European History The Enlightenment (1650–1800) Brief Overview People & Qs
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Brief Overview
Causes
On the surface, the most apparent cause of the Enlightenment was the Thirty Years’ War. This horribly destructive war, which lasted from 1618 to 1648, compelled German writers to pen harsh criticisms regarding the ideas of nationalism and warfare. These authors, such as Hugo Grotius and John Comenius, were some of the first Enlightenment minds to go against tradition and propose better solutions.
At the same time, European thinkers’ interest in the tangible world developed into scientific study, while greater exploration of the world exposed Europe to other cultures and philosophies. Finally, centuries of mistreatment at the hands of monarchies and the church brought average citizens in Europe to a breaking point, and the most intelligent and vocal finally decided to speak out.
Pre-Enlightenment Discoveries
The Enlightenment developed through a snowball effect: small advances triggered larger ones, and before Europe and the world knew it, almost two centuries of philosophizing and innovation had ensued. These studies generally began in the fields of earth science and astronomy, as notables such as Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei took the old, beloved “truths” of Aristotle and disproved them. Thinkers such as René Descartes and Francis Bacon revised the scientific method, setting the stage for Isaac Newton and his landmark discoveries in physics.
From these discoveries emerged a system for observing the world and making testable hypotheses based on those observations. At the same time, however, scientists faced ever-increasing scorn and skepticism from people in the religious community, who felt threatened by science and its attempts to explain matters of faith. Nevertheless, the progressive, rebellious spirit of these scientists would inspire a century’s worth of thinkers.
The Enlightenment in England
The first major Enlightenment figure in England was Thomas Hobbes, who caused great controversy with the release of his provocative treatise Leviathan (1651). Taking a sociological perspective, Hobbes felt that by nature, people were self-serving and preoccupied with the gathering of a limited number of resources. To keep balance, Hobbes continued, it was essential to have a single intimidating ruler. A half century later, John Locke came into the picture, promoting the opposite type of government—a representative government—in his Two Treatises of Government (1690).
Although Hobbes would be more influential among his contemporaries, it was clear that Locke’s message was closer to the English people’s hearts and minds. Just before the turn of the century, in 1688, English Protestants helped overthrow the Catholic king James II and installed the Protestant monarchs William and Mary. In the aftermath of this Glorious Revolution, the English government ratified a new Bill of Rights that granted more personal freedoms.
The Enlightenment in France
Many of the major French Enlightenment thinkers, or philosophes, were born in the years after the Glorious Revolution, so France’s Enlightenment came a bit later, in the mid-1700s. The philosophes, though varying in style and area of particular concern, generally emphasized the power of reason and sought to discover the natural laws governing human society. The Baron de Montesquieu tackled politics by elaborating upon Locke's work, solidifying concepts such as the separation of power by means of divisions in government. Voltaire took a more caustic approach, choosing to incite social and political change by means of satire and criticism. Although Voltaire’s satires arguably sparked little in the way of concrete change, Voltaire nevertheless was adept at exposing injustices and appealed to a wide range of readers. His short novel Candide is regarded as one of the seminal works in history.
Denis Diderot, unlike Montesquieu and Voltaire, had no revolutionary aspirations; he was interested merely in collecting as much knowledge as possible for his mammoth Encyclopédie. The Encyclopédie, which ultimately weighed in at thirty-five volumes, would go on to spread Enlightenment knowledge to other countries around the world.
Romanticism
In reaction to the rather empirical philosophies of Voltaire and others, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote The Social Contract (1762), a work championing a form of government based on small, direct democracy that directly reflects the will of the population. Later, at the end of his career, he would write Confessions, a deeply personal reflection on his life. The unprecedented intimate perspective that Rousseau provided contributed to a burgeoning Romantic era that would be defined by an emphasis on emotion and instinct instead of reason.
Skepticism
Another undercurrent that threatened the prevailing principles of the Enlightenment was skepticism. Skeptics questioned whether human society could really be perfected through the use of reason and denied the ability of rational thought to reveal universal truths. Their philosophies revolved around the idea that the perceived world is relative to the beholder and, as such, no one can be sure whether any truths actually exist.
Immanuel Kant, working in Germany during the late eighteenth century, took skepticism to its greatest lengths, arguing that man could truly know neither observed objects nor metaphysical concepts; rather, the experience of such things depends upon the psyche of the observer, thus rendering universal truths impossible. The theories of Kant, along with those of other skeptics such as David Hume, were influential enough to change the nature of European thought and effectively end the Enlightenment.
The End of the Enlightenment
Ultimately, the Enlightenment fell victim to competing ideas from several sources. Romanticism was more appealing to less-educated common folk and pulled them away from the empirical, scientific ideas of earlier Enlightenment philosophers. Similarly, the theories of skepticism came into direct conflict with the reason-based assertions of the Enlightenment and gained a following of their own.
What ultimately and abruptly killed the Enlightenment, however, was the French Revolution. Begun with the best intentions by French citizens inspired by Enlightenment thought, the revolution attempted to implement orderly representative assemblies but quickly degraded into chaos and violence. Many people cited the Enlightenment-induced breakdown of norms as the root cause of the instability and saw the violence as proof that the masses could not be trusted to govern themselves. Nonetheless, the discoveries and theories of the Enlightenment philosophers continued to influence Western society for centuries.
Key People
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
An enormously influential German composer who rose to prominence in the early 1700s. Best known by his contemporaries as an organist, Bach also wrote an enormous body of both sacred and secular music that synthesized a variety of styles and in turn influenced countless later composers.
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
An English philosopher and statesman who developed the inductive method or Baconian method of scientific investigation, which stresses observation and reasoning as a means for coming to general conclusions. Bacon’s work influenced his later contemporary René Descartes.
Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794)
An Italian politician who ventured into philosophy to protest the horrible injustices that he observed in various European judicial systems. Beccaria’s book On Crimes and Punishments (1764) exposed these practices and led to the abolition of many.
John Comenius (1592–1670)
A Czech educational and social reformer who, in response to the Thirty Years’ War, made the bold move of challenging the necessity of war in the first place. Comenius stressed tolerance and education as alternatives for war, which were revolutionary concepts at the time.
René Descartes (1596–1650)
A French philosopher and scientist who revolutionized algebra and geometry and made the famous philosophical statement “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes developed a deductive approach to philosophy using math and logic that still remains a standard for problem solving.
Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
A French scholar who was the primary editor of the Encyclopédie, a massive thirty-five-volume compilation of human knowledge in the arts and sciences, along with commentary from a number of Enlightenment thinkers. The Encyclopédie became a prominent symbol of the Enlightenment and helped spread the movement throughout Europe.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
American thinker, diplomat, and inventor who traveled frequently between the American colonies and Europe during the Enlightenment and facilitated an exchange of ideas between them. Franklin exerted profound influence on the formation of the new government of the United States, with a hand in both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)
A German author who wrote near the end of the Aufklärung, the German Enlightenment. Goethe’s morose The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) helped fuel the Sturm und Drangmovement, and his two-part Faust (1808, 1832) is seen as one of the landmarks of Western literature.
Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793)
A French feminist and reformer in the waning years of the Enlightenment who articulated the rights of women with her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791).
Hugo Grotius (1583–1645)
A Dutch scholar who, like Czech John Comenius, lived during the Thirty Years’ War and felt compelled to write in response to it. The result, a treatise on war and international relations titled On the Law of War and Peace (1625), eventually became accepted as the basis for the rules of modern warfare.
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
A German-English composer of the late Baroque period whose Messiah remains one of the best-known pieces of music in the world. Handel was an active court composer, receiving commissions from such notables as King George I of England, for whom his Water Music suite was written and performed.
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
A philosopher and political theorist whose 1651 treatise Leviathan effectively kicked off the English Enlightenment. The controversial Leviathan detailed Hobbes’s theory that all humans are inherently self-driven and evil and that the best form of government is thus a single, all-powerful monarch to keep everything in order.
David Hume (1711–1776)
A Scottish philosopher and one of the most prominent figures in the field of skepticism during the Enlightenment. Hume took religion to task, asking why a perfect God would ever create an imperfect world, and even suggested that our own senses are fallible, bringing all observations and truths into question. Hume’s skepticism proved very influential to others, such as Immanuel Kant, and was instrumental in the shift away from rationalist thought that ended the Enlightenment.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
American thinker and politician who penned the Declaration of Independence (1776), which was inspired directly by Enlightenment thought.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
A German skeptic philosopher who built on David Hume’s theories and brought the school of thought to an even higher level. Kant theorized that all humans are born with innate “experiences” that then reflect onto the world, giving them a perspective. Thus, since no one actually knows what other people see, the idea of “reasoning” is not valid. Kant’s philosophies applied the brakes to the Enlightenment, effectively denouncing reason as an invalid approach to thought.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716)
Generally considered the founder of the Aufklärung,or German Enlightenment,who injected a bit of spirituality into the Enlightenment with writings regarding God and his perfect, harmonious world. Also a scientist who shared credit for the discovery of calculus, Leibniz hated the idea of relying on empirical evidence in the world. Instead, he developed a theory that the universe consists of metaphysical building blocks he called monads.
John Locke (1632–1704)
An English political theorist who focused on the structure of governments. Locke believed that men are all rational and capable people but must compromise some of their beliefs in the interest of forming a government for the people. In his famous Two Treatises of Government (1690), he championed the idea of a representative government that would best serve all constituents.
Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755)
The foremost French political thinker of the Enlightenment, whose most influential book, The Spirit of Laws, expanded John Locke’s political study and incorporated the ideas of a division of state and separation of powers. Montesquieu’s work also ventured into sociology: he spent a considerable amount of time researching various cultures and their climates, ultimately deducing that climate is a major factor in determining the type of government a given country should have.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
A genius Austrian composer who began his career as a child prodigy and authored some of the most renowned operas and symphonies in history. Mozart’s music has never been surpassed in its blend of technique and emotional breadth, and his musical genius places him in a category with a select few other composers.
Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727)
An English scholar and mathematician regarded as the father of physical science. Newton’s discoveries anchored the Scientific Revolution and set the stage for everything that followed in mathematics and physics. He shared credit for the creation of calculus, and his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica introduced the world to gravity and fundamental laws of motion.
Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
English-American political writer whose pamphlet Common Sense (1776) argued that the British colonies in America should rebel against the Crown. Paine’s work had profound influence on public sentiment during the American Revolution, which had begun just months earlier.
François Quesnay (1694–1774)
A French economist whose Tableau Économique (1758) argued against government intervention in the economy and inspired Scottish economist Adam Smith’s seminal Wealth of Nations (1776).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
An eclectic Swiss-French thinker who brought his own approach to the Enlightenment, believing that man was at his best when unshackled by the conventions of society. Rousseau’s epic The Social Contract (1762) conceived of a system of direct democracy in which all citizens contribute to an overarching “general will” that serves everyone at once. Later in his life, Rousseau released Confessions (1789), which brought a previously unheard-of degree of personal disclosure to the genre of autobiography. The frank personal revelations and emotional discussions were a major cause for the shift toward Romanticism.
Adam Smith (1723–1790)
An influential Scottish economist who objected to the stifling mercantilist systems that were in place during the late eighteenth century. In response, Smith wrote the seminal Wealth of Nations (1776), a dissertation criticizing mercantilism and describing the many merits of a free trade system.
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677)
A Dutch-Jewish lens grinder who questioned tenets of Judaism and Christianity, which helped undermine religious authority in Europe. Although Spinoza personally believed in God, he rejected the concept of miracles, the religious supernatural, and the idea that the Bible was divinely inspired. Rather, he believed that ethics determined by rational thought were more important as a guide to conduct than was religion.
Voltaire (1694–1778)
A French writer and the primary satirist of the Enlightenment, who criticized religion and leading philosophies of the time. Voltaire’s numerous plays and essays frequently advocated freedom from the ploys of religion, while Candide (1759), the most notable of his works, conveyed his criticisms of optimism and superstition into a neat package.
Key Terms
Aufklärung
Another name for the German Enlightenment.
Deism
A system of faith to which many of the French philosophes and other Enlightenment thinkers subscribed. Deists believed in an all-powerful God but viewed him as a “cosmic watchmaker” who created the universe and set it in autonomous motion and then never again tampered with it. Deists also shunned organized religion, especially Church doctrines about eternal damnation and a “natural” hierarchy of existence.
Enlightened Absolutism
A trend in European governments during the later part of the Enlightenment, in which a number of absolute monarchs adopted Enlightenment-inspired reforms yet retained a firm grip on power. Frederick the Great of Prussia, Maria-Theresa and Joseph II of Austria, Charles III of Spain, and Catherine the Great of Russia are often counted among these “enlightened despots.”
French Revolution
A revolution in France that overthrew the monarchy and is often cited as the end of the Enlightenment. The French Revolution began in 1789 when King Louis XVI convened the legislature in an attempt to solve France’s monumental financial woes. Instead, the massive middle class revolted and set up its own government. Although this new government was effective for a few years, internal dissent grew and power switched hands repeatedly, until France plunged into the brutally violent Reign of Terror of 1793–1794.Critics saw this violence as a direct result of Enlightenment thought and as evidence that the masses were not fit to govern themselves.
Glorious Revolution
The name given to the bloodless coup d’état in England in 1688, which saw the Catholic monarch, King James II, removed from the throne and replaced by the Protestants William and Mary. The new monarchs not only changed the religious course of England and the idea of divine right but also allowed the additional personal liberties necessary for the Enlightenment to truly flourish.
Individualism
One of the cornerstones of the Enlightenment, a philosophy stressing the recognition of every person as a valuable individual with inalienable, inborn rights.
Mercantilism
The economic belief that a favorable balance of trade—that is, more exports than imports—would yield more gold and silver, and thus overall wealth and power, for a country. Governments tended to monitor and meddle with their mercantilist systems closely, which Scottish economist Adam Smith denounced as bad economic practice in his Wealth of Nations.
Philosophes
The general term for those academics and intellectuals who became the leading voices of the French Enlightenment during the eighteenth century. Notable philosophes included Voltaire, the Baron de Montesquieu, and Denis Diderot.
Rationalism
Arguably the foundation of the Enlightenment, the belief that, by using the power of reason, humans could arrive at truth and improve human life.
Relativism
Another fundamental philosophy of the Enlightenment, which declared that different ideas, cultures, and beliefs had equal merit. Relativism developed in reaction to the age of exploration, which increased European exposure to a variety of peoples and cultures across the world.
Romanticism
A movement that surfaced near the end of the Enlightenment that placed emphasis on innate emotions and instincts rather than reason, as well as on the virtues of existing in a natural state. Writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe both contributed greatly to the development of Romanticism.
Salons
Gathering places for wealthy, intellectually minded elites during the years during and prior to the Enlightenment. The salons typically held weekly meetings where upper-class citizens gathered to discuss the political and social theories of the day.
Scientific Revolution
A gradual development of thought and approaches to the study of the universe that took place from approximately 1500 to 1700 and paved the way for the Enlightenment. Coming from humble beginnings with basic observations, the Scientific Revolution grew to a fever pitch when scientists such as Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, and Johannes Kepler entered the scene and essentially rewrote history, disproving Church doctrines, explaining religious “miracles,” and setting the world straight on all sorts of scientific principles. The result was not only new human knowledge but also a new perspective on the acquisition of knowledge, such as the scientific method.
Separation of Power
A political idea, developed by John Locke and the Baron de Montesquieu, that power in government should be divided into separate branches—typically legislative, judicial, and executive—in order to ensure that no one branch of a governing body can gain too much authority.
Skepticism
A philosophical movement that emerged in response to rationalism and maintained that human perception is too relative to be considered credible. David Hume brought skepticism into the spotlight by suggesting that human perceptions cannot be trusted, and then Immanuel Kant elevated the field when he proposed that humans are born with innate “experiences” that give shape to their own, individual worlds.
Social Contract
An idea in political philosophy, generally associated with John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, stating that a government and its subjects enter into an implicit contract when that government takes power. In exchange for ceding some freedoms to the government and its established laws, the subjects expect and demand mutual protection. The government’s authority, meanwhile, lies only in the consent of the governed.
Sturm und Drang
Literally meaning “storm and stress,” the name given to an undercurrent of the German Enlightenment during which German youths expressed their angst by rebelling against the pleasant optimism of the time. Influenced partly by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, participants in the Sturm und Drang movement harbored a depressed, more archaic idealism. Though it revealed a decided one-sidedness of the German Enlightenment, the movement did not sustain itself for very long.
Thirty Years’ War
A brutal, destructive conflict in Germany between 1618 and 1648. The Thirty Years’ War began when Bohemian Protestants revolted out of a refusal to be ruled by a Catholic king. The battle would eventually spread throughout Germany and involve many other countries on both sides, resulting in the death of nearly a third of the German population and unfathomable destruction. Enlightenment thinkers such as John Comenius and Hugo Grotius reacted against the war with treatises about education, international relations, and the nature of war itself.
Study Questions
In what ways did the writings of Comenius and Grotius foreshadow the themes of the later Enlightenment?
The works of Comenius and Grotius set the stage for Enlightenment thought in a variety of ways. First, the very fact that they were writing in protest of a national event—the Thirty Years’ War—was revolutionary, as most European governments up to that point had looked very unfavorably upon individuals who might be seen as undermining their authority. Moreover, the substance of Comenius’s and Grotius’s arguments contains clear elements that were mirrored in the works of later Enlightenment thinkers. Comenius emphasized the importance of education, claiming that educated citizens would be less likely to go to war. With this suggestion, Comenius made the same argument that the French philosophes would almost a century later—that reason, and the ability to think and analyze a situation, could solve the problems of the world. Both Comenius and Grotius stressed the importance of treating men as individuals, not as commodities—a sentiment that they expressed in different ways. Comenius felt that, physiologically speaking, we are all the same, and it is therefore unnecessary to fight with each other. Grotius wrote that we all have a responsibility to God to use our lives wisely, and thus giving one’s life for war is an irresponsible way to die. In short, although they phrased it different ways, both men set forth the same ideas: individual liberty, humane treatment for citizens, and ultimately a change in the way that nations and rulers viewed their citizens.
Compare and contrast Hobbes’s perspective on man with Locke’s and explain how that perspective affects their respective ideal governments.
Although both hailed from England and both rose to prominence early in the Enlightenment, Hobbes and Locke took diametrically opposite approaches in their political philosophies. Hobbes was steadfast in his belief that all humans are inherently evil or base by nature. As a result, all people are intrinsically motivated to provide themselves with as many resources as possible. Because resources in the world are limited, people thus become selfish and greedy in their competition for these resources. From this belief emerged Hobbes’s ideal government: one in which a single figure oversees a country and rules using fear. Hobbes believed that fear was the most effective way to control the citizenry and prevent the disorder that would result from each individual greedily pursuing his or her wants.
Locke was far more optimistic, stating that all humans were capable and that they strove for the betterment of the world. His one caveat was that humans in a society would all have to compromise on some of their ideals in the interest of forming a government that best served everyone—however, he believed that humans were reasonable enough to do so. Subsequently, Locke was a proponent of a representative democracy. Such a system would allow all of these rational, thinking people in a society to contribute to their governance, but in such a way that found compromise and kept any one individual’s or group’s wants from crowding out the others.
What factors caused the German Enlightenment to lag behind the English and French Enlightenments?
In the late 1600s and early 1700s, when the Enlightenment was well under way in Britain and France, Germany was highly fragmented both politically and culturally. It was technically not a nation at all but rather a multitude of small sovereign states. Furthermore, nearly all of these states were ruled by despots who instituted strict censorship, stifling intellectual development and making the dissemination of new knowledge difficult. German culture and literature were likewise disjointed, with different regions drawing on different influences and no distinct literary style yet in place. Whereas France and other European countries used vernacular languages for literature, the literary language in Germany was still predominantly Latin. As a result, Enlightenment ideas from England and France took a long time to spread to Germany.
Moreover, German intellectual culture had a prominent streak of conservatism that was lacking in England and France. Christianity was still a dominant force in Germany, where there was not nearly the level of popular discontent with religion and the Church that there was in other western European nations. Many German intellectuals still incorporated traditional Christian themes into their thought and therefore rejected the Enlightenment’s “heretical” focus on pure reason and empiricism. Leibniz, for instance, made a number of great discoveries in mathematics and philosophy, but his religious devotion kept him from straying too far from tradition. As a result, when the German Enlightenment finally did begin in the late 1700s, it proceeded in an entirely different direction from the English and French Enlightenments, embracing reason and rationalism but maintaining strong elements of religion and spirituality at the same time.
