Ch 17 reading

1784, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (i-MAHN-yoo- el KAHNT) (1724–1804) defined the Enlightenment as “man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity.” Whereas earlier periods had been handicapped by the inability to “use one’s intelli- gence without the guidance of another,” Kant proclaimed as the motto of the Enlightenment: “Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!” The eighteenth-century Enlightenment was a movement of intellectuals who dared to know. They were greatly impressed with the accomplishments of the Scientific Revolution, and when they used the word reason—one of their favorite words—they were advocating the application of the scientific method to the understanding of all life. All institutions and all systems of thought were subject to the rational, scientific way of thinking if only people would free themselves from the shackles of old, worthless traditions, especially religious ones. If Isaac Newton could discover the natural laws regulating the world of nature, they too, by using reason, could find the laws that governed human society. This belief in turn led them to hope that they could make progress toward a better society than the one they had inherited. Reason, natural law, hope, progress—these were the buzz words in the heady atmosphere of the eighteenth century.

The Paths to Enlightenment

The intellectuals of the eighteenth century were especially influenced by the revolutionary thinkers of the seventeenth century. What were the major intellectual changes that culmi- nated in the intellectual movement of the Enlightenment?

tHe PoPuLARiZAtion oF science Although the intel- lectuals of the eighteenth century were much influenced by the scientific ideas of the seventeenth, they did not always acquire this knowledge directly from the original sources. Newton’s Principia was not an easy book to read or compre- hend. Scientific ideas were spread to ever-widening circles of educated Europeans not so much by scientists themselves as by popularizers. Especially important as the direct link between the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century and the philosophes of the eighteenth was Bernard de Fontenelle (bayr- NAHR duh fawnt-NELL) (1657–1757), secretary of the French Royal Academy of Science from 1691 to 1741.

Although Fontenelle performed no scientific experiments and made no scientific discoveries, he possessed a deep knowl- edge of all the scientific work of earlier centuries and his own time. Moreover, he was able to communicate that body of scientific knowledge in a clear and even witty fashion that appealed to his upper-class audiences in a meaningful way. One of his most successful books, Plurality of Worlds, was actually presented in the form of an intimate conversation between a lady aristocrat and her lover who are engaged in conversa- tion under the stars. What are they discussing? “Tell me,” she exclaims, “about these stars of yours.” Her lover proceeds to tell her of the tremendous advances in cosmology after the foolish errors of their forebears:

There came on the scene a certain German, one Copernicus, who made short work of all those various circles, all those solid skies, which the ancients had pictured to themselves. The former he abolished; the latter, he broke in pieces. Fired with the noble zeal of a true astronomer, he took the earth and spun it very far away from the center of the universe, where

it had been installed, and in that center he put the sun, which had a far better title to the honor.1

In the course of two evenings under the stars, the lady learned the basic fundamentals of the new mechanistic universe. So too did scores of the educated elite of Europe.

Thanks to Fontenelle, science was no longer the monopoly of experts but part of literature. He was especially fond of downplaying the religious backgrounds of the seventeenth- century scientists. Himself a skeptic, Fontenelle contributed to the growing skepticism toward religion at the end of the seventeenth century by portraying the churches as enemies of scientific progress.

A neW sKePticisM The great scientists of the seventeenth century, including Kepler, Galileo, and Newton, had pursued their work in a spirit of exalting God, not undermining Chris- tianity. But as scientific knowledge spread, more and more edu- cated men and women began to question religious truths and values. Skepticism about religion and a growing secularization of thought were especially evident in the work of Pierre Bayle (PYAYR BELL) (1647–1706), who remained a Protestant while becoming a leading critic of traditional religious attitudes atism. In his view, compelling people to believe a particular set of religious ideas (as Louis XIV was doing at the time in Bayle’s France) was wrong. It simply created hypocrites and in itself was contrary to what religion should be about. Individual conscience should determine one’s actions. Bayle argued for complete religious toleration, maintaining that the existence of many religions would benefit rather than harm the state.

tHe iMPAct oF tRAVeL LiteRAtuRe Skepticism about both Christianity and European culture itself was nourished by travel reports. As we saw in Chapter 14, Europeans had embarked on voyages of discovery to other parts of the world in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the course of the seventeenth century, traders, missionaries, medical practi- tioners, and explorers began to publish an increasing number of travel books that gave accounts of many different cultures. Then, too, the new geographic adventures of the eighteenth century, especially the discovery of the Pacific island of Tahiti and of New Zealand and Australia by James Cook, aroused much enthusiasm. Cook’s Travels, an account of his journey, became a best-seller. Educated Europeans responded to these accounts of lands abroad in different ways. For some intellec- tuals, exotic peoples, such as the natives of Tahiti, presented an image of a “natural man” who was far happier than many Europeans. One intellectual wrote:

The life of savages is so simple, and our societies are such complicated machines! The Tahitian is close to the origin of the world, while the European is closer to its old age. . . . [The Tahitians] understand nothing about our manners or our laws, and they are bound to see in them nothing but shackles disguised in a hundred different ways. Those shackles could only provoke the indignation and scorn of creatures in whom the most profound feeling is a love of liberty.2

The idea of the “noble savage” would play an important role in the political work of some philosophes.

also led to the realization that there were highly devel- oped civilizations with different customs in other parts of the world. China was especially singled out. One German univer- sity professor praised Confucian morality as superior to the intolerance of Christianity. Some European intellectuals began to evaluate their own civilization relative to others. Practices that had seemed to be grounded in reason now appeared to be merely matters of custom. Certainties about European prac- tices gave way to cultural relativism.

Cultural relativism was accompanied by religious skepti- cism. As these travel accounts made clear, the Christian per- ception of God was merely one of many. Some people were devastated by this revelation: “Some complete their demoral- ization by extensive travel, and lose whatever shreds of religion remained to them. Every day they see a new religion, new cus- toms, new rites.”3

As Europeans were exposed to growing numbers of people around the world who were different from themselves, some intellectuals also began to classify people into racial groups. One group espoused polygenesis, or the belief in separate human species; others argued for monogenesis, or the belief in one human species characterized by racial variations. Both groups were especially unsympathetic to Africans and placed them in the lowest rank of humankind. In his Encyclopedia, the intellectual Denis Diderot (see “Diderot and the Encyclopedia” later in this chapter) maintained that all Africans were black and characterized the Negro as a “new species of mankind.”

tHe LeGAcY oF LocKe AnD neWton The intellectual inspiration for the Enlightenment came primarily from two Englishmen, Isaac Newton and John Locke, acknowledged by the philosophes as great minds. Newton was frequently singled out for praise as the “greatest and rarest genius that ever rose for the ornament and instruction of the species.” One English poet declared: “Nature and Nature’s Laws lay hid in Night; God said, ‘Let Newton be,’ and all was Light.” Enchanted by the

grand design of the Newtonian world-machine, the intellectu- als of the Enlightenment were convinced that by following Newton’s rules of reasoning, they could discover the natural laws that governed politics, economics, justice, religion, and the arts.

John Locke’s theory of knowledge especially influenced the philosophes. Locke studied medicine at Oxford University before joining the household of Lord Ashley as a general coun- selor before fleeing for the Netherlands in 1683 where he wrote his Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1690. Locke denied Descartes’s belief in innate ideas, instead he argued that every person was born with a tabula rasa (TAB-yuh-luh RAH-suh), a blank mind:

Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience. . . . Our observation, employed either about external sensible objects or about the internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our understanding with all the materials of thinking.

Our knowledge, then, is derived from our environment, not from heredity; from reason, not from faith. Locke’s philosophy implied that people were molded by their environment, by the experiences that they received through their senses from their surrounding world. By changing the environment and subject- ing people to proper influences, they could be changed and a new society created. And how should the environment be changed? Newton had already paved the way by showing how reason enabled enlightened people to discover the natural laws to which all institutions should conform. No wonder the philo- sophes were enamored of Newton and Locke. Taken together, their ideas seemed to offer the hope of a “brave new world” built on reason.

The Philosophes and Their Ideas

The intellectuals of the Enlightenment were known by the French term philosophe (fee-loh-ZAWF), although not all of them were French and few were actually philosophers. The philosophes were literary people, professors, journalists, statesmen, economists, political scientists, and above all, social reformers. They came from both the nobility and the middle class, and a few even stemmed from lower origins. Although it was a truly international and cosmopolitan movement, the Enlightenment also enhanced the dominant role being played by French culture. Paris was its recognized capital, and most of the leaders of the Enlightenment were French (see Map 17.1). The French philosophes in turn affected intellectuals elsewhere and created a movement that engulfed the entire Western world, including the British and Spanish colonies in America.

Although the philosophes faced different political cir- cumstances depending on the country in which they lived, they shared common bonds as part of a truly international

movement. They were called philosophers, but what did phi- losophy mean to them? The role of philosophy was to change the world, not just discuss it. As one writer said, the philosophe is one who “applies himself to the study of society with the purpose of making his kind better and happier.” To the phi- losophes, rationalism did not mean the creation of a grandiose system of thought to explain all things. Reason was scientific method, an appeal to facts and experience. A spirit of rational criticism was to be applied to everything, including religion and politics.

The philosophes’ call for freedom of expression is a reminder that their work was done in an atmosphere of censorship. The philosophes were not free to write whatever they chose. State censors decided what could be published, and protests from any number of government bodies could result in the seizure of books and the imprisonment of their authors, publishers, and sellers. The philosophes found ways to get around state cen- sorship. Some published under pseudonyms or anonymously or abroad, especially in Holland. The use of double meanings, such as talking about the Persians when they meant the French, became standard procedure for many. Books were also pub- lished and circulated secretly or in manuscript form to avoid the censors.

Although the philosophes constituted a kind of “family circle” bound together by common intellectual bonds, they often disagreed. Spanning almost a century, the Enlightenment evolved over time, with each succeeding generation becoming more radical as it built on the contributions of the previous one. A few people, however, dominated the landscape com- pletely, and we might best begin our survey of the ideas of the philosophes by looking at three French giants—Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot.

MontesQuieu AnD PoLiticAL tHouGHt Charles de Sec- ondat, the baron de Montesquieu (MOHN-tess-kyoo) (1689– 1755), came from the French nobility. He received a classical education and then studied law. In his first work, the Persian Letters, published in 1721, he used the format of two Persians supposedly traveling in western Europe and sending their impressions back home to enable him to criticize French institutions, especially the Catholic Church and the French monarchy. Much of the program of the French Enlightenment is contained in this work: the attack on traditional religion, the advocacy of religious toleration, the denunciation of slavery, and the use of reason to liberate human beings from their prejudices.

Montesquieu’s most famous work, The Spirit of the Laws, was published in 1748. This treatise was a comparative study of governments in which Montesquieu attempted to apply the scientific method to the social and political arena to ascertain the “natural laws” governing the social relationships of human beings. Montesquieu distinguished three basic kinds of govern- ments: republics, suitable for small states and based on citizen involvement; monarchy, appropriate for middle-sized states and grounded in the ruling class’s adherence to law; and des- potism, apt for large empires and dependent on fear to inspire obedience. Montesquieu used England as an example of the econd category, and it was his praise and analysis of England’s constitution that led to his most far-reaching and lasting contri- bution to political thought—the importance of checks and bal- ances created by means of a separation of powers (see the box on p. 504). He believed that England’s system, with its separate executive, legislative, and judicial powers that served to limit and control each other, provided the greatest freedom and secu- rity for a state. In large part, Montesquieu misread the Eng- lish situation and insisted on a separation of powers because he wanted the nobility of France (of which he was a member) to play an active role in running the French government. The translation of his work into English two years after publication ensured that it would be read by American philosophes, such

as Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson, who incorporated its prin- ciples into the U.S. Constitution (see Chapter 19).

VoLtAiRe AnD tHe enLiGHtenMent The greatest fig- ure of the Enlightenment was François-Marie Arouet (frahn- SWAH-ma-REE ahr-WEH), known simply as Voltaire (vohl-TAYR) (1694–1778). Son of a prosperous middle-class family from Paris, Voltaire received a classical education in Jesuit schools. Although he studied law, he wished to be a writer and achieved his first success as a playwright. By his mid-twenties, Voltaire had been hailed as the successor to Racine (see Chapter 15) for his tragedy Œdipe and his epic Henriade on his favorite king, Henry IV. His wit made him a darling of the Parisian intellectu- als but also involved him in a quarrel with a dissolute nobleman that forced him to flee France and live in England for almost two years.

Well received in English literary and social circles, the young playwright was much impressed by England. His Philosophic Letters on the English, written in 1733, expressed a deep admira- tion of English life, especially its freedom of the press, its politi- cal freedom, and its religious toleration. In judging the English religious situation, he made the famous remark that if there were two religions, they would cut each other’s throats; but since there are thirty religions, “they live together peacefully and happily.” Although he clearly exaggerated the freedoms England possessed, in a roundabout way Voltaire had man- aged to criticize many of the ills oppressing France, especially royal absolutism and the lack of religious toleration and free- dom of thought. The criticism of absolute monarchy by Vol- taire and other philosophes reflected the broader dissatisfaction of middle-class individuals with their society. In the course of

Voltaire. François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, achieved his first success as a playwright. A philosophe, Voltaire was well known for his criticism of traditional religion and his support of religious toleration. Maurice-Quentin de La Tour painted this portrait of Voltaire holding one of his books in 1736. the eighteenth century, this would help lead to revolutionary upheavals in France and other countries (see Chapter 19).

Voltaire returned to France to discover his Philosophic Letters banned by the state, sending Voltaire into exile to Cirey, near France’s eastern border, where he lived in semi-seclusion on the estate of his mistress, the marquise du Châtelet (mahr- KEEZ duh shat-LAY) (1706–1749). Herself an early philosophe, the marquise was one of the first intellectuals to adopt the ideas of Isaac Newton, and in 1759 her own translation of Newton’s famous Principia was published. While Voltaire lived with her at her château at Cirey, the two collaborated on a book about the natural philosophy of Newton.

Voltaire eventually settled on a magnificent estate at Fer- ney. Located in France near the Swiss border, Ferney gave Voltaire the freedom to write what he wished. By this time, through his writings, inheritance, and clever investments, Vol- taire had become wealthy and now had the leisure to write an

almost endless stream of pamphlets, novels, plays, letters, and histories.

Although he touched on all of the themes of importance to the philosophes, Voltaire was especially well known for his criticism of traditional religion and his strong attachment to the ideal of religious toleration (see the box above). He lent his prestige and skills as a polemicist to fighting cases of intol- erance in France. The most famous incident was the Calas affair. Jean Calas (ZHAHNH ka-LAH) was a Protestant from Toulouse who was accused of murdering his own son to stop him from becoming a Catholic. Tortured to confess his guilt, Calas died shortly thereafter. An angry and indignant Voltaire published devastating broadsides that aroused public opinion and forced a retrial in which Calas was exonerated when it was proved that his son had actually committed suicide. The family was paid an indemnity, and Voltaire’s appeals for tol- eration appeared all the more reasonable. In 1763, he penned s Treatise on Toleration, in which he argued that religious toleration had created no problems for England and Holland and reminded governments that “all men are brothers under God.” As he grew older, Voltaire became ever more strident in his denunciations. “Crush the infamous thing,” he thundered repeatedly—the infamous thing being religious fanaticism, intolerance, and superstition.

Throughout his life, Voltaire championed not only religious tolerance but also deism, a religious outlook shared by most other philosophes. Deism was built on the Newtonian world- machine, which suggested the existence of a mechanic (God) who had created the universe. Voltaire said, “In the opinion that there is a God, there are difficulties, but in the contrary opinion there are absurdities.” To Voltaire and most other philosophes, God had no direct involvement in the world he had created and allowed it to run according to its own natural laws. God did not extend grace or answer prayers or perform miracles, as Christians liked to believe. Jesus might be a “good fellow,”

as Voltaire called him, but he was not divine, as Christianity claimed.

DiDeRot AnD tHe encYcLoPeDiA Denis Diderot (duh- NEE DEE-droh) (1713–1784), the son of a skilled craftsman from eastern France, became a freelance writer so that he could study many subjects and read in many languages. One of his favorite topics was Christianity, which he condemned as fanati- cal and unreasonable. As he grew older, his literary attacks on Christianity grew more vicious. Of all religions, he main- tained, Christianity was the worst, “the most absurd and the most atrocious in its dogma” (see the box above). Near the end of his life, he argued for an essentially materialistic conception of life: “This world is only a mass of molecules.”

Diderot’s most famous contribution to the Enlightenment was the twenty-eight-volume Encyclopedia, or Classified Diction- ary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades, that he edited and called the “great work of his life.” Its purpose, according to Diderot, was to “change the general way of thinking.” It did precisely that in becoming a major weapon of the philosophes’ crusade against the old French society. The contributors included many phi- losophes who expressed their major concerns. They attacked religious superstition and advocated toleration as well as a pro- gram for social, legal, and political improvements that would lead to a society that was more cosmopolitan, more tolerant, more humane, and more reasonable. In later editions, the price of the Encyclopedia was drastically reduced, dramatically increasing its sales and making it available to doctors, clergy, teachers, lawyers, and even military officers. The ideas of the Enlightenment were spread even further as a result.

tHe neW “science oF MAn” The Enlightenment belief that Newton’s scientific methods could be used to discover the natural laws underlying all areas of human life led to the emergence in the eighteenth century of what the philosophes called the “science of man,” or what we would call the social sciences. In a number of areas, philosophes arrived at natu- ral laws that they believed governed human actions. If these “natural laws” seem less than universal to us, it reminds us how much the philosophes were people of their times reacting to the conditions they faced. Nevertheless, their efforts did at least lay the foundations for the modern social sciences.

That a science of man was possible was a strong belief of the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776). An important figure in the history of philosophy, Hume has also been called “a pioneering social scientist.” In his Treatise on Human Nature, which he subtitled “An Attempt to Introduce the Experimen- tal Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects,” Hume argued that observation and reflection, grounded in “systematized common sense,” made conceivable a “science of man.” Care- ful examination of the experiences that constituted human life would lead to the knowledge of human nature that would make this science possible.

The Physiocrats and Adam Smith have been viewed as founders of the modern discipline of economics. The leader of the Physiocrats was François Quesnay (frahn-SWAH keh-NAY) (1694–1774), a highly successful French court physician. Quesnay and the Physiocrats claimed they would discover the natural economic laws that governed human society. Their first prin- ciple was that land constituted the only source of wealth and that wealth itself could be increased only by agriculture because all other economic activities were unproductive and sterile. Even the state’s revenues should come from a single tax on land rather than the hodgepodge of inequitable taxes and privileges currently in place. In stressing the economic primacy of agri- cultural production, the Physiocrats were rejecting the mercan- tilist emphasis on the significance of money—that is, gold and silver—as the primary determinants of wealth (see Chapter 14).

Their second major “natural law” of economics also repre- sented a repudiation of mercantilism, specifically, its emphasis on a controlled economy for the benefit of the state. Instead, the Physiocrats stressed that the existence of the natural eco- nomic forces of supply and demand made it imperative that individuals should be left free to pursue their own economic self-interest. In doing so, all of society would ultimately benefit.

Consequently, they argued that the state should in no way inter- rupt the free play of natural economic forces by government regulation of the economy but rather should just leave it alone, a doctrine that subsequently became known by its French name, laissez-faire (less-ay-FAYR) (noninterference; literally, “let people do as they choose”).

The best statement of laissez-faire was made in 1776 by a Scottish philosopher, Adam Smith (1723–1790), in his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, known simply as The Wealth of Nations. In the process of enunciating three basic principles of economics, Smith presented a strong attack on mercantilism. First, he condemned the mercantilist use of tariffs to protect home industries. If one country can supply another country with a product cheaper than the latter can make it, it is better to purchase the product than to produce it. To Smith, free trade was a fundamental economic principle. Smith’s second principle was his labor theory of value. Like the Physiocrats, he claimed that gold and silver were not the source of a nation’s true wealth, but unlike the Physiocrats, he did not believe that land was either. Rather labor—the labor of indi- vidual farmers, artisans, and merchants—constituted the true wealth of a nation. Finally, like the Physiocrats, Smith believed that the state should not interfere in economic matters; indeed, he assigned to government only three basic functions: to pro- tect society from invasion (army), defend individuals from injustice and oppression (police), and keep up certain public works, such as roads and canals, that private individuals could not afford. Thus, in Smith’s view, the state should stay out of the lives of individuals. In emphasizing the economic liberty of the individual, the Physiocrats and Adam Smith laid the foundation for what became known in the nineteenth century as economic liberalism. tHe LAteR enLiGHtenMent By the late 1760s, a new gen- eration of philosophes who had grown up with the worldview of the Enlightenment began to move beyond their predeces- sors’ beliefs. Baron Paul d’Holbach (dawl-BAHK) (1723–1789), a wealthy German aristocrat who settled in Paris, preached a doctrine of strict atheism and materialism. In his System of Nature, written in 1770, he argued that everything in the universe consisted of matter in motion. Human beings were simply machines; God was a product of the human mind and was unnecessary for leading a moral life. People needed only reason to live in this world: “Let us persuade men to be just, beneficent, moderate, sociable; not because the gods demand it, but because they must please men. Let us advise them to abstain from vice and crimes; not because they will be punished in the other world, but because they will suffer for it in this.”5 Holbach shocked almost all of his fellow philosophes with his uncompro- mising atheism. Most intellectuals remained more comfortable with deism and feared the effect of atheism on society.

Marie-Jean de Condorcet (ma-REE-ZHAHNH duh kohn-dor- SAY) (1743–1794), another French philosophe, made an exagger- ated claim for progress. Condorcet was a victim of the turmoil of the French Revolution and wrote his chief work, The Progress of the Human Mind, while in hiding during the Reign of Ter- ror (see Chapter 19). His survey of human history convinced

him that humans had progressed through nine stages of his- tory. Now, with the spread of science and reason, humans were about to enter the tenth stage, one of perfection, in which they will see that “there is no limit to the perfecting of the powers of man; that human perfectibility is in reality indefinite, that the progress of this perfectibility . . . has no other limit than the duration of the globe upon which nature has placed us.” Shortly after composing this work, the prophet of humankind’s perfection died in a French revolutionary prison.

RousseAu AnD tHe sociAL contRAct No one was more critical of the work of his predecessors than Jean- Jacques Rousseau (ZHAHNH-ZHAHK roo-SOH) (1712–1778). Born in Geneva, he was orphaned at a young age and spent his youth wandering about France and Italy holding various jobs. Largely self-educated, he returned to school for a while to study music and the classics (he could afford to do so after becoming the paid lover of an older woman). Eventually, he made his way to Paris, where he was introduced into the circles of the philosophes. He never really liked the social life of the cities, however, and frequently withdrew into long periods of solitude.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau. By the late 1760s, a new generation of philosophes arose who began to move beyond and even to question the beliefs of their predecessors. Of the philosophes of the late Enlightenment, Rousseau was perhaps the most critical of his predecessors. Shown here is a portrait of Rousseau by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour.

Rousseau’s political beliefs were presented in two major works. In his Discourse on the Origins of the Inequality of Man- kind, Rousseau began with humans in their primitive condition (or state of nature—see Chapter 15), where they were happy. There were no laws, no judges; all people were equal. But what had gone wrong?

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, thought of saying, This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders; how much misery and horror the human race would have been spared if someone had pulled up the stakes and filled in the ditch, and cried to his fellow men: “Beware of listening to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to everyone and that the earth itself belongs to no one!”6

To preserve their private property, people adopted laws and governors. In so doing, they rushed headlong not to liberty but into chains. “What then is to be done? Must societies be totally abolished? . . . Must we return again to the forest to live among bears?” No, civilized humans could “no longer subsist on plants or acorns or live without laws and magistrates.” Government was an evil, but a necessary one.

In his celebrated treatise The Social Contract, published in 1762, Rousseau tried to harmonize individual liberty with gov- ernmental authority (see the box on p. 509). The social contract was basically an agreement on the part of an entire society to be governed by its general will. If any individual wished to fol- low his own self-interest, he should be compelled to abide by the general will. “This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free,” said Rousseau, because the general will rep- resented a community’s highest aspirations, whatever was best for the entire community. Thus, liberty was achieved through being forced to follow what was best for all people because, he believed, what was best for all was best for each individual. True freedom is adherence to laws that one has imposed on oneself. To Rousseau, because everybody was responsible for framing the general will, the creation of laws could never be delegated to a parliamentary institution:

Thus, the people’s deputies are not and could not be its representatives; they are merely its agents; and they cannot decide anything finally. Any law which the people has not ratified in person is void; it is not law at all. The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during the election of Members of Parliament; as soon as the Members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing.7

This is an extreme and idealistic statement, but it is the ultimate statement of participatory democracy.

Another influential treatise by Rousseau also appeared in 1762. Titled Émile, it is one of the Enlightenment’s most impor- tant works on education. Written in the form of a novel, the work is really a general treatise “on the education of the natu- ral man.” Rousseau’s fundamental concern was that education should foster rather than restrict children’s natural instincts. Life’s experiences had shown Rousseau the importance of the promptings of the heart, and what he sought was a balance tween heart and mind, between sentiment and reason. This emphasis on heart and sentiment made him a precursor of the intellectual movement called Romanticism that dominated Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

But Rousseau did not necessarily practice what he preached. His own five children born to his illiterate serving girl were sent to foundling homes, where many children died young. Rousseau also viewed women as “naturally” different from men: “To fulfill [a woman’s] functions, an appropriate physical constitution is necessary to her. . . . She needs a soft sedentary life to suckle her babies. How much care and tenderness does she need to hold her family together.” In Émile, Sophie, who was Émile’s intended wife, was educated for her role as wife and mother by learning obedience and the nurturing skills that would enable her to provide loving care for her husband and children. Not everyone in the eighteenth century agreed with Rousseau, however, making ideas of gender an important issue in the Enlightenment.

tHe “WoMAn’s Question” in tHe enLiGHtenMent For centuries, men had dominated the debate about the nature and value of women. In general, many male intellectuals had argued that the base nature of women made them inferior to men and made male domination of women necessary (see

Chapter 16). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many male thinkers reinforced this view by arguing that it was based on “natural” biological differences between men and women. Like Rousseau, they argued that the female constitution des- tined women to be mothers. Male writers, in particular, were critical of the attempts of some women in the Enlighten- ment to write on intellectual issues, arguing that women were by nature intellectually inferior to men. Nevertheless, some Enlightenment thinkers offered more positive views of women. Diderot, for example, maintained that men and women were not all that different, and Voltaire asserted that “women are capable of all that men are” in intellectual affairs.

It was women thinkers, however, who added new perspec- tives to the “woman’s question” by making specific suggestions for improving the condition of women. Mary Astell (AST-ul) (1666–1731), daughter of a wealthy English coal merchant, argued in 1697 in A Serious Proposal to the Ladies that women needed to become better educated. Men, she believed, would resent her proposal, “but they must excuse me, if I be as partial to my own sex as they are to theirs, and think women as capable of learning as men are, and that it becomes them as well.”8 In a later work titled Some Reflections upon Marriage, Astell argued for the equality of the sexes in marriage: “If absolute sovereignty be not necessary in a state, how comes it to be so in a family?

r if arbitrary power is evil in itself, and an improper method of governing rational and free agents, it ought not be practiced anywhere. . . . If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?”9

The strongest statement for the rights of women in the eighteenth century was advanced by the English writer Mary Wollstonecraft (WULL-Stun-kraft) (1759–1797), viewed by many as the founder of modern European feminism. In Vindication of the Rights of Woman, written in 1792, Wollstonecraft pointed out two contradictions in the views of women held by such Enlightenment thinkers as Rousseau. To argue that women must obey men, she said, was contrary to the beliefs of the same individuals that a system based on the arbitrary power of mon- archs over their subjects or slave owners over their slaves was wrong. The subjection of women to men was equally wrong. In addition, she argued, the Enlightenment was based on the ideal that reason is innate in all human beings. If women have reason, then they are entitled to the same rights that men have. Women, Wollstonecraft declared, should have equal rights with men in education and in economic and political life as well (see “Opposing Viewpoints” on p. 511).

The Social Environment of the Philosophes

The social background of the philosophes varied considerably, from the aristocratic Montesquieu to the lower-middle-class Diderot and Rousseau. The Enlightenment was not the pre- serve of any one class, although obviously its greatest appeal was to the aristocracy and upper middle classes of the major cities. The common people, especially the peasants, were little affected by the Enlightenment.

Of great importance to the Enlightenment was the spread of its ideas to the literate elite of European society. Although the publication and sale of books and treatises were crucial to

is process, the salon was also a factor. Salons came into being in the seventeenth century but rose to new heights in the eigh- teenth. These were the elegant drawing rooms in the urban houses of the wealthy where invited philosophes and guests gathered to engage in witty, sparkling conversations that often centered on the ideas of the philosophes. In France’s rigid hier- archical society, the salons were important in bringing together writers and artists with aristocrats, government officials, and wealthy bourgeoisie.

As hostesses of the salons, women found themselves in a position to affect the decisions of kings, sway political opin- ion, and influence literary and artistic taste. Salons provided havens for people and views unwelcome in the royal court. When French authorities suppressed the Encyclopedia, Marie- Thérèse de Geoffrin (1699–1777), a wealthy bourgeois widow whose father had been a valet, welcomed the encyclopedists to her salon and offered financial assistance to complete the work in secret. Madame Geoffrin was not without rivals, how- ever. The marquise du Deffand (mahr-KEEZ duh duh-FAHNH) (1697–1780) had abandoned her husband in the provinces and established herself in Paris, where her ornate drawing room attracted many of the Enlightenment’s great figures, including Montesquieu, Hume, and Voltaire.

Although women ran the salons, the reputation of a salon depended on the stature of the males a hostess was able to attract (see “Images of Everyday Life” on p. 512). Despite this male domination, both French and foreign observers com- plained that females exerted undue influence in French political affairs. Though exaggerated, this perception led to the decline of salons during the French Revolution. The salons served an important role in promoting conversa- tion and sociability between upper-class men and women as well as spreading the ideas of the Enlightenment. But other means of spreading Enlightenment ideas were also available. Coffeehouses, cafés, reading clubs, and public lending libraries established by the state were gathering places for the exchange of ideas. Learned societies were formed in cities throughout Europe and America. At such gatherings as the Select Society of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, lawyers, doctors, and local officials gathered to discuss enlightened ideas. Secret societies also developed. The most famous was the Free- masons, established in London in 1717, France and Italy in 1726, and Prussia in 1744. It was no secret that the Freemasons were sympathetic to the ideas of the philosophes.

• Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) defined the Enlightenment as 'man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity' in 1784.

• Kant's motto for the Enlightenment: "Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!"

• The eighteenth-century Enlightenment was an intellectual movement influenced by the Scientific Revolution.

• Key concepts: Reason, natural law, hope, progress - all were seen as pathways to a better society.

• Popularization of Science:

  • Scientific knowledge spread by popularizers rather than direct sources; Bernard de Fontenelle was a key figure.

  • Fontenelle’s book Plurality of Worlds communicated scientific ideas through conversation, making science accessible to upper-class audiences.

• New Skepticism:

  • Skepticism about religion grew as educated individuals began to question established truths.

  • Pierre Bayle advocated for complete religious toleration, emphasizing individual conscience.

• Impact of Travel Literature:

  • Exploration reports contributed to skepticism about European customs and Christianity.

  • The idea of the "noble savage" arose, presenting non-European societies as simpler and happier.

  • Cultural relativism emerged as Europeans began to reassess their own customs versus those of other civilizations like China.

• Legacy of Locke and Newton:

  • Newton and Locke inspired Enlightenment thinkers to believe they could discover natural laws governing politics and society.

  • Locke proposed the mind as a tabula rasa (blank slate), emphasizing knowledge from experience rather than innate ideas.

• Philosophes:

  • A diverse group of intellectuals, including writers, professors, and reformers, significantly impacted social thought.

  • Shared a goal: To change the world through rational criticism.

  • Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot were prominent figures:

    • Montesquieu analyzed governments in The Spirit of the Laws, advocating the separation of powers.

    • Voltaire was known for criticism of traditional religion and support for religious toleration, exemplified by the Calas affair.

    • Diderot edited the Encyclopedia, promoting new ways of thinking and attacking religious superstition.

• The Science of Man:

  • The belief that scientific methods could uncover laws governing human behavior.

  • David Hume promoted an experimental approach to understanding human nature.

• Physiocrats and Adam Smith:

  • Physiocrats, led by Quesnay, believed in natural economic laws governed by agriculture.

  • Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, championed free trade and minimal government intervention in economics.

• Later Enlightenment:

  • Emerging views included Baron Paul d’Holbach’s strict atheism and Marie-Jean de Condorcet’s belief in continuous human progress.

• Rousseau and the Social Contract:

  • Rousseau challenged previous Enlightenment thinkers; in The Social Contract, he advocated for laws reflecting the general will of the people.

  • Emphasized education that nurtured children’s instincts rather than restricted them.

• Women’s Question:

  • Enlightenment thinkers debated women’s rights, with proponents like Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft advocating for equality and education for women.

• Social Environment:

  • Enlightenment ideas spread through salons, coffeehouses, and public libraries, facilitating discussions among intellectuals and the elite of society.

Yes, the reading explores several other important themes and contributions of the Enlightenment movement, including:

• Impact of Travel Literature: This contributed to skepticism about European customs and perceptions of Christianity, leading to cultural relativism and the idea of the "noble savage" which portrayed non-European societies as simpler and happier.

• Legacy of Locke and Newton: Their philosophical ideas influenced Enlightenment thinkers to apply scientific reasoning to politics and societal laws.

• The Philosophes: A diverse group of intellectuals with a common goal of rational criticism that shaped modern social thoughts, featuring key figures like Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot.

• The Science of Man: Philosophes sought to establish social sciences grounded in scientific methodology to understand human behavior.

• Physiocrats and Adam Smith: Introduced foundational concepts of economics, advocating for free trade and the idea that agriculture is the source of wealth