CHAPTER 17



CHAPTER 17

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: AN AGE OF ENLIGHTENEMENT

CHAPTER OUTLINE

I. The Enlightenment; reason, natural law, hope and progress

A. The Paths to Enlightenment

1. The Popularization of Science; Bernard de Fontenelle, Plurality of Worlds

2. A New Skepticism; Pierre Bayle, conscience and toleration, Historical and Critical Dictionary

3. The Impact of Travel Literature; James Cook, Travels, “Noble Savage” cultural relativism, impact of different religions

4. The Legacy of Locke and Newton, natural laws, tabula rasa

B. The Philosophes and Their Ideas; Who are they, cosmopolitan nature, Paris as capital, role of philosophy, rational criticism, state censorship,

1. Montesquieu and Political Thought; Persian Letters, The Spirit of the Laws, three types of states, separation of powers, checks and balances, misinterpretation of English constitution, effects

2. Voltaire and the Enlightenment; Playwright, Philosophic Letters on The English, criticism of religion, Treatise on Toleration, deism

3. Diderot and the Encyclopedia; views on religion, purpose of encyclopedia, price

4. The New “Science of Man,” David Hume, Francis Quesnay and the Physiocrats, land as source of wealth, supply and demand, laissez faire, Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, labor as source of wealth, functions of government, economic liberalism

5. The Later Enlightenment; Baron Paul d’Holbach, extreme atheism, Marie jean de Condorcet, The Progress of the Human Mind, perfection of human beings

6. Rousseau and the Social Contract; Discourse on the Origins of the Inequality of Mankind, humans in a state of nature, role of private property, The Social Contract, the General Will, Emile, Romanticism, women and children

7. The “Woman’s Question” in the Enlightenment; Mary Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Reflections upon Marriage, Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women, arguments for the equality of women

C. The Social Environment of the Philosophes; crossing class lines, Salons, Marie-Therese de Geoffrin, Women as Salon leaders, Public gathering places, societies,

II. Culture and Society in the Enlightenment

A. Innovations in Art, Music, and Literature

1. Rococo; grace and action, floral and natural motifs, Antoine Watteau, impact of Versailles, Balthasar Neumann, neoclassicism, Jacques-Louis David

2. The Development of Music; new innovations (Opera, etc), patrons, Baroque music, Bach, Handel, Classical era, new instruments, Haydn, Mozart,

3. The Development of the Novel; Samuel Richardson and Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

4. The Writing of History; branching out from God and Politics, instruction and entertainment, Edward Gibbon Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

B. The High Culture of the Eighteenth Century; High vs. Popular culture, expansion of publishers and readers, magazines, The Spectator and The Female Spectator, newspapers, public libraries

1. Education and Universities; secondary schools for the elite, curriculum, Realschule, schools for girls, changes in university curriculum

C. Crime and Punishment; torture, forced labor and public punishment, indentured servants, Cesare Beccaria On Crimes and Punishment, capital punishment vs. Imprisonment, new prisons

D. The World of Medicine; physicians, old ideas and new methods, Surgeons, training and licensing, apothecaries, midwives and faith healers, hospitals

E. Popular Culture; collective and public, festivals

1. Carnival; Lent and Easter, permissive behavior

2. Taverns and Alcohol; social functions, alcohol consumption, divisions between upper and lower classes

3. Literacy and Primary Education; chapbooks, growing literacy, catholic and state supported schools, protestants and primary education

III. Religion and the Churches

A. The Institutional Church; roles of the church

1. Church-State Relations; Protestants and state control, catholic power and wealth, nationalization of Catholic Churches, declines in Jesuit and papal power,

2. Toleration and Religious Minorities; burning of heretics, Joseph II of Austria

3. Toleration and the Jews; Ashkenazic Jews, restrictions and problems, Sephardic Jews, areas of settlement, Views of the philosophes, Austrian exception,

B. Popular Religion in the Eighteenth Century

1. Catholic Piety, common practice of the religion

2. Protestant Revivalism: Rational Christianity, Pietism

3. Wesley and Methodism: taking the gospel to the people, Methodist societies

CHAPTER SUMMARY

The eighteenth century was the age of the Enlightenment, an era when intellectuals, known as philosophes, wished to apply the scientific method with its reason and rationality to the challenges of society. The result would be progress and improvement in the human condition. The findings of the scientific revolution reached a wider audience through the works of numerous popularizers. Travel books increased the awareness of different cultures: some glorified the so-called “natural man” as superior to the civilized European, others admired Chinese civilization. Newton’s scientific laws became a paradigm for discovering natural laws, and John Locke’s tabula rasa, or blank sheet, indicated that reason and sense experience could create a better world.

A cosmopolitan group, the philosophes used reason to improve society. State censorship was overcome by having works published in Holland or writing about the Persians when they really meant French society, as did the baron de Montesquieu (d.1755). His The Spirit of the Laws praised the system of checks and balances and separation of powers that he believed were the essence of the British political system, an important concept of the United States Constitution. Voltaire (d.1778) attacked the intolerance of organized religion, and many philosophes adopted Deism with its mechanistic god and a universe operating according to natural laws.

Denis Diderot (d.1784) compiled a multi-volume Encyclopedia, a compendium of Enlightenment ideas. David Hume (d.1776) advocated a “science of man.” In economics, the Physiocrats rejected mercantilism in favor of the laws of supply and demand and laissez-faire, as did Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (d.1778), like Locke, believed in the social contract theory, arguing that society must be governed by the general will. In claiming that in education children should follow their instincts–reason was not enough–he was a precursor of Romanticism. Many of the philosophes had traditional attitudes towards women, but Mary Anstell (d.1731) and Mary Wollstonecraft (d.1797) argued for the equality of the sexes and the right of women to be educated. The Enlightenment appealed mostly to the urban middle classes; it passed the peasants by. Its ideas were discussed in Parisian salons, coffeehouses, reading clubs, lending libraries, and societies like the Freemasons.

In art, the lightness and curves of the Rococo replaced the Baroque. In classical music there were major development in the opera, oratorio, sonata, concerto, and the symphony by Johann Sebastian Bach (d.1750), George Frederick Handel (d.1759), Franz Joseph Haydn (d.1809), and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (d.1791). In England, the novel became a new literary form. Historical writing included economic, social, and cultural events and not just past politics, but dismissed religious subjects as mere superstition and barbarism. There was an increase in the reading public with books, magazines, and newspapers. Elite private schools emphasized the Greek and Latin classics, but new middle class education stressed modern languages and other relevant subjects. The theories of Cesare Beccaria (d.1794) and others contributed to a decline in the use of torture and capital punishment.

There was a separation between popular culture and the culture of the elites, although the rate of literacy was rising among the majority, in part because of an increase in primary education. State churches, traditional and conservative, were the norm. There was some gain in religious toleration for minorities including the Jews, although anti-Semitic attitudes continued. Popular religious movements appealed to the non-elites. Pietists in Germany sought a deeper personal relationship with God, and in England, John Wesley (d.1791) led a revival movement among the common people. It was a century of both change and tradition.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR THE PRIMARY SOURCES (BOXED

DOCUMENTS)

1. “The Separation of Powers”: As seen in this selection, what is Montesquieu's doctrine of the separation

of powers? From which country’s government might he have gotten his ideas? What are the underlying moral and political justifications of this system of government? How has this conception of the proper structure of the state clearly influenced later efforts in revolutionary rebuilding of government? Where? (page 478)

2. “The Attack on Religious Intolerance”: What are Voltaire’s ideas regarding religious intolerance?

Compare and contrast the excerpts from Voltaire’s The Ignorant Philosopher and Candide is his

discussion of the problem of religious intolerance. Do you think one is more effective than the other?

Voltaire was a controversial figure in the eighteenth century? Why? Are his ideas regarding religion

controversial today? If so, where? (page 479)

3. “Diderot Questions Christian Sexual Standards”: What does this passage from Diderot’s Supplement to

the Voyage of Bougainville say about enlightened conceptions of nature and the place of physical pleasure

in human life? What might the connections be between writing of this kind and the simultaneous deeper

investigations of the human body and human senses typical of the Enlightenment? (page 480)

4. “A Social Contract”: What is Rousseau's concept of the social contract? What implications did it

contain for political thought, especially in regard to the development of democratic ideas? What does

Rousseau mean by “the general will”? Might that concept lead as much to dictatorship and totalitarianism

as to democracy? Why an/or why not? (page 483)

5. “The Rights of Women”: What arguments does Mary Wollstonecraft make on behalf of the rights of

women? What contemporary trends in other aspects of eighteenth-century life would have brought the

condition of women into sharper focus as an essential topic of enlightened investigation and

improvement? What might explain Wollstonecraft’s relative failure to achieve her objectives in her own

era? (page 485)

6. “Gibbon and the Idea of Progress”: What is Gibbon's view of progress? How did the typical interests

and concerns of enlightened philosophes reshape the writing of history in eighteenth-century Europe?

What are the new “enlightened” purposes for exploring the past and writing histories? Was Gibbon and

other Enlightenment intellectuals too optimistic about the seeming inevitability of progress? How would

Gibbon react and respond to the history of the twentieth century? (page 489)

7. “The Punishment of Crime”: What does this selection reveal about the punishment of crime in the

eighteenth century? What impact do you think such descriptions had on the philosophes' attitudes toward

justice and the current royal administrations of the state? (page 491)

8. “The Conversion Experience in Wesley's Methodism”: How does the emotionalism of this passage

relate to enlightened thinkers' fascination with the passions and the workings of human reason? Did

eighteenth-century religious thinkers and religious practices accept or reject new enlightened ideas about

human nature and behavior? How would Voltaire have responded to Wesley and his revivalism?

(page 497)

RELEVANT WORLD-WIDE WEB SITES/RESOURCES

Numerous excellent sites exist covering various aspects of the European Enlightenments. Among the best of these are:

1. Eighteenth-Century Resources:



(A superb site maintained by a specialist in the era with numerous fine links to other online resources. Highly recommended.)

2. Eighteenth-Century Studies (at Carnegie Mellon University):



(Fine site with online excerpts from novels, plays, and memoirs of the era in English.)

3. The Enlightenment: From Age of Faith to Age of Reason:



(Excellent site with good links to other relevant resources.)

4. Internet Modern History Sourcebook (at Fordham University):



(Site includes information, documents, and links arranged by era with extensive materials and links on the

Ancien Regime, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenments. Superb selection of online original

documents from all eras for student use.)

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