A. The poet, Alexander Pope celebrated the successes of humans in the Scientific Revolution.
B. By the early 1700s, European thinkers felt that nothing was beyond the reach of the human mind.
C. Using methods of modern science, reformers set out to study human behavior and solve the problems of society.
2. A World of Progress and Reason
A. The enlightenment grew out of the Scientific Revolution of the 1500s and 1600s, with its amazing discoveries by thinkers like Copernicus and Newton.
B. Scientific successes created great confidence in the power of reason.
C. People said the if reason was used to find laws that governed the physical world, why not use reason to discover natural laws, or laws that govern human nature.
3. Two Views of the Social Contract
A. In the 1600s, two English thinkers, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, set forth ideas that were to become key to the Enlightenment.
B. Hobbes argued that people were naturally cruel greedy, and selfish. Hobbes said to escape brutish life people entered into a social contract, an agreement by which they gave up the state of nature for an organized society.
C. John Locke said that people were basically reasonable and moral. People had natural rights, or rights that belonged to all humans from birth.
4. Montesquieu�s Spirit of the Laws
A. In the 1700s an early and influential thinker was the Baron de Montesquieu who studied the governments of Europe.
B. In 1748, Montesquieu published The Spirit of the Laws. In it, he discussed governments throughout history.
C. Montesquieu also felt that each branch of government could serve as a chick on the other two.
5. The World of the Philosophes
A. In France great thinkers, called phiosophes, used methods of science to better understand and improve society.
B. The most famous philosophe was Fran�ois-Marie Arouet, who throughout his life followed his saying which was, �My trade, is to say what I think.�
C. Another philosohe, Denis Dederot worked for about 25 years to produce a 28-volume Encyclopedia.
6. Rousseau: A Controversial Figure
A. The most controversial philosophe was Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a strange man who never felt comfortable in the glittering social world of Enlightenment.
B. In 1762, Rousseau set forth ideas about government and society in The Social Contract.
C. Rousseau has influenced political and social thinkers for more than 200 years. His ideas helped fan flames of revolt in centuries to come.
7. Limited �Natural Rights� for Women
A. The Enlightenment slogan �free and equal,� did not apply to women though, unlike the natural rights of men, these rights were limited to the areas of home and family.
B. By the mid-1700s, a small but growing number of women protested this view.
C. Wolltonecraft was the best known of the British female critics. She accepted the responsibility of being a good mother, but said that women should also have a say in their interests and not be dependent on their husbands.
8. New Economic Thinking
A. Another kind of thinkers was the physiocrats, who focused on economic reforms.
B. Physiocrats rejected mercantilism, which required government regulation to achieve a favorable balance of trade. Instead they urged a policy called laissez faire which allowed business to operate with little or no government.
C. Adam Smith was a British economist who greatly admired the physiocrats. He argued that the free market, the natural forces of supply and demand, should be allowed to operate and regulate business.
9. Enlightenment Ideas Spread
A. From France, Enlightenment ideas spread across Europe, and beyond.
B. Even absolute monarchs experimented with Enlightenment ideas.
C. The philosopher thought that this became a threat to the old order, which was the established way of doing things.
10. The Challenge of New Ideas
A. The ideas of the Enlightenment spread quickly through many levels of society.
B. As the ideas spread, people started challenging the old ways and saw the need for a reform to achieve a just society.
C. But government and Church authorities felt they had a sacred duty to defend the old order because they believed the old order had been sent by God.
11. Salons
A. Salons were informal social gatherings where literature, arts, science, an philosophy were discussed and shared.
B. The salon originated in the 1600s, when a group of noblewomen in Paris began inviting a few friends to their homes to read poems.
C. By the 1700s, some middle-class women began holding salon.
12. The Salon in the Rue Saint Honor�
A. Marie-Th�r�se Godet was 14 when she married Fran�ois Geoffrin. Marie- Th�r�se Godet had a quiet life with not much excitement.
B. Marie- Th�r�se Godet was once invited to a salon where for the first time heard the polished conversation of brilliant men and women.
C. This inspired her and by 1750, Madame Geoffrin was a leading saloni�re.
13. Enlightened Despots
A. Some monarchs did accept Enlightenment ideas and became enlightened despots, or absolute rulers who used their power to bring about political and social change.
B. Catherine II of Russia read the works of the philosophes and exchanged letters with Voltaire and Dederot.
C. The most radical enlightened despot was the Hapsburg emperor Joseph II, son and successor of Maria Theresa.
14. The Arts and Literature
A. In the age of Louis XIV courtly art and architecture were either in classical style or in the grand, complex style known as baroque.
B. New musical entertainment evolved in the baroque era where ballets, operas and plays set to music were performed.
C. By the 1700s, literature developed new forms and a wide new audience, which were the middle-class readers. For example, they liked stories about their own times told in plain prose.
15. Lives of the Majority
A. Still though, most Europeans were untouched by the new culture and remained what they had always been, peasants living in small rural villages.
B. Peasant life varied across Europe. Villages in Western Europe were relatively more prosperous than those in Eastern Europe.
C. Despite advances, some echoes of serfdom survived in Western Europe. In France, peasants still had to provide free labor, repairing roads and bridges.
16. Britain at Mid-Century
A. Over the next century, Britain embraced this doctrine and built a colonial and commercial empire that reached around the world.
B. Britain had replaced Spain as the most successful Empire in Europe.
C. Britain developed a constitutional monarchy, a political system somewhere between the absolute monarchies of the European continent and later democratic governments.
17. Global Expansion
A. England�s location made it well placed to control trade during the Renaissance.
B. In the 1700s, Britain was generally on the winning side in European conflicts.
C. England offered a more favorable climate to business and commerce than its European rivals.
18. Growth of Constitutional Government
A. The appearance of the institution was part of the evolution of England�s constitutional government, which is that a government whose power is defined and limited by law.
B. The cabinet was a new feature of government in 1714, when the British throne passed by hereditary right to a German Protestant prince.
C. The head of the cabinet was the prime minister who was the leader of the majority party in Parliament and in time the chief official of the British government.
19. Politics and Society
A. The age of Walpole was a time of peace and prosperity, but still British government was far from being democratic.
B. In Britain as on the continent, landowning aristocrats were seen as the �natural� ruling class.
C. The lives of most people contrasted sharply with those of the ruling elite. The majority made a meager living from the land.
20. George III Reasserts Royal Power
A. In 1760, George III embarked on a 60-year reign. George was eager to recover the powers the crown had lost, and following his mothers advice he set out to reassert royal power.
B. Gradually, George found seats in Parliament for �the king�s friends� and with their help he set out to regain control of the government.
C. Britain�s loss of its American colonies discredited the king, and increasingly in the crisis of leadership that followed cabinet rule was restored in 1788.
21. Birth of the American Republic
A. Early in 1776, English colonists in North America eagerly read the newly published Common Sense.
B. In Common Sense, Paine echoed the themes of the Enlightenment.
C. Colonists hotly debated Pain�s arguments and as resentment of British policies grew, however, many came to agree with his radical ideas.
22. The 13 English Colonies
A. By 1750, a string of 13 prosperous colonies stretched along the eastern coast of North America.
B. Britain applied mercantilist policies to its colonies and in the 1600s, Parliament had passed the Navigation Acts to regulate colonial trade and manufacturing.
C. Ways of life differed from New England to the southern colonies. Still colonists shared common values, respect for individual enterprise, and a growing self-confidence.
23. Growth Discontent
A. After 1763, relations between Britain and the 13 colonies grew strained. The Seven Years� War, called the French and Indian War in North America, had drained the British treasury.
B. A series of violent clashes intensified the crisis and in 1770, British soldiers in Boston opened fire on a crowd that was rebelling.
C. In April 1775, the crisis exploded into war. The next month, as fighting spread, colonial leaders ment in a Continental Congress to decide what action to take.
24. The American Revolution
A. In the American Revolution the British had professional soldiers, a huge fleet, and plentiful money. They occupied most major American cities.
B. A turning point in the war came with the American triumph over the British in 1777at the Battle of Saratoga when the victory convinced France to join the Americans against its old rival, Britain.
C. Finally in 1781, with the help of the French fleet, Washington forced the surrender of a British army at Yorktown, Virginia.
25. A New Constitution
A. A national government set up by a document that Americans called the Articles of Confederation was too weak to rule the New United States effectively.
B. The framers of the Constitution had absorbed the ideas of Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau and had studied history.
C. In 1789, the Constitution becam law. It set up a representative government with an elected legislature to reflect the wishes of the governed.
