Chapter 17 Outline

I. The Enlightenment- a movement of intellectuals who applied the scientific method to

the understanding of all life. Scientific Revolution found the natural laws that
governed nature; the Enlightenment sought to discover the natural laws that govern
human society
a. The Paths to Enlightenment
i. The new ideas in science, particularly the laws that governed nature, made
Europeans want to inquire further about natural law in other aspects.
ii. Bernard de Fontenelle aided the popularization of science by making it
easy to understand for European elites. He was secretary of the French
Royal Academy of Science from 1691-1741. In his position he
communicated the discoveries the previous centuries through literature
and narrative. This made the use of the scientific method and reason more
popular among the upper class.
iii. Skepticism, or doubt especially of traditional religious beliefs, became
more common during the 18th century. For example, Pierre Bayle
promoted tolerance and criticized monarchs that tried to create religious
conformity in their realms (like Louis XIV) as he believed it would create
hypocrites. Europe was becoming increasingly secular.
iv. Exploration also led to new ideas about humankind. When Europeans
discovered new lands, they sent traders, missionaries, doctors, and
explorers who would return with marvelous accounts of native people that
were very different from Europeans. James Cook who discovered Tahiti
and New Zealand wrote an especially popular book entitled Travels. He
presented the idea that the Tahitians were probably happier than the
Europeans because they were more free and uninhibited by customs. This
led to the idea of the “noble savage” which meant that non-Europeans
were not educated and yet perhaps superior to Europeans in some ways.
Cultural relativism became key; Europeans realized that their ideas and
way of life was only one of many and other cultures should be respected
as well.
v. Philosophes of the Enlightenment built upon the foundation established by
Newton and Locke. Newton made sense of the laws of the world through
reason. Locke said that people were not born with innate knowledge but
were rather “blank slates” that could be shaped by their environment.
Taken together, these ideas meant that the philosophes could build a new
world for themselves and future generations through understanding laws
based on reason.
b. The Philosophes and Their Ideas
i. Intellectuals of the Enlightenment were called philosophes. They were
mostly professors, journalists, statesmen, economists, political scientists,
and social reformers. Paris was the recognized capital of the
Enlightenment because of the dominant political, social, and economic
role of France during the 18th century.
 ii. Philosophes relied on reason to explain the world and to help humankind
progress. They called for freedom of expression despite strict censorship
laws that inhibited what they could write. They attacked traditional
religion, advocated tolerance, and denounced slavery.
iii. Montesquieu- the Baron de Montesquieu (Charles de Secondat) critiqued
French society. In his most famous work, The Spirit of Laws published in
1748, he analyzed and observed different government systems. He
believed that a separation of powers (where executive, legislative, and
judicial authority is split up amongst groups that limited each other) was
the best system. He declared England to be a good example of this. His
work was translated into English and read by American philosophes
(Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton,
Thomas Jefferson) that would incorporate his ideas into the US
Constitution.
iv. Voltaire- also known as Francois-Marie Arouet, he first gained fame in
France and later England as a playwright. Voltaire was very witty but that
sometimes got him into trouble. He criticized the intolerance of the French
monarchy (which was quite common in the 18th century and would
eventually lead to revolution). The bulk of his work advocated religious
toleration such as his 1763 Treatise on Toleration in which he argued that
both England and Holland had benefitted from religious toleration and
other countries could do likewise. Voltaire was also an advocate of deism
or the idea that God had created the world but now had no direct
involvement in it. Deists believed God allowed the world to work
according to natural laws that he had previously created and that God did
not offer grace nor answer prayers as Christians suggested.
v. Diderot- the son of a skilled craftsman (middle-class background), Diderot
was a philosophe intent on attacking Christianity. His most famous
contribution was the Encyclopedia which included articles written by
other philosophes that attacked traditional and superstitious beliefs.
Diderot’s goal was to change the general way of thinking so later editions
became less expensive allowing more people to afford the Encyclopedia
which further spread the ideas of the Enlightenment.
vi. The Enlightenment belief in Newton’s scientific method led to what was
called the “science of man” or what we would today call the social
sciences. It was basically the idea that people could be rationalized the
same way the physical world was rationalized. One of the biggest
proponents of this idea was Scottish philosopher David Hume.
vii. One such social science that made great progress was economics or the
rationalizing of the laws of human decision making and wealth. Early
economists were called Physiocrats. They came up with natural laws of
economics that contradicted the prior theory of mercantilism. For
example, they believed that wealth was only supplied through land and
agriculture, not through bullion (gold and silver). Another law of
economics was that supply and demand should govern production, not the
government. This started the idea of laissez-faire which meant the
 government should stay out of economics. Perhaps the best known of the
Physiocrats was Adam Smith who published these economic laws in his
book Wealth of Nations (though he said that labor, not land, was the true
wealth of nations). This paved the way for economic liberalism that would
appear in the 19th century.
viii. As the Enlightenment progressed (by the 1760s), later philosophes started
to move beyond their predecessors. Baron Paul d’Holbach gave up on
deism in favor of atheism and encouraged people to live a moral life not
for fear of eternal punishment but because it made society civil. Other
philosophes believed that humans had reached the pinnacle of progress
and were nearly perfect.
ix. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a late Enlightenment philosophe most critical
of his predecessors. Rousseau believed that people were happy before
governments existed, but now they had to deal with the necessary evil. In
The Social Contract published in 1762, he argued that governments should
determine what was best for people through the general will (or what the
majority thought was best for all). Rousseau also wrote a book called
Emile about the ideal Enlightenment education. Rousseau believed
children should learn through experience and that education should not
restrict their natural instincts. In his emphasis on emotion and sentiment,
he became a precursor of the movement called Romanticism which was a
break from Enlightenment focus on reason alone.
x. Women also used the Enlightenment to argue for a change in their place in
society. Mary Astell encouraged the education of women and more
freedom for them in marriage. Mary Wollstonecraft, considered the
founder of feminism, wrote a book called Vindication of the Rights of
Women in 1792 where she showed the contradictions in the ideas of male
philosophes toward women. First, she argued that if the philosophes
believed slavery and despotism to be wrong, then forcing women to obey
men was just as wrong. Second, she argued that if all men were born with
reason, then all women must be born with reason and therefore be entitled
to the same rights as men.
c. The Social Environment of the Philosophes
i. Part of what made the Enlightenment so popular among the middle and
upper classes was the dissemination of information through salons. Salons
were the elegant drawing rooms of the wealthy where philosophes and
guests were invited in engage in conversation. Salons provided a place for
people and ideas suppressed in royal courts to be expressed. For example,
when Diderot’s Encyclopedia was suppressed by authorities, Madame de
Geoffrin (a well-known salon hostess) invited the authors to her house and
helped them complete the work in secret.
ii. Because the salons were run by women, this was an opportunity for
women to influence politics and society by the stature of the men that they
invited.
iii. Other means of spreading Enlightenment ideas included: coffeehouses,
cafes, reading clubs, and public lending libraries. Learned societies were
 formed throughout Europe and America to spread Enlightenment ideas.
Secret societies, most notably the Freemasons, were also established to
further the education of humankind.
II. Culture and Society in the Enlightenment
a. Innovations in Art, Music, and Literature
i. In the 1730’s a new style of art called Rococo appeared on the European
stage. Whereas Baroque art stressed majesty, power, and movement,
Rococo art stressed lightness, charm, pursuit of pleasure, happiness, and
love. Often the decorative features of Rococo were mixed with Baroque
architecture particularly as other monarchs tried to emulate Versailles.
ii. Although Rococo was popular amongst the upper class, Neoclassicism
continued to maintain a strong appeal late into the 18th century. This style
wanted a return to the dignity and moral seriousness of Classical styles
like Greece and Rome. This style was very popular during the French
Revolution.
iii. The 17th and 18th centuries were the formative years of classical music.
The two main developers of the Baroque musical style (1600-1750) were
Bach and Handel. Johann Sebastian Bach originated in Germany and
received patronage from several churches. Bach believed he composed to
glorify God. In contrast, George Frederick Handel, also from Germany,
was much more secular. He traveled to Italy and eventually to England
where he ran an opera company. Despite being so worldly, one of his most
well-known works was the Messiah and is still considered a masterpiece
today.
iv. By the 2nd half of the 18th century, new instruments had been invented
which led to a change in music now called the classical era (1750-1830).
One of the great classical composers was Franz Joseph Haydn who spent
his life as a music director for wealthy Hungarian princes. Haydn was one
of the first to start composing symphonies for orchestras to include the
newly invented instruments.
v. Perhaps the most impressive composer of all time was Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, a child prodigy who gave his first performance at 6 and wrote his
first opera at 12. Unfortunately, he was unable to find permanent
patronage in Vienna (because he wanted more freedom to work) and died
a pauper at age 35. Nevertheless, his operas such as The Marriage of
Figaro and Don Giovanni are two of the best of all time.
vi. The writing of history also improved during the Enlightenment. Historians
of this era, unlike their Renaissance predecessors, focused on the totality
of human experience as opposed to just politics. However, since they were
philosophes at heart and consequently focused mostly on reason, they
were not sympathetic to the Middle Ages.
b. The High Culture of the Eighteenth Century
i. Historians differentiate between high culture (or elite culture) of the
wealthy, literate ruling classes and the popular culture of the poor,
uneducated, working classes.
 ii. The key to high culture was literacy and the spread of ideas through the
written word. This led to the growth of magazines in the mid-18th century
and the creation of daily newspapers which began in London in 1702.
Books were also able to gain more circulation with new public libraries.
iii. Secondary schools started to change their curriculum as a result of the
Enlightenment to make them more practical and prepare their students for
careers in business. Similar schools were opened for girls, but their
curriculum focused on religion and domestic skills.
c. Crime and Punishment
i. In the 18th century, crimes were punished in horrific ways, usually
involving torture in order to deter future offenders since the police force
was too weak to ensure criminals would be captured. In addition to torture
and execution, European states resorted to forced labor in mines, forts, and
navies, or sent criminals as indentured servants to the New World and
Australia.
ii. Philosophes found this method barbaric and wanted to change how
criminals were treated. Italian philosophe, Cesare Beccaria, turned heads
with his book On Crimes and Punishments in which he argued that
punishments should be deterrents, not exercises in brutality. Beccaria even
opposed capital punishment because he said it was hypocritical for a
government to make laws against homicide and then use it as an
instrument of justice.
iii. As a result of philosophe-reformers, corporal and capital punishment
decreased during the 18th century while new prisons were created to hold
and reform criminals.
d. The World of Medicine
i. Despite the scientific advances of the 17th century, medicine had not
changed much by the early 18th century. Physicians with university
degrees and licenses were at the top of the social hierarchy. Barber-
surgeons were below the physicians because they performed surgery and
bled patients. In the mid-18th century, surgeons stopped cutting hair and
pulling teeth, increased their education, and started issuing licenses. The
line between physicians and surgeons started to break down.
ii. Attempts to reform overcrowded, filthy hospitals where people left with
diseases that they did not have when they entered failed to take effect.
e. Popular Culture
i. Group activity and communal values characterized the popular culture.
Festivals (any community celebration for a special purpose) showed the
extent of social activities available to the poor. Most popular of these
festivals was Carnival which was celebrated in the weeks leading up to
Lent. Carnival was a time for the popular culture to release their pent-up
frustration through heavy consumption of food and alcohol, criticizing
their peers and social superiors, and physical violence like throwing
apples, eggs, or flour at others.
ii. A sense of community could also be found in taverns where the poor often
drank themselves into oblivion which led to reformers from the upper
 class restricting the sale of cheap and dangerous alcohols. This
demonstrates the difference between the elite and popular culture and their
view on morality.
iii. Popular culture was based on oral tradition but they also had chapbooks
(short brochures with inspirational or adventure stories). Literacy was the
biggest thing that separated the high and the popular cultures. Although
the popular culture made some gains in the 18th century through new
primary schools, they were often inhibited by the elite who thought
educating the poor was dangerous.
III. Religion and the Churches- despite the increase in secularization, most of Europe
remained strongly Christian throughout the Enlightenment
a. The Institutional Church
i. In Protestant countries, the state controlled the church. Catholic countries
also wanted more state control over the church so they pushed for the
abolition of the Jesuits because the society was the main source of papal
power outside Rome. Pope Clement XIV reluctantly agree in 1773 which
led to further decline in papal power.
ii. Monarchs saw religious toleration as being dangerous to the state. They
mostly followed the example of Louis XIV. The last burning of a heretic
occurred in 1781. Some monarchs, however, heeded the encouragement of
the philosophes. Austrian emperor, Joseph II, went the furthest by making
all religions equal before the law.
iii. Full religious tolerance did not extend to the Jewish populations in Europe
that were often the victims of pogroms, special taxes, and restricted
movement. Most Christians in Europe believed the only way to solve the
problem was for the Jews to convert to Christianity, an option not
accepted by most Jews.
b. Popular Religion in the Eighteenth Century
i. Catholics in the 17th and 18th centuries remained generally devout, or at
least superstitious of what would go wrong if they did not worship in the
right way.
ii. Protestant churches had also settled into a predictable pattern of worship
after the turmoil of the religious wars up through the mid-17th century.
Some church-goers were looking for a more personal experience with God
which led to the rise of pietism in Germany. Pietism focused on
recognizing one’s personal experiences with God throughout one’s life. A
similar movement was started in England by John Wesley who would
preach to large masses in open fields about the grace of God. These
masses would then organize into Methodist societies (or chapels) in which
they could aid one another in performing good works. After Wesley’s
death, Methodism became a separate faith
iii. Despite the Enlightenment focus on reason, the need for spiritual
experience did not go away in the 18th century.