A. A World of Progress and Reason
1. The Scientific Revolution of the 1500s and 1600s is what made the Enlightenment grow because of all the amazing discoveries by thinkers like Cornicus and Newton.
2. Such discoveries included the framework for modern chemistry, found by Joseph Priestly and Antoine Lavoisier, and the vaccine against smallpox, founded by Edward Jenner.
3. Because the scientific successes created great confidence in the power of reason, enlightenment thinkers could solve every social, political, and economic problem.
B. Two Views of the Social Contract
1. The ideas that were to become an important key to the enlightenment were set forth by John Locke and Thomas Hobbes.
2. Because Hobbes believed that only a powerful government could ensure an orderly society, Hobbes entered into a social contract, or an agreement by which they gave up the state of nature for an organized society.
3. John Locke believed that people were basically reasonable and moral, and that they had natural right, or rights that belonged to all humans from birth.
C. Montesquieu�s Spirit of the Laws
1. Baron de Montesquieu was a thinker who studied the governments or Europe, and did not believe in absolute monarchy, in which his criticism opened the doors for later debate.
2. Montesquieu published The Spirit of the Laws in 1748, in which he discussed governments throughout history and wrote admiringly about Britain�s limited monarchy.
3. Montesquieu believed that the British had protected themselves against tyranny by dividing the functions and powers of government among three separate branches, in which he thought was the best way to protect liberty.
D. The World of Philosophers
1. Philosophers, or �lovers of wisdom,� were thinkers that applied the methods of science to better understand and improve society.
2. Francois-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire, was a philosopher who targeted corrupt officials and idle aristocrats, and detested the slave trade and deplored religious prejudice.
3. Denis Diderot wanted �to change the general way of thinking,� so he wrote a 28-volume Encyclopedia.
E. Rousseau: A Controversial Figure
1. Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that people in their natural state were good, but was corrupted by the evils of society.
2. In 1762, Rousseau wrote The Social Contract, which argued that some social controls, control by a freely formed government, are good, not evil.
3. He also thought that the good of the community as a whole should be placed above individual interests, and he defined freedom as obedience to the law.
F. Limited �Natural Rights� for Women
1. Although women did have �natural rights,� the slogan �free and equal� did not apply to them, because their rights were limited.
2. By the mid 700s, a small group of women protested this, which was ridiculed and often sharply condemned.
3. Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the best known British female critics, wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman which called for the same education for girls and boys.
G. New Economic Thinking
1. Physiocrats, or thinkers that focused on economic reforms, looked for natural laws to define a rational economical system.
2. They argued a policy of laissez faire, which allowed business to operate with little or no government interference.
3. Adam Smith, a British economist, wrote The Wealth of Nations, which argued that the free market, the natural forces of supply and demand, should be allowed to operate and regulate business.
II. Enlightenment Ideas Spread
A. The Challenges of New Ideas
1. During the Age of Reason, as the Enlightenment spread, thinkers taught that a just society should ensure material well-being, social justice, and happiness in this world.
2. Because Government and Church authorities believed that they should defend the old order because it had been set up by God, they waged a war of censorship, banning and burning books and imprisoning writers.
3. Salons or informal social gatherings, at which artists, writers, philosophers, and others exchanged ideas, were where topics like new literature, the arts, science, and philosophy were discussed.
B. The Salon in the Rue Saint Honore
1. Madame Geoffrin, a wife and mother of two children, was so inspired by one sitting in a salon that she turned her house into a salon, even though her husband disapproved.
2. By 1750, Madame Geoffrin was a leading saloni�re and had brought together the brightest and most talented people of her day and donated large sums of money to support the Encyclopedia.
3. Because women like Madame Geoffrin were often not well educated, they set up salons to learn from the conversations of educated men, which is why Madame Geoffrin was so dedicated to her salon.
C. Enlightened Despots
1. Enlightened despots or absolute rulers who used their power to bring about political and social change, were monarchs who did accept Enlightenment ideas.
2. Frederick II, the king of Prussia from 1740-1786, lured Voltaire to Berlin to develop a Prussian academy of science, and also made many reforms, like providing seeds to the peasants who suffered in Prussia�s wars, and tolerating religious differences.
3. Joseph II, the emperor of Hapsburg, was the most radical enlightened despot who traveled in disguise among his subjects to learn of their problems, which gave him the nickname, �the peasant emperor.�
D. The Arts and Literature
1. In the 1600 and 1700s, the arts evolved to meet changing tastes, like in the age of Louis XIV, the art and architecture were in classical style, or baroque, a style where painting were huge, colorful, and full of excitement.
2. New kinds of musical entertainment evolved in the baroque era, for example, ballets and operas were performed at royal courts, and opera houses sprang up from Italy to England to amuse the paying public.
3. Also, literature consisting of stories about their own times in plain prose were popular for the Middle-class readers, such as Robinson Crusoe and Pamela.
E. Lives of the Majority
1. Most Europeans were untouched by either courtly or middle-class culture because they remained what they had always been-peasants living in small rural villages.
2. In the west, instead of serfdom, some peasants worked their own patches of land, where others were tenants of large landowners.
3. By the late 1700s, radical ideas about equality and social justice seeped into peasant villages.
III. Britain at Mid-Century
A. Global Expansion
1. 1500s and 1600s, English merchants sent ships across the world�s oceans and set up trade outposts in the West Indies, North America, and India.
2. 1700s, Britain was winning in conflicts and got rewards like the Treaty of Utrecht, France gave Britain Nona Scotia and Newfoundland in North America, and Brit. won a slave trade in South America which brought a lot of wealth to Brit. merchants.
3. 1707, the Act of Union united England and Scotland in the UK of Great Brit.
B. Growth of Constitutional Government
1. Political parties, the cabinet, the office of the prime minister were part of the evolution of England�s constitutional government.
2. Constitutional government is a government whose power is defined and limitation by law.
3. 1600s, 2 political parties emerged in England, Tories and Whigs.
4. 1714, England�s passed throne onto a German ruler, George I.
5. Prime Minister � was the leader of the majority party in Parliament and in time the chief official of the British government. Walpole was the 1st prime minister of Britain.
C. Politics and Societye
1. Land holding aristocrats were distinguished as the �natural� ruling class in Britain.
2. Wealthy landowners and business leaders controlled the elections to the House of Commons.
3. The poor were being threatened in the 1700s because the big landowners were buying their property.
D. George III Reasserts Royal Power
1. 1760, In England George III embarked on a 60-year reign.
2. George adopted a new policy: colonist in North America must pay the costs of their own defense.
3. 1775, these conflicts started the American Revolution.