Political Revolutions #____
Standard______
The Enlightenment Period
Background Reading
In the early 1700’s, a group of thinkers set forth the idea that people could apply reason to all aspects of life, just Sir Isaac Newton had applied reason to science. These thinkers were known as philosophes. They represented the time during which the idea of the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution were brought together. People began to believe for the first time since the Ancient world that man could live a good and productive life on Earth, that people did not have to wait until death to receive a spiritual reward, and that society could be improved through the use of reason and fairness. It was at this time that many inventions and discoveries were made and new ideas were discussed. This happened in many areas, including science, politics, the arts and medicine.
The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that attempted to use reason to understand society. Political developments in England in the 1600’s had a strong impact on Enlightenment thinkers. The English Civil War was a brutal conflict in which many people died. It was war between the ideas of the “Divine Right of Kings” and Limited Government. This conflict sparked Enlightenment ideals. So did many other aspects of Western tradition like the rational spirit of Greek Philosophy that people are basically equal because they have the capacity to reason and the Judeo-Christian belief that all people are equal before God.
The thinkers of the Enlightenment were strong advocates of political liberty and debated the ideas of the nature of man, civil society, the social contract, and the purpose of government. The philosophes attacked any institution that they found in conflict with their ideals. They denounced slavery as a violation of the slave’s natural right to liberty. They condemned the squalid conditions of Europe’s prisons and the use of torture to force confessions. They denounced censorship of political ideas, calling for freedom of speech and of the press. The philosophes also attacked Christianity. They would not accept Christian doctrines that seemed contrary to reason. They denied that the Bible was God’s work, rejected the authority of Church officials, and dismissed miracles as incompatible with natural law. The philosophes regarded religious persecution as particularly wicked and irrational.