lives of serfs by reducing the power nobles had over them.

S29

Joseph ruled as co-regent with his mother beginning in 1765. Like other “enlightened” monarchs, he believed in the power of reason; however, the measures he undertook once he became sole ruler in 1780 were much more radical than those instituted by other monarchs. He encouraged religious toleration of Protestants and Jews; he reduced the power of the Catholic Church in Austria and brought it more firmly under his control; and, in his most controversial measure, he abolished serfdom and decreed that peasants be paid in cash for their labors. This cash proviso, however, infuriated the nobles and was even rejected by the peasants, who preferred a barter economy. Joseph’s power and health both waned in succeeding years, and his reforms didn’t last long after his death in 1790.

S30

King Gustav III of Sweden voraciously read most of the French works of the Enlightenment. He also wrote several plays and historical essays.

Upon ascending to the throne, Gustav sought to rid the Swedish government of corruption and to institute measures in line with Enlightenment principles. Among his reforms: he issued an ordinance providing for freedom of the press, he abolished torture, he relaxed the poor law, he supported complete religious freedom, he encouraged free trade and removed export tolls, he shored up the country’s weakened currency, and he even invented a national costume that became quite popular for a while.

By the mid-1780s, however, Gustav began to shift away from a constitutional monarchy toward an absolutist one. He had grown weary of battling with the Swedish Parliament and the nobility. War with Russia later in the decade provided him with an excuse to increase his power at the expense of the legislature and the gentry. The 1789 Act of Unity and Security allowed him to overcome the nobility’s opposition to the war. He then drew up a new constitution that broadened royal authority; the lower classes, also fed up with the nobles, supported him. With his power assured, Gustav managed to lead his armies to a stunning victory over Russia. The Swedish people hailed him, but the aristocracy still held resentments. In 1792, a conspiracy of nobles hired an assassin to kill Gustav; Gustav was shot in the back and died some two weeks later.

S31

Napoleon Bonaparte had been a soldier since the age of 16, after having spent his early years in a military academy. He came to prominence as a young officer in 1795 when he defended the National Convention against royalist forces. He rose quickly after that and eventually seized power by engineering a coup d’etat in 1799 that effectively ended the French Revolution; later, in 1804, he had himself crowned emperor.

Napoleon wasn’t really an “enlightened monarch” like Frederick, Catherine, Joseph, Gustav, or Maria Theresa. Those rulers had avidly read important Enlightenment works and consciously sought to implement Enlightenment principles. Napoleon did not share this affinity for the works of Enlightenment writers; however, he did institute a number of reforms that were in line with Enlightenment ideals.

S32

In education, he created a system of public schools known as lycées. These schools were open not just to the upper classes but to the children of all citizens. Graduates of the lycées were considered qualified for government jobs and did not need family connections to obtain these positions, as had previously been the case.

Napoleon also created a uniform set of laws known as the Civil Code of 1804. In some areas, the laws reflected Enlightenment principles. For example, the Code guaranteed equality for all male citizens and the right to secure wealth and private property. In other areas, however, the Code worked to restrict individual rights, placing limits on freedom of speech and freedom of the press and rolling back political gains women had made during the French Revolution.

S33

Written by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence shows the influence of Enlightenment ideas—particularly those of Locke and Montesquieu.

Jefferson drew upon Locke’s concepts of natural rights and equality in the “state of nature” when he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Jefferson also employed Locke’s conclusion that if a government denied citizens their natural rights, the people had the right to change the government. He stated, “when a long train of abuses and usurpations…evinces a design to reduce them [the people] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

S34

The framers of the Constitution essentially took Montesquieu’s concept of separation of powers and put it into practice, creating a tripartite government that split authority between executive, legislative, and judicial branches. They also instituted measures designed to ensure that no one branch would become too powerful. Popularly known as “checks and balances,” these measures included things like the president’s veto power, the fact that only Congress can declare war, and the provision that federal and Supreme Court judges hold their terms for life.

S35

The French strongly supported the colonies against Britain during the American Revolution. Hundreds of French officers (most notably, the Marquis de Lafayette) who participated in the Revolution were influenced by how the Americans applied Enlightenment ideas on government both in waging the war and in creating a new nation.

In 1789, King Louis XVI decided to place a tax on land, an idea that the nobility and the Church—who had both been exempt from taxation up to this time—greatly disliked. They fought Louis by claiming that a new tax could only be approved at a meeting of a body known as the Estates General, which represented all three of France’s social “estates”: the Church, the nobility, and the rest of the population. The Third Estate, which made up 98% of France’s population, had become increasingly dissatisfied with its lack of political power. Middle-class citizens at this time functioned more or less as the leaders of the Third Estate, and had been influenced by Enlightenment ideas regarding things like liberty, equality, and rights. They had come to want a voice in government, and at the meeting of the Estates General, they demanded a constitution in return for approving the tax. A chain of events was set in motion that eventually led to the overthrow and execution of the king: this was the French Revolution.

S36

In 1789, the National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man. This document clearly reflected Enlightenment ideals related to liberty, property, natural rights, and the ending of oppression. For example, the first three articles of the Declaration stated:

1. “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.”

2. “The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.”

3. “The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.”

The influence of the Enlightenment on the French Revolution can be seen most clearly in its slogan: “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”—“Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.”

S37

As stated at the beginning, the Enlightenment marks the intellectual beginning of the modern world. Enlightenment principles have become the basis of constitutions and forms of government for many countries. Universal suffrage and equal rights legislation are a direct legacy of the Enlightenment. Finally, Enlightenment thought led many countries to establish systems of free public education and put an end to the idea that education was only a privilege for the upper classes.