western civilization since 1300 ap edition

The Parisian salon of Madame Geoffrin (third figure from the right in the first row)

The EighteenthCentury: An Ageof Enlightenment

C H A P T E R 17

CHAPTER OUTLINEAND FOCUS QUESTIONS

The Enlightenment

Q What intellectual developments led to the emer-gence of the Enlightenment? Who were the leadingfigures of the Enlightenment, and what were theirmain contributions? In what type of social envir-onment did the philosophes thrive, and what roledid women play in that environment?

Culture and Society in the Enlightenment

Q What innovations in art, music, and literatureoccurred in the eighteenth century? How didpopular culture differ from high culture in theeighteenth century?

Religion and the Churches

Q How did popular religion differ from institutionalreligion in the eighteenth century?

CRITICAL THINKING

Q What was the relationship between the Scien-tific Revolution and the Enlightenment?

THE EARTH-SHATTERING WORK of the ‘‘naturalphilosophers’’ in the Scientific Revolution had affectedonly a relatively small number of Europe’s educatedelite. In the eighteenth century, this changed dramati-cally as a group of intellectuals known as the philo-sophes popularized the ideas of the Scientific Revolutionand used them to undertake a dramatic reexaminationof all aspects of life. In Paris, the cultural capital ofEurope, women took the lead in bringing togethergroups of men and women to discuss the new ideas ofthe philosophes. At her fashionable home in the RueSaint-Honor�e, Marie-Th�er�ese de Geoffrin (ma-REE-tay-RAYZ duh zhoh-FRANH), the wife of a wealthy mer-chant, held sway over gatherings that became the talk ofFrance and even Europe. Distinguished foreigners, in-cluding a future king of Sweden and a future king ofPoland, competed to receive invitations. When MadameGeoffrin made a visit to Vienna, she was so well receivedthat she exclaimed, ‘‘I am better known here than a cou-ple of yards from my own house.’’ Madame Geoffrin wasan amiable but firm hostess who allowed wide-rangingdiscussions as long as they remained in good taste.When she found that artists and philosophers did notmix particularly well (the artists were high-strung andthe philosophers talked too much), she set up separatemeetings. Artists were invited only on Mondays, philoso-phers, on Wednesdays. These gatherings were amongthe many avenues for the spread of the ideas of thephilosophes. And those ideas had such a widespreadimpact on their society that historians ever since havecalled the eighteenth century the Age of Enlightenment.

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The Enlightenment

Q FOCUS QUESTIONS: What intellectual developmentsled to the emergence of the Enlightenment? Whowere the leading figures of the Enlightenment,and what were their main contributions? In whattype of social environment did the philosophesthrive, and what role did women play in thatenvironment?

In 1784, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (i-MAHN-yoo-el KAHNT) defined the Enlightenment as

‘‘man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity.’’Whereas earlier periods had been handi-capped by the inability to ‘‘use one’sintelligence without the guidance of an-other,’’ Kant proclaimed as the motto ofthe Enlightenment: ‘‘Dare to know! Have

the courage to use your own intelligence!’’ The eighteenth-century Enlightenment was a movement of intellectualswho dared to know. They were greatly impressed with theaccomplishments of the Scientific Revolution, and whenthey used the word reason—one of their favorite words—they were advocating the application of the scientificmethod to the understanding of all life. All institutionsand all systems of thought were subject to the rational,scientific way of thinking if only people would freethemselves from the shackles of old, worthless traditions,especially religious ones. If Isaac Newton could discoverthe natural laws regulating the world of nature, they too,by using reason, could find the laws that governed humansociety. This belief in turn led them to hope that theycould make progress toward a better society than the onethey had inherited. Reason, natural law, hope, progress—these were the buzz words in the heady atmosphere of theeighteenth century.

The Paths to EnlightenmentThe intellectuals of the eighteenth century were especiallyinfluenced by the revolutionary thinkers of the seventeenthcentury. What were the major intellectual changes that cul-minated in the intellectual movement of the Enlightenment?

THE POPULARIZATION OF SCIENCE Although the in-tellectuals of the eighteenth century were much influ-enced by the scientific ideas of the seventeenth, they didnot always acquire this knowledge directly from theoriginal sources. Newton’s Principia was not an easy bookto read or comprehend. Scientific ideas were spread toever-widening circles of educated Europeans not so muchby scientists themselves as by popularizers. Especiallyimportant as the direct link between the Scientific Revo-lution of the seventeenth century and the philosophes ofthe eighteenth was Bernard de Fontenelle (bayr-NAHRduh fawnt-NELL) (1657–1757), secretary of the FrenchRoyal Academy of Science from 1691 to 1741.

Although Fontenelle performed no scientific experi-ments and made no scientific discoveries, he possessed adeep knowledge of all the scientific work of earlier cen-turies and his own time. Moreover, he was able to com-municate that body of scientific knowledge in a clear andeven witty fashion that appealed to his upper-class audi-ences in a meaningful way. One of his most successfulbooks, Plurality of Worlds, was actually presented in theform of an intimate conversation between a lady aristo-crat and her lover who are engaged in conversation underthe stars. What are they discussing? ‘‘Tell me,’’ she ex-claims, ‘‘about these stars of yours.’’ Her lover proceeds totell her of the tremendous advances in cosmology afterthe 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 thosesolid skies, which the ancients had pictured to themselves.The former he abolished; the latter, he broke in pieces. Firedwith the noble zeal of a true astronomer, he took the earthand 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 ladylearned the basic fundamentals of the new mechanisticuniverse. So too did scores of the educated elite of Europe.What bliss it was to learn the ‘‘truth’’ in such lightheartedfashion.

Thanks to Fontenelle, science was no longer the mo-nopoly of experts but part of literature. He was especiallyfond of downplaying the religious backgrounds of theseventeenth-century scientists. Himself a skeptic, Fonte-nelle contributed to the growing skepticism toward re-ligion at the end of the seventeenth century by portrayingthe churches as enemies of scientific progress.

A NEW SKEPTICISM The great scientists of the seven-teenth century, including Kepler, Galileo, and Newton,had pursued their work in a spirit of exalting God, not

Immanuel Kant,What Is

Enlightenment?

514 CHAPTER 17 The Eighteenth Century: An Age of Enlightenment

For most of the philosophes, ‘‘enlightenment’’ in-cluded the rejection of traditional Christianity. Thereligious wars and intolerance of the sixteenth and sev-enteenth centuries had so alienated intellectuals thatthey were open and even eager to embrace the newideas of the Scientific Revolution. Whereas the great sci-entists of the seventeenth century believed that theirwork exalted God, the intellectuals of the eighteenthcentury read those scientific conclusions a different wayand increasingly turned their backs on Christian ortho-doxy. Consequently, European intellectual life in theeighteenth century was marked by the emergence of thesecularization that has characterized the modern West-ern mentality ever since. Ironically, at the same timethat reason and materialism were beginning to replacefaith and worship, a great outburst of religious sensibil-ity manifested itself in music and art. Clearly, the grow-ing secularization of the eighteenth century had not yetcaptured the hearts and minds of all European intellec-tuals and artists.


undermining Christianity. But as scientific knowledgespread, more and more educated men and women began toquestion religious truths and values.Skepticism about religion and a grow-ing secularization of thought wereespecially evident in the work ofPierre Bayle (PYAYR BELL) (1647–1706), who remained a Protestantwhile becoming a leading critic oftraditional religious attitudes. Bayleattacked superstition, religious in-tolerance, and dogmatism. In hisview, compelling people to believe aparticular set of religious ideas (asLouis XIV was doing at the time inBayle’s France) was wrong. It sim-ply created hypocrites and in itselfwas contrary to what religion should be about. Individualconscience should determine one’s actions. Bayle arguedfor complete religious toleration, maintaining that theexistence of many religions would benefit rather thanharm the state.

Bayle was one of a number of intellectuals who believedthat the new rational principles of textual criticism shouldbe applied to the Bible as well as secular documents. In hismost famous work, the Historical and Critical Dictionary,Bayle demonstrated the results of his own efforts with afamous article on the Israelite King David. Underminingthe traditional picture of the heroic David, he portrayedthe king as a sensual, treacherous, cruel, and basically evilman. Bayle’s Dictionary, which attacked traditional reli-gious practices and heroes, was well known to eighteenth-century philosophes. One critic regarded it as the ‘‘Bible ofthe eighteenth century.’’

THE IMPACT OF TRAVEL LITERATURE Skepticism aboutboth Christianity and European culture itself was nour-ished by travel reports. As we saw in Chapter 14, Euro-peans had embarked on voyages of discovery to other

parts of the world in the late fifteenth and sixteenth cen-turies. In the course of the seventeenth century, traders,

missionaries, medical practitioners,and explorers began to publish anincreasing number of travel booksthat gave accounts of many differentcultures. Then, too, the new geo-graphic adventures of the eighteenthcentury, especially the discovery ofthe Pacific island of Tahiti and ofNew Zealand and Australia byJames Cook, aroused much enthu-siasm. Cook’s Travels, an account ofhis journey, became a best seller.Educated Europeans responded tothese accounts of lands abroad indifferent ways.

For some intellectuals, the existence of 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 suchcomplicated machines! The Tahitian is close to the origin ofthe world, while the European is closer to its old age. . . . [TheTahitians] understand nothing about our manners or ourlaws, and they are bound to see in them nothing but shacklesdisguised in a hundred different ways. Those shackles couldonly provoke the indignation and scorn of creatures in whomthe most profound feeling is a love of liberty.2

The idea of the ‘‘noble savage’’ would play an importantrole in the political work of some philosophes.

The travel literature of the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies also led to the realization that there were highlydeveloped civilizations with different customs in otherparts of the world. China was especially singled out. OneGerman university professor praised Confucian moralityas superior to the intolerant attitudes of Christianity.Some European intellectuals began to evaluate their own

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The Popularization of Science inthe Age of the Enlightenment.During the Enlightenment, theideas of the Scientific Revolutionwere spread and popularized in avariety of ways. Scientific societiesfunded by royal and princelypatronage were especiallyvaluable in providing outlets forthe spread of new scientific ideas.This illustration shows the Germanprince Frederick Christian visitinghis Academy of Sciences in 1739.Note the many instruments of thenew science around the rooms—human skeletons, globes,microscopes, telescopes, andorreries (mechanical models ofthe solar system).A

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The Enlightenment 515


civilization relative to others. Practices that had seemed tobe grounded in reason now appeared to be merely mattersof custom. Certainties about European practices gave wayto cultural relativism.

Cultural relativism was accompanied by religious skep-ticism. As these travel accounts made clear, the Christianperception of God was merely one of many. Some peoplewere devastated by this revelation: ‘‘Some complete theirdemoralization by extensive travel, and lose whatevershreds of religion remained to them. Every day they see anew religion, new customs, new rites.’’3

As Europeans were exposed to growing numbers ofpeople around the world who were different from them-selves, some intellectuals also began to classify people intoracial groups. One group espoused polygenesis, or thebelief in separate human species; others argued formonogenesis, or the belief in one human species charac-terized by racial variations. Both groups were especiallyunsympathetic to Africans and placed them in the lowestrank of humankind. In his Encyclopedia, the intellectualDenis Diderot (see ‘‘Diderot and the Encyclopedia’’ later inthis chapter) maintained that all Africans were black andcharacterized the Negro as a ‘‘new species of mankind.’’

THE LEGACY OF LOCKE AND NEWTON The intellectualinspiration for the Enlightenment came primarily from twoEnglishmen, Isaac Newton and John Locke, acknowledgedby the philosophes as great minds. Newton was frequentlysingled out for praise as the ‘‘greatest and rarest genius thatever rose for the ornament and instruction of the species.’’One English poet declared: ‘‘Nature and Nature’s Laws layhid in Night; God said, ‘Let Newton be,’ and all was Light.’’Enchanted by the grand design of the Newtonian world-machine, the intellectuals of the Enlightenment were con-

vinced that by following Newton’s rules ofreasoning, they could discover the naturallaws that governed politics, economics,justice, religion, and the arts.

John Locke’s theory of knowledge es-pecially influenced the philosophes. In hisEssay Concerning Human Understanding,written in 1690, Locke denied Descartes’s

belief in innate ideas. Instead, argued Locke, every personwas born with a tabula rasa, 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 befurnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busyand boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almostendless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason andknowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience. . . .Our observation, employed either about external sensibleobjects or about the internal operations of our minds per-ceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which suppliesour understanding with all the materials of thinking.4

Our knowledge, then, is derived from our environment,not from heredity; from reason, not from faith. Locke’sphilosophy implied that people were molded by their

environment, by the experiences that they receivedthrough their senses from their surrounding world. Bychanging the environment and subjecting people to properinfluences, they could be changed and a new society cre-ated. And how should the environment be changed? New-ton had already paved the way by showing how reasonenabled enlightened people to discover the natural laws towhich all institutions should conform. No wonder thephilosophes were enamored of Newton and Locke. Takentogether, their ideas seemed to offer the hope of a ‘‘bravenew world’’ built on reason.

The Philosophes and Their IdeasThe intellectuals of the Enlightenment were known by theFrench term philosophe (fee-loh-ZAWF), although not all ofthem were French and few were actually philosophers. Thephilosophes were literary people, professors, journalists,statesmen, economists, political scientists, and above all,social reformers. They came from both the nobility and themiddle class, and a few even stemmed from lower origins.Although it was a truly international and cosmopolitanmovement, the Enlightenment also enhanced the dominantrole being played by French culture. Paris was its recognizedcapital, and most of the leaders of the Enlightenment wereFrench (see Map 17.1). The French philosophes in turn af-fected intellectuals elsewhere and created a movement thatengulfed the entire Western world, including the British andSpanish 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 internationalmovement. Although they were called philosophers, whatdid philosophy mean to them? The role of philosophy wasto change the world, not just discuss it. As one writer said,the philosophe is one who ‘‘applies himself to the study ofsociety with the purpose of making his kind better andhappier.’’ To the philosophes, rationalism did not meanthe creation of a grandiose system of thought to explainall things. Reason was scientific method, an appeal to factsand experience. A spirit of rational criticism was to beapplied to everything, including religion and politics.

The philosophes’ call for freedom of expression is areminder that their work was done in an atmosphere ofcensorship. The philosophes were not free to write what-ever they chose. State censors decided what could bepublished, and protests from any number of governmentbodies could result in the seizure of books and the im-prisonment of their authors, publishers, and sellers.

The philosophes found ways to get around state censor-ship. Some published under pseudonyms or anonymously orabroad, especially in Holland. The use of double meanings,such as talking about the Persians when they meant theFrench, became standard procedure for many. Books werealso published and circulated secretly or in manuscript formto avoid the censors. As frequently happens when censorshipis attempted, the government’s announcement that a bookhad been burned often made the book more popular.

John Locke,An Essay

ConcerningHuman

Understanding(1690)



Although the philosophes constituted a kind of ‘‘familycircle’’ bound together by common intellectual bonds, theyoften disagreed. Spanning almost a century, the Enlight-enment evolved over time, with each succeeding genera-tion becoming more radical as it built on the contributionsof the previous one. A few people, however, dominated thelandscape completely, and we might best begin our surveyof the ideas of the philosophes by looking at three Frenchgiants—Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot.

MONTESQUIEU AND POLITICAL THOUGHT Charles deSecondat, the baron de Montesquieu (MOHN-tess-kyoo)(1689–1755), came from the French nobility. He received aClassical 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 andsending their impressions back home to enable him tocriticize French institutions, especially the Catholic Churchand the French monarchy. Much of the program of theFrench Enlightenment is contained in this work: the attackon traditional religion, the advocacy of religious toleration,the denunciation of slavery, and the use of reason to lib-erate human beings from their prejudices.

Montesquieu’s most famous work, The Spirit of theLaws, was published in 1748. This treatise was a com-parative study of governments in which Montesquieu at-tempted to apply the scientific method to the social andpolitical arena to ascertain the ‘‘natural laws’’ governingthe social relationships of human beings. Montesquieudistinguished three basic kinds of governments: republics,

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MAP 17.1 The Enlightenment in Europe. ‘‘Have the courage to use your own intelligence!’’Kant’s words epitomize the role of the individual in using reason to understand all aspects oflife—the natural world and the sphere of human nature, behavior, and institutions.

Q Which countries or regions were at the center of the Enlightenment, and what couldaccount for peripheral regions being less involved?



suitable for small states and based on citizen involvement;monarchy, appropriate for middle-sized states andgrounded in the ruling class’s adherence to law; and des-potism, apt for large empires and dependent on fear toinspire obedience. Montesquieu used England as an ex-ample of the second category, and it was his praise andanalysis of England’s constitution that led to his most far-reaching and lasting contribution to political thought—the importance of checks and balances created by meansof a separation of powers (see the box above). He be-lieved that England’s system, with its separate executive,legislative, and judicial powers that served to limit andcontrol each other, provided the greatest freedom andsecurity for a state. In large part, Montesquieu misreadthe English situation and insisted on a separation ofpowers because he wanted the nobility of France (of whichhe was a member) to play an active role in running theFrench government. The translation of his work intoEnglish two years after publication ensured that it wouldbe read by American philosophes, such as BenjaminFranklin, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Ham-ilton, and Thomas Jefferson, who incorporated its prin-ciples into the U.S. Constitution (see Chapter 19).

VOLTAIRE AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT The greatestfigure of the Enlightenment was Francois-Marie Arouet,known simply as Voltaire (vohl-TAYR) (1694–1778). Son of

a prosperous middle-class family from Paris, Voltaire re-ceived a Classical education in Jesuit schools. Although hestudied law, he wished to be a writer and achieved his firstsuccess as a playwright. By his mid-twenties, Voltaire hadbeen hailed as the successor to Racine (see Chapter 15) forhis tragedy CEdipe and his epic Henriade on his favoriteking, Henry IV. His wit made him a darling of the Parisianintellectuals but also involved him in a quarrel with adissolute nobleman that forced him to flee France and livein England for almost two years.

Well received in English literary and social circles, theyoung playwright was much impressed by England. HisPhilosophic Letters on the English, written in 1733, ex-pressed a deep admiration of English life, especially itsfreedom of the press, its political freedom, and its reli-gious toleration. In judging the English religious situation,he made the famous remark that ‘‘if there were just onereligion in England, despotism would threaten; if therewere two religions, they would cut each other’s throats;but there are thirty religions, and they live togetherpeacefully and happily.’’ Although he clearly exaggeratedthe freedoms England possessed, in a roundabout wayVoltaire had managed to criticize many of the ills op-pressing France, especially royal absolutism and the lack ofreligious toleration and freedom of thought. The criticismof absolute monarchy by Voltaire and other philosophesreflected the broader dissatisfaction of middle-class

The Separation of Powers

The Enlightenment affected the new world of America asmuch as it did the old world of Europe. American philo-sophes were well aware of the ideas of European Enlight-enment thinkers. This selection from Montesquieu’s Spiritof the Laws enunciates the ‘‘separation of powers’’ doctrine.

Montesquieu, ‘‘Of the Constitutionof England’’

In every government there are three sorts of power: thelegislative; the executive in respect to things dependenton the law of nations; and the executive in regard tomatters that depend on the civil law.

By virtue of the first, the prince or magistrate enactstemporary or perpetual laws, and amends or abrogatesthose that have been already enacted. By the second, hemakes peace or war, sends or receives embassies, estab-lishes the public security, and provides against invasions.By the third, he punishes criminals, or determines thedisputes that arise between individuals. The latter weshall call the judiciary power, and the other simply theexecutive power of the state.

The political liberty of the subject is a tranquillity ofmind arising from the opinion each person has of hissafety. In order to have this liberty, it is requisite the

government be so constituted as one man need not beafraid of another.

When the legislative and executive powers are unitedin the same person, or in the same body of magistrates,there can be no liberty; because apprehensions mayarise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact ty-rannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power benot separated from the legislative and executive. Were itjoined with the legislative, the life and liberty of thesubject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for thejudge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to theexecutive power, the judge might behave with violenceand oppression.

There would be an end of everything, were the sameman or the same body, whether of the nobles or of thepeople, to exercise those three powers, that of enactinglaws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of try-ing the causes of individuals.

Q As seen in this excerpt, what is Montesquieu’sdoctrine of the separation of powers? What arethe underlying moral and political justifications forthis system of government? How was this doctrineincorporated into the U.S. Constitution?



individuals with their society. In the course of the eigh-teenth century, this would help lead to revolutionary up-heavals in France and other countries (see Chapter 19).

On his return to France, Voltaire’s reputation as theauthor of the Philosophic Letters made it necessary for himto retire to Cirey, near France’s eastern border, where helived in semiseclusion on the estate of his mistress, themarquise du Chatelet (mahr-KEEZ duh shat-LAY) (1706–1749). Herself an early philosophe, the marquise was oneof the first intellectuals to adopt the ideas of Isaac Newtonand in 1759 published her own translation of Newton’sfamous Principia. While Voltaire lived with her at herchateau at Cirey, the two collaborated on a book about thenatural philosophy of Newton.

Voltaire eventually settled on a magnificent estate atFerney. Located in France near the Swiss border, Ferneygave Voltaire the freedom to write what he wished. By thistime, through his writings, inheritance, and clever in-vestments, Voltaire had become wealthy and now had theleisure to write an almost endless stream of pamphlets,novels, plays, letters, and histories.

Although he touched on all of the themes of importanceto the philosophes, Voltaire was especially well known forhis criticism of traditional religion and his strong attach-ment to the ideal of religious toleration (see the box onp. 520). He lent his prestige and skills as a polemicist tofighting cases of intolerance in France. The most famousincident was the Calas affair. Jean Calas (ZHAHNH ka-LAH)

was a Protestant from Toulouse who was accused of mur-dering 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 devastatingbroadsides that aroused public opinion and forced a retrialin which Calas was exonerated when it was proved that hisson had actually committed suicide. The family was paid anindemnity, and Voltaire’s appeals for toleration appearedall the more reasonable. In 1763, he penned his Treatise onToleration, in which he argued that religious toleration hadcreated no problems for England and Holland and re-minded governments that ‘‘all men are brothers underGod.’’ As he grew older, Voltaire became ever more stridentin his denunciations. ‘‘Crush the infamous thing,’’ hethundered repeatedly—the infamous thing being religiousfanaticism, intolerance, and superstition.

Throughout his life, Voltaire championed not only reli-gious tolerance but also deism, a religious outlook sharedby most other philosophes. Deism was built on the New-tonian world-machine, which suggested the existence of amechanic (God) who had created the universe. Voltairesaid, ‘‘In the opinion that there is a God, there are diffi-culties, but in the contrary opinion there are absurdities.’’To Voltaire and most other philosophes, God had no directinvolvement in the world he had created and allowed it torun according to its own natural laws. God did not extendgrace or answer prayers as Christians liked to believe. Jesusmight be a ‘‘good fellow,’’ as Voltaire called him, but he wasnot divine, as Christianity claimed.

DIDEROT AND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA Denis Diderot (duh-NEE DEE-droh) (1713–1784), the son of a skilled craftsman

Voltaire. François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire,achieved his first success as a playwright. A philosophe, Voltairewas well known for his criticism of traditional religion and hissupport of religious toleration. Maurice-Quentin de La Tourpainted this portrait of Voltaire holding one of his books in 1736.

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Denis Diderot. Editor of the monumental Encyclopedia, Diderotwas a major figure in propagating the ideas of the Frenchphilosophes. He had diverse interests and penned an incrediblevariety of literary works. He is shown here in a portrait by Jean-Honor�e Fragonard.

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from eastern France, became a freelance writer so that hecould study many subjects and read in many languages.One of his favorite topics was Christianity, which hecondemned as fanatical and unreasonable. As he grewolder, his literary attacks on Christianity grew more vi-cious. Of all religions, he maintained, Christianity was theworst, ‘‘the most absurd and the most atrocious in itsdogma’’ (see the box on p. 521). Near the end of his life,he argued for an essentially materialistic conception oflife: ‘‘This world is only a mass of molecules.’’

Diderot’s most famous contribution to the Enlighten-ment was the twenty-eight-volume Encyclopedia, or Clas-sified Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades, that heedited and called the ‘‘great work of his life.’’ Its purpose,according to Diderot, was to ‘‘change the general way ofthinking.’’ It did precisely that in becoming a major

weapon of the philosophes’ crusade against the old Frenchsociety. The contributors included many philosophes whoexpressed their major concerns. They attacked religioussuperstition and advocated toleration as well as a programfor social, legal, and political improvements that wouldlead to a society that was more cosmopolitan, more tol-erant, more humane, and more reasonable. In later edi-tions, the price of the Encyclopedia was drastically reduced,dramatically increasing its sales and making it available todoctors, clergy, teachers, lawyers, and even military offi-cers. The ideas of the Enlightenment were spread evenfurther as a result.

THE NEW ‘‘SCIENCE OF MAN’’ The Enlightenmentbelief that Newton’s scientific methods could be used todiscover the natural laws underlying all areas of human

The Attack on Religious Intolerance

Voltaire’s lucid prose, biting satire, and clever wit causedhis works to be widely read and all the more influential.These two selections present different sides of Voltaire’sattack on religious intolerance. The first is from a straight-forward treatise, The Ignorant Philosopher, and the sec-ond is from his only real literary masterpiece, the novelCandide, where he used humor to make the same funda-mental point about religious intolerance.

Voltaire, The Ignorant Philosopher

The contagion of fanaticism then still subsists. . . . Theauthor of the Treatise upon Toleration has not mentionedthe shocking executions wherein so many unhappy vic-tims perished in the valleys of Piedmont. He has passedover in silence the massacre of six hundred inhabitantsof Valtelina, men, women, and children, who were mur-dered by the Catholics in the month of September,1620. I will not say it was with the consent and assis-tance of the archbishop of Milan, Charles Borome, whowas made a saint. Some passionate writers have averredthis fact, which I am very far from believing; but I say,there is scarce any city or borough in Europe, whereblood has not been spilt for religious quarrels; I say,that the human species has been perceptibly diminished,because women and girls were massacred as well asmen; I say, that Europe would have had a third largerpopulation, if there had been no theological disputes. Infine, I say, that so far from forgetting these abominabletimes, we should frequently take a view of them, to in-spire an eternal horror for them; and that it is for ourage to make reparation by toleration, for this long col-lection of crimes, which has taken place through thewant of toleration, during sixteen barbarous centuries.

Let it not then be said, that there are no traces leftof that shocking fanaticism, of the want of toleration;

they are still everywhere to be met with, even in thosecountries that are esteemed the most humane. TheLutheran and Calvinist preachers, were they masters,would, perhaps, be as little inclined to pity, as obdu-rate, as insolent as they upbraid their antagonists withbeing.

Voltaire, Candide

At last he [Candide] approached a man who had justbeen addressing a big audience for a whole hour on thesubject of charity. The orator peered at him and said:

‘‘What is your business here? Do you support theGood Old Cause?’’

‘‘There is not effect without a cause,’’ replied Candidemodestly. ‘‘All things are necessarily connected and ar-ranged for the best. It was my fate to be driven fromLady Cun�egonde’s presence and made to run the gantlet,and now I have to beg my bread until I can earn it.Things should not have happened otherwise.’’

‘‘Do you believe that the Pope is Antichrist, my friend?’’said the minister.

‘‘I have never heard anyone say so,’’ replied Candide;‘‘but whether he is or he isn’t, I want some food.’’

‘‘You don’t deserve to eat,’’ said the other. ‘‘Be offwith you, you villain, you wretch! Don’t come near meagain or you’ll suffer for it.’’

The minister’s wife looked out of the window at thatmoment, and seeing a man who was not sure that thePope was Antichrist, emptied over his head a chamberpot, which shows to what lengths ladies are driven byreligious zeal.

Q Compare the two approaches that Voltaire uses toaddress the problem of religious intolerance. Doyou think one is more effective? Why?



life led to the emergence in the eighteenth century ofwhat the philosophes called the ‘‘science of man,’’ or whatwe would call the social sciences. In a number of areas,philosophes arrived at natural laws that they believedgoverned human actions. If these ‘‘natural laws’’ seem lessthan universal to us, it reminds us how much the philo-sophes were people of their times reacting to the con-ditions they faced. Nevertheless, their efforts did at leastlay the foundations for the modern social sciences.

That a science of man was possible was a strong be-lief of the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776).An important figure in the history of philosophy, Humehas also been called ‘‘a pioneering social scientist.’’ In hisTreatise on Human Nature, which he subtitled ‘‘An At-tempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reason-ing into Moral Subjects,’’ Hume argued that observation

and reflection, grounded in ‘‘systematized common sense,’’made conceivable a ‘‘science of man.’’ Careful examinationof the experiences that constituted human life would leadto the knowledge of human nature that would make thisscience possible.

The Physiocrats and Adam Smith have been viewed asfounders of the modern discipline of economics. Theleader of the Physiocrats was Francois Quesnay (frahnn-SWAH keh-NAY) (1694–1774), a highly successful Frenchcourt physician. Quesnay and the Physiocrats claimedthey would discover the natural economic laws that gov-erned human society. Their first principle was that landconstituted the only source of wealth and that wealth it-self could be increased only by agriculture because allother economic activities were unproductive and sterile.Even the state’s revenues should come from a single tax

Diderot Questions Christian Sexual Standards

Denis Diderot was one of the boldest thinkers of theEnlightenment. In his Supplement to the Voyage of Bou-gainville, he constructed a dialogue between Orou, aTahitian who symbolizes the wisdom of a philosophe, anda chaplain who defends Christian sexual mores. The dia-logue gave Diderot the opportunity to criticize the prac-tice of sexual chastity and monogamy.

Denis Diderot, Supplement to the Voyageof Bougainville

[Orou, speaking to the Chaplain.] ‘‘You are young andhealthy and you have just had a good supper. He whosleeps alone sleeps badly; at night a man needs awoman at his side. Here is my wife and here are mydaughters. Choose whichever one pleases you most, butif you would like to do me a favor, you will give yourpreference to my youngest girl, who has not yet had anychildren. . . . ’’

The chaplain replied that his religion, his holy orders,his moral standards and his sense of decency all pre-vented him from accepting Orou’s invitation.

Orou answered: ‘‘I don’t know what this thing is thatyou call religion, but I can only have a low opinion of itbecause it forbids you to partake of an innocent pleasureto which Nature, the sovereign mistress of us all, inviteseverybody. It seems to prevent you from bringing one ofyour fellow creatures into the world, from doing a favorasked of by a father, a mother and their children, fromrepaying the kindness of a host, and from enriching anation by giving it an additional citizen. . . . Look at thedistress you have caused to appear on the faces of thesefour women—they are afraid you have noticed some de-fect in them that arouses your distaste. . . . ’’

The Chaplain: ‘‘You don’t understand—it’s not that.They are all four of them equally beautiful. But there is

my religion! My holy orders! . . . [God] spoke to ourancestors and gave them laws; he prescribed to themthe way in which he wishes to be honored; he ordainedthat certain actions are good and others he forbadethem to do as being evil.’’

Orou: ‘‘I see. And one of these evil actions which hehas forbidden is that of a man who goes to bed with awoman or girl. But in that case, why did he make twosexes?’’

The Chaplain: ‘‘In order that they might cometogether—but only when certain conditions are satisfiedand only after certain initial ceremonies one manbelongs to one woman and only to her; one womanbelongs to one man and only to him.’’

Orou: ‘‘For their whole lives?’’The Chaplain: ‘‘For their whole lives. . . . ’’Orou: ‘‘I find these strange precepts contrary to na-

ture, and contrary to reason. . . . Furthermore, your lawsseem to me to be contrary to the general order ofthings. For in truth is there anything so senseless as aprecept that forbids us to heed the changing impulsesthat are inherent in our being, or commands that re-quire a degree of constancy which is not possible, thatviolate the liberty of both male and female by chainingthem perpetually to one another? . . . I don’t know whatyour great workman [God] is, but I am very happy thathe never spoke to our forefathers, and I hope that henever speaks to our children, for if he does, he may tellthem the same foolishness, and they may be foolishenough to believe it.’’

Q What attack does Diderot make on Christian sexualstandards? What does this passage say about en-lightened conceptions of nature and the place ofphysical pleasure in healthy human life?



on the land rather than the hodgepodge of inequitabletaxes and privileges currently in place. In stressing theeconomic primacy of agricultural production, the Physio-crats were rejecting the mercantilist emphasis on thesignificance of money—that is, gold and silver—as theprimary determinants of wealth (see Chapter 14).

Their second major ‘‘natural law’’ of economics alsorepresented a repudiation of mercantilism, specifically,its emphasis on a controlled economy for the benefit ofthe state. Instead, the Physiocrats stressed that the ex-istence of the natural economic forces of supply anddemand made it imperative that individuals should beleft free to pursue their own economic self-interest. Indoing so, all of society would ultimately benefit. Conse-quently, they argued that the state should in no wayinterrupt the free play of natural economic forces bygovernment regulation of the economy but rather shouldjust leave it alone, a doctrine that subsequently becameknown by its French name, laissez-faire (less-ay-FAYR)(noninterference; literally, ‘‘let people do as theychoose’’).

The best statement of laissez-faire was made in 1776 bya Scottish philosopher, Adam Smith (1723–1790), in his

Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, known simply as TheWealth of Nations. In the process ofenunciating three basic principles of eco-nomics, Smith presented a strong attackon mercantilism. First, he condemned themercantilist use of tariffs to protect homeindustries. If one country can supply an-

other country with a product cheaper than the latter canmake it, it is better to purchase than to produce it. ToSmith, 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 werenot the source of a nation’s true wealth, but unlikethe Physiocrats, he did not believe that soil was either.Rather labor—the labor of individual farmers, artisans,and merchants—constituted the true wealth of a nation.Finally, like the Physiocrats, Smith believed that the stateshould not interfere in economic matters; indeed, he as-signed to government only three basic functions: to pro-tect society from invasion (army), defend individuals frominjustice and oppression (police), and keep up certainpublic works, such as roads and canals, that private in-dividuals could not afford. Thus, in Smith’s view, the stateshould stay out of the lives of individuals. In emphasizingthe economic liberty of the individual, the Physiocrats andAdam Smith laid the foundation for what became knownin the nineteenth century as economic liberalism.

THE LATER ENLIGHTENMENT By the late 1760s, a newgeneration of philosophes who had grown up with theworldview of the Enlightenment began to move beyondtheir predecessors’ beliefs. Baron Paul d’Holbach (dawl-BAHK) (1723–1789), a wealthy German aristocrat whosettled in Paris, preached a doctrine of strict atheism and

materialism. In his System of Nature, written in 1770, heargued that everything in the universe consisted of matterin motion. Human beings were simply machines; God wasa product of the human mind and was unnecessary forleading a moral life. People needed only reason to live inthis world: ‘‘Let us persuade men to be just, beneficent,moderate, sociable; not because the gods demand it, butbecause they must please men. Let us advise them toabstain from vice and crimes; not because they will bepunished in the other world, but because they will sufferfor it in this.’’5 Holbach shocked almost all of his fellowphilosophes with his uncompromising atheism. Most in-tellectuals remained more comfortable with deism andfeared the effect of atheism on society.

Marie-Jean de Condorcet (muh-REE-ZHAHNH duhkohn-dor-SAY) (1743–1794), another French philosophe,made an exaggerated claim for progress. Condorcet was avictim of the turmoil of the French Revolution and wrotehis chief work, The Progress of the Human Mind, while inhiding during the Reign of Terror (see Chapter 19). Hissurvey of human history convinced him that humans hadprogressed through nine stages of history. Now, with thespread of science and reason, humans were about to enterthe tenth stage, one of perfection, in which they will seethat ‘‘there is no limit to the perfecting of the powers ofman; that human perfectibility is in reality indefinite, thatthe progress of this perfectibility . . . has no other limitthan the duration of the globe upon which nature hasplaced us.’’ Shortly after composing this work, the prophetof humankind’s perfection died in a French revolutionaryprison.

ROUSSEAU AND THE SOCIAL CONTRACT No one wasmore critical of the work of his predecessors than Jean-Jacques Rousseau (ZHAHNH-ZHAHK roo-SOH) (1712–1778). Born in Geneva, he spent his youth wanderingabout France and Italy holding various jobs. He went backto school for a while to study music and the classics (hecould afford to do so after becoming the paid lover of anolder woman). Eventually, he made his way to Paris, wherehe was introduced into the circles of the philosophes. Henever really liked the social life of the cities, however, andfrequently withdrew into long periods of solitude.

Rousseau’s political beliefs were presented in two majorworks. In his Discourse on the Origins of the Inequality ofMankind, Rousseau began with humans in their primitivecondition (or state of nature—see Chapter 15), where theywere happy. There were no laws, no judges; all people wereequal. But what had gone wrong?

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground,thought of saying, This is mine, and found people simpleenough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.How many crimes, wars, murders; how much misery andhorror the human race would have been spared if someonehad pulled up the stakes and filled in the ditch, and cried tohis fellow men: ‘‘Beware of listening to this impostor. You arelost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong toeveryone and that the earth itself belongs to no one!’’6

Adam Smith,The Wealthof Nations,

selected topics(1776)



To preserve their private property, people adopted lawsand governors. In so doing, they rushed headlong not toliberty but into chains. ‘‘What then is to be done? Mustsocieties be totally abolished? . . . Must we return again tothe forest to live among bears?’’ No, civilized humanscould ‘‘no longer subsist on plants or acorns or live withoutlaws and magistrates.’’ Government was an evil, but anecessary one.

In his celebrated treatise The Social Contract, publishedin 1762, Rousseau tried to harmonize individual libertywith governmental authority (see the box on p. 524). Thesocial contract was basically an agreement on the part ofan entire society to be governed by its general will. If anyindividual wished to follow his own self-interest, heshould be compelled to abide by the general will. ‘‘Thismeans nothing less than that he will be forced to be free,’’said Rousseau, because the general will represented acommunity’s highest aspirations, whatever was best forthe entire community. Thus, liberty was achieved throughbeing forced to follow what was best for all people be-cause, he believed, what was best for all was best for eachindividual. True freedom is adherence to laws that one hasimposed on oneself. To Rousseau, because everybodywas responsible for framing the general will, the creation

of laws could never be delegated to a parliamentaryinstitution:

Thus, the people’s deputies are not and could not be itsrepresentatives; they are merely its agents; and they cannotdecide anything finally. Any law which the people has notratified in person is void; it is not law at all. The Englishpeople believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it isfree only during the election of Members of Parliament; assoon as the Members are elected, the people is enslaved; it isnothing.7

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

Another influential treatise by Rousseau also appearedin 1762. Titled Emile, it is one of the Enlightenment’smost important works on education. Written in the formof a novel, the work is really a general treatise ‘‘on theeducation of the natural man.’’ Rousseau’s fundamentalconcern was that education should foster rather than re-strict children’s natural instincts. Life’s experiences hadshown Rousseau the importance of the promptings of theheart, and what he sought was a balance between heartand mind, between sentiment and reason. This emphasison heart and sentiment made him a precursor of the in-tellectual movement called Romanticism that dominatedEurope at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

But Rousseau did not necessarily practice what hepreached. His own children were sent to foundling homes,where many children died young. Rousseau also viewedwomen as ‘‘naturally’’ different from men: ‘‘To fulfill[a woman’s] functions, an appropriate physical constitu-tion is necessary to her. . . . She needs a soft sedentary lifeto suckle her babies. How much care and tenderness doesshe need to hold her family together.’’ In Emile, Sophie,who was Emile’s intended wife, was educated for her roleas wife and mother by learning obedience and the nur-turing skills that would enable her to provide loving carefor her husband and children. Not everyone in the eigh-teenth century agreed with Rousseau, however, makingideas of gender an important issue in the Enlightenment.

THE ‘‘WOMAN’S QUESTION’’ IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT Forcenturies, men had dominated the debate about the na-ture and value of women. In general, many male in-tellectuals had argued that the base nature of womenmade them inferior to men and made male domination ofwomen necessary (see Chapter 16). In the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries, many male thinkers reinforcedthis view by arguing that it was based on ‘‘natural’’ bio-logical differences between men and women. Like Rous-seau, they argued that the female constitution madewomen mothers. Male writers, in particular, were criticalof the attempts of some women in the Enlightenment towrite on intellectual issues, arguing that women were bynature intellectually inferior to men. Nevertheless, someEnlightenment thinkers offered more positive views ofwomen. Diderot, for example, maintained that men andwomen were not all that different, and Voltaire asserted

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

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that ‘‘women are capable of all that men are’’ in intellec-tual affairs.

It was women thinkers, however, who added new per-spectives to the ‘‘woman’s question’’ by making specificsuggestions for improving the condition of women. MaryAstell (AST-ul) (1666–1731), daughter of a wealthy En-glish coal merchant, argued in 1697 in A Serious Proposalto the Ladies that women needed to become better edu-cated. Men, she believed, would resent her proposal, ‘‘butthey must excuse me, if I be as partial to my own sex asthey are to theirs, and think women as capable of learningas men are, and that it becomes them as well.’’8 In a laterwork titled Some Reflections upon Marriage, Astell arguedfor the equality of the sexes in marriage: ‘‘If absolutesovereignty be not necessary in a state, how comes it to beso in a family . . . ? For if arbitrary power is evil in itself,and an improper method of governing rational and freeagents, it ought not be practiced anywhere. . . . If all menare born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?’’9

The strongest statement for the rights of women in theeighteenth century was advanced by the English writerMary Wollstonecraft (WULL-stun-kraft) (1759–1797),viewed by many as the founder of modern Europeanfeminism. In Vindication of the Rights of Woman, writtenin 1792, Wollstonecraft pointed out two contradictions in

the views of women held by such Enlightenment thinkersas Rousseau. To argue that women must obey men, shesaid, was contrary to the beliefs of thesame individuals that a system based onthe arbitrary power of monarchs over theirsubjects or slave owners over their slaveswas wrong. The subjection of women tomen was equally wrong. In addition, sheargued, the Enlightenment was based onthe ideal that reason is innate in all humanbeings. If women have reason, then theyare entitled to the same rights that men have. Women,Wollstonecraft declared, should have equal rights with menin education and in economic and political life as well (seethe box on p. 525).

The Social Environmentof the PhilosophesThe social background of the philosophes varied con-siderably, from the aristocratic Montesquieu to thelower-middle-class Diderot and Rousseau. The Enlight-enment was not the preserve of any one class, althoughobviously its greatest appeal was to the aristocracy andupper middle classes of the major cities. The common

A Social Contract

Although Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the Frenchphilosophes, he has also been called ‘‘the father ofRomanticism.’’ His political ideas have proved extremelycontroversial. Though some people have hailed him as theprophet of democracy, others have labeled him an apolo-gist for totalitarianism. This selection is taken from one ofhis most famous books, The Social Contract.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

Book 1, Chapter 6: ‘‘The Social Pact’’

‘‘How to find a form of association which will defendthe person and goods of each member with the collec-tive force of all, and under which each individual, whileuniting himself with the others, obeys no one but him-self, and remains as free as before.’’ This is the funda-mental problem to which the social contract holds thesolution. . . .

Book 1, Chapter 7: ‘‘The Sovereign’’

Despite their common interest, subjects will not bebound by their commitment unless means are found toguarantee their fidelity.

For every individual as a man may have a private willcontrary to, or different from, the general will that hehas as a citizen. His private interest may speak with avery different voice from that of the public interest; his

absolute and naturally independent existence may makehim regard what he owes to the common cause as a gra-tuitous contribution, the loss of which would be lesspainful for others than the payment is onerous for him;and fancying that the artificial person which constitutesthe state is a mere rational entity, he might seek toenjoy the rights of a citizen without doing the duties ofa subject. The growth of this kind of injustice wouldbring about the ruin of the body politic.

Hence, in order that the social pact shall not be anempty formula, it is tacitly implied in that commitment—which alone can give force to all others—that whoeverrefused to obey the general will shall be constrained todo so by the whole body, which means nothing otherthan that he shall be forced to be free; for this is thecondition which, by giving each citizen to the nation,secures him against all personal dependence, it is thecondition which shapes both the design and the work-ing of the political machine, and which alone bestowsjustice on civil contracts—without it, such contractswould be absurd, tyrannical and liable to the grossestabuse.

Q What was Rousseau’s concept of the social contract?What implications did it have for political thought,especially in regard to the development of demo-cratic ideals?

MaryWollstonecraft,

Vindicationof the Rightsof Woman,

selected topics(1792)



Women in the Age of the Enlightenment:Rousseau and Wollstonecraft

The ‘‘woman’s question’’—the debate about the natureand value of women—continued to be discussed in theeighteenth century. In Emile, Jean-Jacques Rousseaureflected the view of many male thinkers when he arguedthat there were natural biological differences betweenmen and women that made women mothers rather thanintellectuals. Some women thinkers, however, presentednew perspectives.

Mary Wollstonecraft responded to an unhappychildhood in a large family by seeking to lead anindependent life. Few occupations were available formiddle-class women in her day, but she survived byworking as a teacher, chaperone, and governess toaristocratic children. All the while, she wrote and devel-oped her ideas on the rights of women. The selectionbelow is taken from her Vindication of the Rights ofWoman, the work that led to her reputation as theforemost British feminist thinker of the eighteenthcentury.

Rousseau, Emile (1762)

It follows that woman is made specially to please men.If man ought to please her in turn, it is due to a less di-rect necessity. His merit is in his power; he pleases bythe sole fact of his strength. . . .

The strictness of the relative duties of the two sexesis not and cannot be the same. When woman complainson this score about unjust man-made inequality, she iswrong. This inequality is not a human institution—or,at least, it is the work not of prejudice but of reason. Itis up to the sex that nature has charged with the bear-ing of children to be responsible for them to the othersex. Doubtless it is not permitted to anyone to violatehis faith, and every unfaithful husband who deprives hiswife of the only reward of the austere duties of sex isan unjust and barbarous man. But the unfaithful womandoes more; she dissolves the family and breaks all thebonds of nature. . . .

The good constitution of children initially dependson that of their mothers. The first education of mendepends on the care of women. . . . Thus, the whole edu-cation of women ought to relate to men. To please men,to be useful to them, to make herself loved and honoredby them, to raise them when young, to care for themwhen grown, to counsel them, to console them, to maketheir lives agreeable and sweet—these are the duties of

women at all times, and they ought to be taught fromchildhood. . . .

The quest for abstract and speculative truths, princi-ples, and axioms in the sciences, for everything thattends to generalize ideas, is not within the competenceof women. All their studies ought to be related topractice. . . . Nor do women have sufficient precision andattention to succeed at the exact sciences. And as forthe physical sciences, they are for the sex which is moreactive, gets around more, and sees more objects, the sexwhich has more strength and uses it more to judge therelations of sensible beings and the laws of nature.Woman, who is weak and who sees nothing outside thehouse, estimates and judges the forces she can put towork to make up for her weakness.

Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindicationof the Rights of Woman (1792)

It is a melancholy truth—yet such is the blessed effectof civilization—the most respectable women are themost oppressed; and, unless they have understandingsfar superior to the common run of understandings, tak-ing in both sexes, they must, from being treated likecontemptible beings, become contemptible. How manywomen thus waste life away the prey of discontent, whomight have practiced as physicians, regulated a farm,managed a shop, and stood erect, supported by theirown industry, instead of hanging their heads surchargedwith the dew of sensibility, that consumes the beauty towhich it at first gave luster. . . .

Proud of their weakness, however, [women] must al-ways be protected, guarded from care, and all the roughtoils that dignify the mind. If this be the fiat of fate, ifthey will make themselves insignificant and contempt-ible, sweetly to waste ‘‘life away,’’ let them not expect tobe valued when their beauty fades, for it is the fate ofthe fairest flowers to be admired and pulled to pieces bythe careless hand that plucked them. In how many waysdo I wish, from the purest benevolence, to impress thistruth on my sex; yet I fear that they will not listen to atruth that dear-bought experience has brought home tomany an agitated bosom, nor willingly resign the privi-leges of rank and sex for the privileges of humanity, towhich those have no claim who do not discharge itsduties. . . .

Would men but generously snap our chains, and becontent with the rational fellowship instead of slavish

(continued)



people, especially the peasants, were little affected by theEnlightenment.

Of great importance to the Enlightenment was thespread of its ideas to the literate elite of European society.Although the publication and sale of books and treatiseswere crucial to this process, the salon was also a factor.Salons came into being in the seventeenth century butrose to new heights in the eighteenth. These were theelegant drawing rooms in the urban houses of the wealthywhere invited philosophes and guests gathered to engagein witty, sparkling conversations that often centered onthe ideas of the philosophes. In France’s rigid hierarchicalsociety, the salons were important in bringing togetherwriters and artists with aristocrats, government officials,and wealthy bourgeoisie.

As hostesses of the salons, women found themselves ina position to affect the decisions of kings, sway politicalopinion, and influence literary and artistic taste. Salonsprovided havens for people and views unwelcome in theroyal court. When the Encyclopedia was suppressed by theFrench authorities, Marie-Th�er�ese de Geoffrin (1699–1777), a wealthy bourgeois widow whose father had beena valet, welcomed the encyclopedists to her salon andoffered financial assistance to complete the work in secret.

Madame Geoffrin was not without rivals, however. Themarquise du Deffand (mar-KEEZ duh duh-FAHNH)(1697–1780) had abandoned her husband in the provincesand established herself in Paris, where her ornate drawingroom attracted many of the Enlightenment’s great figures,including Montesquieu, Hume, and Voltaire.

Although the salons were run by women, the reputa-tion of a salon depended on the stature of the males ahostess was able to attract. Despite this male domination,however, both French and foreign observers complainedthat females exerted undue influence in French politicalaffairs. Though exaggerated, this perception led to thedecline of salons during the French Revolution.

The salon served an important role in promoting con-versation and sociability between upper-class men andwomen as well as spreading the ideas of the Enlighten-ment. But other means of spreading Enlightenment ideaswere also available. Coffeehouses, caf�es, reading clubs, andpublic lending libraries established by the state weregathering places for the exchange of ideas. Learned soci-eties were formed in cities throughout Europe andAmerica. At such gatherings as the Select Society of Ed-inburgh, Scotland, and the American Philosophical Societyin Philadelphia, lawyers, doctors, and local officials gath-ered to discuss enlightened ideas. Secret societies alsodeveloped. The most famous was the Freemasons, estab-lished in London in 1717, France and Italy in 1726, andPrussia in 1744. It was no secret that the Freemasonswere sympathetic to the ideas of the philosophes.

Culture and Societyin the Enlightenment

Q FOCUS QUESTIONS: What innovations in art, music,and literature occurred in the eighteenth century?How did popular culture differ from high culturein the eighteenth century?

The intellectual adventure fostered by the philosopheswas accompanied by both traditional practices and im-portant changes in eighteenth-century culture and society.

Innovations in Art, Music, and LiteratureAlthough the Baroque and Neoclassical styles that haddominated the seventeenth century continued into the

obedience, they would find us more observant daugh-ters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, andmore reasonable mothers—in a word, better citizens.We should then love them with true affection, becausewe should learn to respect ourselves; and the peace ofmind of a worthy man would not be interrupted by theidle vanity of his wife.

Q What did Rousseau believe was the role of women,and how did he think they should be educated?What arguments did Mary Wollstonecraft make onbehalf of the rights of women? What picture didshe paint of the women of her day? Why did Woll-stonecraft suggest that both women and men wereat fault for the ‘‘slavish’’ situation of women?

(Opposing Viewpoints continued)

CHRONOLOGY Works of the Philosophes

Montesquieu, Persian Letters 1721

Voltaire, Philosophic Letters on the English 1733

Hume, Treatise on Human Nature 1739–1740

Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws 1748

Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV 1751

Diderot, Encyclopedia 1751–1765

Rousseau, The Social Contract; Emile 1762

Voltaire, Treatise on Toleration 1763

Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments 1764

Holbach, System of Nature 1770

Smith, The Wealth of Nations 1776

Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire

1776–1788

Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rightsof Woman

1792

Condorcet, The Progress of the Human Mind 1794



eighteenth century, by the 1730s a new style known asRococo (ruh-KOH-koh) had begun to affect decorationand architecture all over Europe. Unlike the Baroque,which stressed majesty, power, and movement, Rococoemphasized grace and gentle action. Rococo rejected strictgeometrical patterns and had a fondness for curves; itliked to follow the wandering lines of natural objects, suchas seashells and flowers. It made much use of interlaceddesigns colored in gold with delicate contours and gracefulcurves. Highly secular, its lightness and charm spoke ofthe pursuit of pleasure, happiness, and love.

Some of Rococo’s appeal is evident already in the workof Antoine Watteau (AHN-twahn wah-TOH) (1684–1721),whose lyrical views of aristocratic life—refined, sensual,civilized, with gentlemen and ladies in elegant dress—reflected a world of upper-class pleasure and joy. Under-neath that exterior, however, was an element of sadnessas the artist revealed the fragility and transitory nature ofpleasure, love, and life.

Another aspect of Rococo was that its decorative workcould easily be used with Baroque architecture. The palaceof Versailles had made an enormous impact on Europe.‘‘Keeping up with the Bourbons’’ became important as theAustrian emperor, the Swedish king, German princes andprince-bishops, Italian princes, and even a Russian tsarbuilt grandiose palaces. While emulating Versailles’s size,they were modeled less after the French classical style ofVersailles than after the seventeenth-century Italian Baroque,as modified by a series of brilliant German and Austrian

sculptor-architects. This Baroque-Rococo architectural styleof the eighteenth century was used in both palaces andchurches, and often the same architects designed both. Thisis evident in the work of one of the greatest architects ofthe eighteenth century, Balthasar Neumann (BAHL-tuh-zahrNOI-mahn) (1687–1753).

Neumann’s two masterpieces are the pilgrimage churchof the Vierzehnheiligen (feer-tsayn-HY-li-gen) (FourteenSaints) in southern Germany and the Bishop’s Palace,known as the Residenz, the residential palace of theSch€onborn (SHURN-bawn) prince-bishop of W€urzburg(VOORTS-boork). Secular and spiritual become easily in-terchangeable in both buildings as the visitor is greeted bylavish and fanciful ornament; light, bright colors; andelaborate, rich detail.

Despite the popularity of the Rococo style, Neoclas-sicism continued to maintain a strong appeal and in thelate eighteenth century emerged in France as an estab-lished movement. Neoclassical artists wanted to recapturethe dignity and simplicity of the Classical style of ancientGreece and Rome. Some were especially influenced by therecent excavations of the ancient Roman cities of Hercu-laneum and Pompeii. Classical elements are evident in thework of Jacques-Louis David (ZHAHK-LWEE dah-VEED)(1748–1825). In the Oath of the Horatii, he re-created ascene from Roman history in which the three Horatiusbrothers swore an oath before their father, proclaimingtheir willingness to sacrifice their lives for their country.David’s Neoclassical style, with its moral seriousness and

Antoine Watteau, Return from Cythera. Antoine Watteau was one of the most gifted painters ineighteenth-century France. His portrayal of aristocratic life reveals a world of elegance, wealth, andpleasure. In this painting, which is considered his masterpiece, Watteau depicts a group of aristocraticlovers about to depart from the island of Cythera, where they have paid homage to Venus, thegoddess of love. Luxuriously dressed, they move from the woodlands to a golden barge that is waitingto take them from the island.

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Culture and Society in the Enlightenment 527


its emphasis on honor and patriotism, made him ex-tremely popular during the French Revolution.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MUSIC The seventeenth andeighteenth centuries were the formative years of classicalmusic and saw the rise of the opera and oratorio, thesonata, the concerto, and the symphony. The Italians werethe first to develop these genres but were soon followedby the Germans, Austrians, and English. As in previouscenturies, most musicians depended on a patron—a prince,a well-endowed ecclesiastic, or an aristocrat. The manyindividual princes, archbishops, and bishops, each with hisown court, provided the patronage that made Italy andGermany the musical leaders of Europe.

Many of the techniques of the Baroque musical style,which dominated Europe between 1600 and 1750, wereperfected by two composers—Bach and Handel—whostand out as musical geniuses. Johann Sebastian Bach(yoh-HAHN suh-BASS-chun BAKH) (1685–1750) camefrom a family of musicians. Bach held the post of organistand music director at a number of small German courts

before becoming director of church music at the Church ofSaint Thomas in Leipzig in 1723. There Bach composedhis Mass in B Minor, his Saint Matthew’s Passion, and thecantatas and motets that have established his reputationas one of the greatest composers of all time. For Bach,music was above all a means to worship God; in his ownwords, his task in life was to make ‘‘well-ordered music inthe honor of God.’’

The other great musical giant of the early eighteenthcentury, George Frederick Handel (HAN-dul) (1685–1759), was, like Bach, born in Saxony in Germany and inthe same year. In contrast to Bach’s quiet provincial life,however, Handel experienced a stormy international ca-reer and was profoundly secular in temperament. Afterstudying in Italy, where he began his career by writingoperas in the Italian manner, in 1712 he moved to England,where he spent most of his adult life attempting to run anopera company. Although patronized by the English royalcourt, Handel wrote music for large public audiences andwas not averse to writing huge, unusual-sounding pieces.

Vierzehnheiligen, Exterior View. Balthasar Neumann, one ofthe most prominent architects of the eighteenth century, usedthe Baroque-Rococo style of architecture to design some of themost beautiful buildings of the century. Pictured here is theexterior of his pilgrimage church of the Vierzehnheiligen(Fourteen Saints), located in southern Germany.

Vierzehnheiligen, Interior View. Pictured here is the interiorof the Vierzehnheiligen, the pilgrimage church designed byBalthasar Neumann. Elaborate detail, blazing light, rich colors,and opulent decoration were blended together to create a workof stunning beauty. The pilgrim in search of holiness is struck byan incredible richness of detail. Persuaded by joy rather thanfear, the believer is lifted toward heaven on a cloud of rapture.

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The band for his Fireworks Music, for example, was supposedto be accompanied by 101 cannons. Although he wrotemore than forty operas and much other secular music, theworldly Handel is, ironically, probably best known for hisreligious music. His Messiah has been called ‘‘one of thoserare works that appeal immediately to everyone, and yet isindisputably a masterpiece of the highest order.’’10

Although Bach and Handel composed many instrumen-tal suites and concerti, orchestral music did not come to thefore until the second half of the eighteenth century, whennew instruments such as the piano appeared. A new mu-sical period, the classical era (1750–1830), also emerged,represented by two great innovators—Haydn and Mozart.Their renown caused the musical center of Europe to shiftfrom Italy and Germany to the Austrian Empire.

Franz Joseph Haydn (FRAHNTS YO-zef HY-dun)(1732–1809) spent most of his adult life as musical di-rector for the wealthy Hungarian princes, the Esterhazybrothers. Haydn was incredibly prolific, composing 104symphonies in addition to string quartets, concerti, songs,oratorios, and Masses. His visits to England in 1790 and1794 introduced him to another world, where musicianswrote for public concerts rather than princely patrons.This ‘‘liberty,’’ as he called it, induced him to write his twogreat oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, both ofwhich were dedicated to the common people.

The concerto, symphony, and opera all reached theirzenith in the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (VULF-

gahng ah-muh-DAY-uss MOH-tsart) (1756–1791), a childprodigy who gave his first harpsichord concert at six andwrote his first opera at twelve. He, too, sought a patron,but his discontent with the overly demanding archbishopof Salzburg forced him to move to Vienna, where hisfailure to find a permanent patron made his life misera-ble. Nevertheless, he wrote music prolifically and pas-sionately until he died a debt-ridden pauper at thirty-five(see the Film & History feature on p. 531). Mozart carriedthe tradition of Italian comic opera to new heights withThe Marriage of Figaro, based on a Parisian play of the1780s in which a valet outwits and outsings his nobleemployers, and Don Giovanni, a ‘‘black comedy’’ about thehavoc Don Giovanni wrought on earth before he descendedinto hell. The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, and DonGiovanni are three of the world’s greatest operas. Mozartcomposed with an ease of melody and a blend of grace,precision, and emotion that arguably no one has ever ex-celled. Haydn remarked to Mozart’s father that ‘‘your son isthe greatest composer known to me either in person or byreputation.’’

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NOVEL The eighteenthcentury was also decisive in the development of the novel.The novel was not a completely new literary genre butgrew out of the medieval romances and the picaresquestories of the sixteenth century. The English are creditedwith establishing the modern novel as the chief vehicle for

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii. The Frenchman David was one of the most famousNeoclassical artists of the late eighteenth century. To immerse himself in the world of Classical antiquity,he painted the Oath of the Horatii in Rome. Thanks to its emphasis on patriotic duty, the work becamean instant hit in both Paris and Rome.

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fiction writing. With no established rules, the novel wasopen to much experimentation. It also proved especiallyattractive to women readers and women writers.

Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) was a printer bytrade and did not turn to writing until his fifties. Hisfirst novel, Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded, focused on aservant girl’s resistance to numerous seduction attemptsby her master. Finally, by reading the girl’s letters de-scribing her feelings about his efforts, the master realizesthat she has a good mind as well as an attractive body andmarries her. Virtue is rewarded. Pamela won Richardson alarge audience as he appealed to the growing cult ofsensibility in the eighteenth century—the taste for thesentimental and emotional. Samuel Johnson, anothergreat English writer of the century and an even greaterwit, remarked, ‘‘If you were to read Richardson for thestory . . . you would hang yourself. But you must read himfor the sentiment.’’

Reacting against the moral seriousness of Richardson,Henry Fielding (1707–1754) wrote novels about peoplewithout scruples who survived by their wits. His best workwas The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, a lengthy novelabout the numerous adventures of a young scoundrel.Fielding presented scenes of English life from the hovelsof London to the country houses of the aristocracy. In anumber of hilarious episodes, he described characters akinto real types in English society. Although he emphasizedaction rather than inner feeling, Fielding did his ownmoralizing by attacking the hypocrisy of his age.

THE WRITING OF HISTORY The philosophes were re-sponsible for creating a revolution in the writing of his-tory. Their secular orientation caused them to eliminate

the role of God in history and freed them to concentrateon events themselves and search for causal relationshipsin the natural world. Earlier, the humanist historians ofthe Renaissance had also placed their histories in purelysecular settings, but not with the same intensity andcomplete removal of God.

The philosophe-historians also broadened the scope ofhistory from the humanists’ preoccupation with politics.Politics still predominated in the work of Enlightenmenthistorians, but they also paid attention to economic, social,intellectual, and cultural developments. As Voltaire ex-plained in his masterpiece, The Age of Louis XIV: ‘‘It is notmerely the life of Louis XIV that we propose to write; wehave a wider aim in view. We shall endeavor to depict forposterity, not the actions of a single man, but the spirit ofmen in the most enlightened age the world has ever seen.’’11

In seeking to describe the ‘‘totality of past human experi-ence,’’ Voltaire initiated the modern ideal of social history.

The weaknesses of these philosophe-historians stem-med from their preoccupations as philosophes. Followingthe ideals of the classics that dominated their minds,the philosophes sought to instruct as well as entertain.Their goal was to help civilize their age, and historycould play a role by revealing its lessons according totheir vision. Their emphasis on science and reason andtheir dislike of Christianity made them less than sym-pathetic to the period we call the Middle Ages. This isparticularly noticeable in the other great masterpiece ofeighteenth-century historiography, the six-volume Declineand Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1737–1794). Although Gibbon thought that the decline of Romehad many causes, he portrayed the growth of Christianityas a major reason for Rome’s eventual collapse. Like some

Mozart as Child Prodigy. This painting, done inParis in 1763 or 1764, shows the seven-year-oldMozart playing at the harpsichord while hiscomposer father, Leopold, plays the violin and hissister, Nannerl, sings. Crowds greeted the youngMozart enthusiastically throughout the family’sthree-year tour of northern Europe.

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of the philosophes, Gibbon believed in the idea of prog-ress and, in reflecting on the decline and fall of Rome,expressed his optimism about the future of Europeancivilization and the ability of Europeans to avoid the fateof the Romans.

The High Culture of the EighteenthCenturyHistorians and cultural anthropologists have grown ac-customed to distinguishing between a civilization’s high

culture and its popular culture. High culture usuallymeans the literary and artistic world of the educated andwealthy ruling classes; popular culture refers to thewritten and unwritten lore of the masses, most of which ispassed down orally. By the eighteenth century, Europeanhigh culture consisted of a learned world of theologians,scientists, philosophers, intellectuals, poets, and drama-tists, for whom Latin remained a truly international lan-guage. Their work was supported by a wealthy and literatelay group, the most important of whom were the landedaristocracy and the wealthier upper classes in the cities.

FILM HISTORY

Amadeus (1984)Directed by Milos Forman (who won the Acad-emy Award for Best Director), Amadeus is avisually stunning Academy Award–winningfilm based on the relationship of two eigh-teenth-century composers, Antonio Salieriand Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The movieis also the story of Mozart’s musical genius.Written by Peter Shaffer, the movie is basedon Shaffer’s stage play of the same name.

A fictional account of the relationship be-tween Salieri and Mozart, the story is told bySalieri to a priest through a series of flash-backs. Salieri (played by F. Murray Abraham,who won an Academy Award as Best Actorfor his performance) was the court composerto Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones), the Austrian em-peror, but he was also a man who dedicatedhis life to serving God through music. Salieribecomes insanely jealous of the youngMozart (Tom Hulce), who impresses everyone with hismusical genius. Salieri, however, is dismayed by Mozart’slewd, irreverent, and foolish behavior. In hearing Mozart’smusic, he believes he is hearing the voice of God (‘‘God issinging through this little man to all the world’’), but hecannot fathom why God would speak through such a com-mon person and comes to believe that God is laughing atSalieri’s own musical mediocrity through Mozart’s genius.As Mozart suffers through a series of trials and rejectionsby people who have little appreciation of his genius,Salieri plots the downfall of Amadeus (literally ‘‘God’s be-loved’’) as a way of defeating God. He secretly commis-sions Mozart to write a Requiem Mass, which he plans topass off as his own work of genius after he has killedMozart. As his financial worries increase, however, Mozartbecomes increasingly weakened by drink and illness anddies before the Requiem is completed. Salieri nowbelieves that God killed Mozart so that Salieri could notbe recognized as a musical genius.

Amadeus is a brilliant film about brilliance—the musi-cal genius of Mozart. While the movie is accurate in

presenting Mozart as a child prodigy and a great com-poser who died at the young age of thirty-five, thestory of the rivalry between Salieri and Mozart is mostlyfictional. There was indeed some antipathy betweenthese two composers who vied for royal commissionsand teaching jobs. Nevertheless, there is also evidencethat the two men respected each other, and there is cer-tainly no evidence that Salieri was instrumental in bring-ing about Mozart’s downfall and death. Musical scholarsalso reject the view of Mozart as a giggling fool, subjectto the outbursts of laughter that Tom Hulce used so ef-fectively in his portrayal of Mozart. The film’s depictionof Mozart writing out perfect manuscripts of what hehad already composed in his head is also questionable.Mozart himself said once, ‘‘People make a mistake whothink that my art has come easily to me. Nobody hasdevoted so much time and thought to composition as I.’’Despite the lack of historical accuracy, however, Amadeusbeautifully conveys the genius of Mozart and gives view-ers a sense of why he is regarded as one of the world’sgreatest composers.

Mozart (Tom Hulce) meets with Salieri (F. Murray Abraham).

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Especially noticeable in the eighteenth century was anexpansion of both the reading public and publishing. Onestudy revealed that French publishers were issuing aboutsixteen hundred titles yearly in the 1780s, up from threehundred titles in 1750. Though many of these titles werestill aimed at small groups of the educated elite, manywere also directed to the new reading public of the middleclasses, which included women and even urban artisans.The growth of publishing houses made it possible forauthors to make money from their works and be lessdependent on wealthy patrons.

An important aspect of the growth of publishing andreading in the eighteenth century was the development ofmagazines for the general public. Great Britain, an im-portant center for the new magazines, saw 25 periodicalspublished in 1700, 103 in 1760, and 158 in 1780. Al-though short-lived, the best known was Joseph Addisonand Richard Steele’s Spectator, begun in 1711. Its goal was‘‘to enliven Morality with wit, and to temper Wit withMorality. . . . To bring Philosophy out of the closets andlibraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assem-blies, at tea-tables and coffeehouses.’’ In keeping with one ofthe chief intellectual goals of the philosophes, the Spectatorwished to instruct and entertain at the same time. With itspraise of family, marriage, and courtesy, the Spectator alsohad a strong appeal to women. Some of the new magazineswere aimed specifically at women, such as The FemaleSpectator in England, which was also edited by a woman,Eliza Haywood, and featured articles by female writers.

Along with magazines came daily newspapers. The firstwas printed in London in 1702, but by 1780, thirty-sevenother English towns had their own newspapers. Filled withnews and special features, they were relatively cheap and

were provided free in coffeehouses. Books, too, receivedwider circulation through the development of public li-braries in the cities as well as private circulating libraries,which offered books for rent.

EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES By the eighteenthcentury, Europe was home to a large number of privatelyendowed secondary schools, such as the grammar andpublic schools in England, the gymnasiums in German-speaking lands, and the coll�eges in France and Spain. Theseschools tended to be elitist, designed to meet the needs ofthe children of the upper classes of society. Basically,European secondary schools perpetuated the class hier-archy of Europe rather than creating avenues for socialmobility. In fact, most of the philosophes reinforced thebelief that education should function to keep people intheir own social class. Baron d’Holbach said, ‘‘Educationshould teach princes to reign, the ruling classes to dis-tinguish themselves by their merit and virtue, the rich touse their riches well, the poor to live by honest industry.’’

The curriculum of these secondary schools still largelyconcentrated on the Greek and Latin classics with littleattention paid to mathematics, the sciences, and modernlanguages. Complaints from philosophe-reformers, as wellas from merchants and other middle-class people whowanted their sons to have a more practical education, ledto the development of new schools designed to provide abroader education. In Germany, the first Realschule (ray-AHL-shoo-luh) was opened in Berlin in 1747 and offeredmodern languages, geography, and bookkeeping to pre-pare boys for careers in business. New schools of this kindwere also created for upper-class girls, although they fo-cused primarily on religion and domestic skills.

A London Coffeehouse.Coffeehouses first appeared inVenice and Constantinople butquickly spread throughout Europeby the beginning of the eighteenthcentury. In addition to drinkingcoffee, patrons of coffeehouses couldread magazines and newspapers,exchange ideas, play chess, smoke,and engage in business transactions.In this scene from a Londoncoffeehouse of 1705, well-attiredgentlemen make bids oncommodities.

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The most common complaint about universities, espe-cially from the philosophes, was the old-fashioned cur-riculum that emphasized the classics and Aristotelianphilosophy and provided no training in the sciences ormodern languages. Before the end of the century, thiscriticism led to reforms that introduced new ideas in theareas of physics, astronomy, and even mathematics intothe universities. It is significant, however, that very few ofthe important scientific discoveries of the eighteenthcentury occurred in the universities.

Crime and PunishmentBy the eighteenth century, most European states haddeveloped a hierarchy of courts to deal with crimes. Exceptin England, judicial torture remained an important meansof obtaining evidence before a trial. Courts used the rack,thumbscrews, and other instruments to obtain confessionsin criminal cases. Punishments for crimes were often crueland even spectacular. Public executions were a basic part oftraditional punishment and were regarded as a necessarymeans of deterring potential offenders in an age when astate’s police forces were too weak to ensure the capture ofcriminals. Although nobles were executed by simple be-heading, lower-class criminals condemned to death weretortured, broken on the wheel, or drawn and quartered (seethe box above). The death penalty was still commonly usedfor property crimes as well as for violent offenses. By 1800,more than two hundred crimes were subject to the deathpenalty in England. In addition to executions, Europeanstates resorted to forced labor in mines, forts, and navies.England also sent criminals as indentured servants to col-onies in the New World and, after the American Revolu-tion, to Australia.

Appalled by the unjust laws and brutal punishments oftheir times, some philosophes sought to create a new ap-proach to justice. The most notable effort was made by anItalian philosophe, Cesare Beccaria (CHAY-zuh-ray buh-KAH-ree-uh) (1738–1794). In his essay On Crimes andPunishments, written in 1764, Beccaria argued that pun-ishments should serve only as deterrents, not as exercises inbrutality: ‘‘Such punishments . . . ought to be chosen as willmake the strongest and most lasting impressions on theminds of others, with the least torment to the body of thecriminal.’’12 Beccaria was also opposed to the use of capitalpunishment. It was spectacular, but it failed to stop othersfrom committing crimes. Imprisonment—the deprivationof freedom—made a far more lasting impression. Moreover,capital punishment was harmful to society because it set anexample of barbarism: ‘‘Is it not absurd that the laws, whichdetest and punish homicide, should, in order to preventmurder, publicly commit murder themselves?’’

By the end of the eighteenth century, a growing senti-ment against executions and torture led to a decline in bothcorporal and capital punishment. A new type of prison, inwhich criminals were placed in cells and subjected to dis-cipline and regular work to rehabilitate them, began toreplace the public spectacle of barbarous punishments.

The World of MedicineIn the eighteenth century, medicine was practiced by a hi-erarchy of practitioners. At the top stood the physicians, whowere university graduates and enjoyed a high social status.Despite the scientific advances of the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries, however, university medical educa-tion was still largely conducted in Latin and was basedprimarily on Galen’s work. New methods emphasizing clinical

The Punishment of Crime

Torture and capital punishment remained common fea-tures of European judicial systems well into the eighteenthcentury. Public spectacles were especially gruesome, asthis excerpt from the Nocturnal Spectator of Restif de laBretonne demonstrates.

Restif de la Bretonne, ‘‘The Broken Man’’

I went home by way of rue Saint-Antoine and the Placede Gr�eve. Three murderers had been broken on thewheel there, the day before. I had not expected to seeany such spectacle, one that I had never dared to wit-ness. But as I crossed the square I caught sight of apoor wretch, pale, half dead, wracked by the pains ofthe interrogation inflicted on him twenty hours earlier;he was stumbling down from the Hotel de Ville sup-ported by the executioner and the confessor. These twomen, so completely different, inspired an inexpressibleemotion in me! I watched the latter embrace a miserable

man consumed by fever, filthy as the dungeons he camefrom, swarming with vermin! And I said to myself,‘‘O Religion, here is your greatest glory! . . . ’’

I saw a horrible sight, even though the torture hadbeen mitigated. . . . The wretch had revealed his accom-plices. He was garroted before he was put to the wheel.A winch set under the scaffold tightened a noose aroundthe victim’s neck and he was strangled; for a long whilethe confessor and the hangman felt his heart to seewhether the artery still pulsed, and the hideous blowswere dealt only after it beat no longer. . . . I left, withmy hair standing on end in horror.

Q What does this selection reveal about the punish-ment of crime in the eighteenth century? Whatimpact did such descriptions have on the phi-losophes’ attitudes toward the administration ofjustice as it was carried out by their respectivemonarchical states?



experience did begin to be introduced at the University ofLeiden, which replaced Padua as the foremost medicalschool of Europe in the first half of the seventeenth century,only to be surpassed in the second half of that century byVienna. A graduate with a doctorate in medicine from auniversity needed to receive a license before he could be apracticing member of the physicians’ elite corporate body. InEngland, the Royal College of Physicians licensed only onehundred physicians in the early eighteenth century. Onlyofficially licensed physicians could hold regular medicalconsultations with patients and receive payments, alreadyregarded in the eighteenth century as outrageously high.

Below the physicians were the surgeons, who were stillknown as barber-surgeons well into the eighteenth centuryfrom their original dual occupation. Their primary functionswere to bleed patients and perform surgery; the latter wasoften done crudely, without painkillers and in filthy con-ditions, because there was no understanding of anesthesiaor infection. Bleeding was widely believed to be beneficial inreducing fevers and combating a variety of illnesses.

The surgeons underwent significant changes in thecourse of the eighteenth century. In the 1740s, they beganto separate themselves from the barbers and organize theirown guilds. At the same time, they started to undergoadditional training by dissecting corpses and studyinganatomy more systematically. As they became more effec-tive, the distinction between physicians and surgeons be-gan to break down, and surgeons were examining patientsin a fashion similar to physicians by the end of the century.Moreover, surgeons also began to be licensed. In England,the Royal College of Surgeons required clinical experiencebefore granting the license.

Other medical practitioners, such as apothecaries, mid-wives, and faith healers, primarily served the common peoplein the eighteenth century. Although their main function wasto provide herbs and potions as recommended by physicians,apothecaries or pharmacists also acted independently in di-agnosing illnesses and selling remedies. In the course of theeighteenth century, male doctors increasingly supplantedmidwives in delivering babies. At the same time, the traditionof faith healing, so prominent in medieval medicine, con-tinued to be practiced, especially in the rural areas of Europe.

Hospitals in the eighteenth century seemed more aproblem than an aid in dealing with disease and illness.That conditions were bad is evident in this description bythe philosophe Denis Diderot, who characterized theHotel-Dieu in Paris, France’s ‘‘biggest, roomiest, and richest’’hospital, in these words:

Imagine a long series of communicating wards filled withsufferers of every kind of disease who are sometimes packedthree, four, five or even six into a bed, the living alongsidethe dead and dying, the air polluted by this mass of unhealthybodies, passing pestilential germs of their afflictions fromone to the other, and the spectacle of suffering and agony onevery hand. That is the Hotel-Dieu. The result is that many ofthese poor wretches come out with diseases they did not havewhen they went in, and often pass them on to the peoplethey go back to live with.13

Despite appeals, efforts at hospital reform in the eigh-teenth century remained ineffectual.

Popular CulturePopular culture refers to the written and unwritten litera-ture and the social activities and pursuits that are funda-mental to the lives of most people. The distinguishingcharacteristic of popular culture is its collective and publicnature. Group activity was especially evident in the festival,a broad name used to cover a variety of celebrations:community festivals in Catholic Europe that celebrated thefeast day of the local patron saint; annual festivals, such asChristmas and Easter, that went back to medieval Chris-tianity; and Carnival, the most spectacular form of festival,which was celebrated in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, andAustria. All of these festivals were special occasions whenpeople ate, drank, and celebrated to excess. In traditionalsocieties, festival was a time for relaxation and enjoymentbecause much of the rest of the year was a time of unre-lieved work. As the poet Thomas Gray said of Carnival inTurin in 1739: ‘‘This Carnival lasts only from Christmas toLent; one half of the remaining part of the year is passed inremembering the last, the other in expecting the futureCarnival.’’14

CARNIVAL Carnival was celebrated in the weeks leadingup to the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period offasting and purification preceding Easter. Carnival was,understandably, a time of great indulgence, just the re-verse of Lent, when people were expected to abstain frommeat, sex, and most recreations. Hearty consumption offood, especially meat and other delicacies, and heavydrinking were the norm during Carnival; so was intensesexual activity. Songs with double meanings that would beconsidered offensive at other times could be sung publiclyat this time of year. A float of Florentine ‘‘key-makers,’’ forexample, sang this ditty to the ladies: ‘‘Our tools are fine,new and useful; We always carry them with us; They aregood for anything; If you want to touch them, you can.’’15

Finally, Carnival was a time of aggression, a time to re-lease pent-up feelings. Most often this took the form ofverbal aggression, since people were allowed to openlyinsult other people and even criticize their social superiorsand authorities. Certain acts of physical violence were alsopermitted. People pelted each other with apples, eggs,flour, and pig’s bladders filled with water.

TAVERNS AND ALCOHOL The same sense of communityevident in festival was also present in the chief gatheringplaces of the common people, the local taverns or caba-rets. Taverns functioned as regular gathering places forneighborhood men to talk, play games, conduct smallbusiness matters, and drink. In some countries, the fa-vorite drinks of poor people, such as gin in England andvodka in Russia, proved devastating as poor people regu-larly drank themselves into oblivion. Gin was cheap; theclassic sign in English taverns, ‘‘Drunk for a penny, deaddrunk for two pence,’’ was literally true. In England, the



consumption of gin rose from 2 million to 5 million gallonsbetween 1714 and 1733 and declined only when com-plaints finally led to laws restricting sales in the 1750s. Ofcourse, the rich drank too. Samuel Johnson once re-marked, ‘‘All the decent people in Lichfield got drunkevery night and were not the worse thought of.’’ But un-like the poor, the rich drank port and brandy, usually inlarge quantities.

This difference in drinking habits between rich andpoor reminds us of the ever-widening separation betweenthe elite and the poor in the eighteenth century. In 1500,popular culture was for everyone; a second culture for theelite, it was the only culture for the rest of society. Butbetween 1500 and 1800, the nobility, clergy, and bour-geoisie had abandoned popular culture to the lowerclasses. This was, of course, a gradual process, and inabandoning the popular festivals, the upper classes werealso abandoning the popular worldview as well. The newscientific outlook had brought a new mental world for theupper classes, and they now viewed such things aswitchcraft, faith healing, fortune telling, and prophecy asthe beliefs of those who were, as one writer said, ‘‘of theweakest judgment and reason, as women, children, andignorant and superstitious persons.’’

LITERACY AND PRIMARY EDUCATION Popular culturehad always included a vast array of traditional songs andstories that were passed down from generation to gener-ation. But popular culture was not entirely based on anoral tradition; a popular literature existed as well. So-called chapbooks, printed on cheap paper, were short

brochures sold by itinerant peddlers to the lower classes.They contained both spiritual and secular material: livesof saints and inspirational stories competed with crudesatires and adventure stories.

It is apparent from the chapbooks that popular culturedid not have to remain primarily oral. Its ability to changewas dependent on the growth of literacy. Studies inFrance indicate that literacy rates for men increased from29 percent in the late seventeenth century to 47 percentin the late eighteenth century; for women, the increasewas from 14 to 27 percent during the same period. Ofcourse, certain groups were more likely to be literate thanothers. Upper-class elites and the upper middle classes inthe cities were mostly all literate. Nevertheless, the figuresalso indicate dramatic increases for lower-middle-classartisans in urban areas. Recent research in the city ofMarseilles, for example, indicates that literacy of maleartisans and workers increased from 28 percent in 1710 to85 percent in 1789, though the rate for women remained at15 percent. Peasants, who constituted as much as 75 per-cent of the French population, remained largely illiterate.

The spread of literacy was closely connected to primaryeducation. In Catholic Europe, primary education waslargely a matter of local community effort, leading to littlereal growth. Only in the Habsburg Austrian Empire was asystem of state-supported primary schools—Volkschulen(FULK-shoo-lun)—established, although only one in fourschool-age children actually attended.

The emphasis of the Protestant reformers on readingthe Bible had led Protestant states to take a greater in-terest in primary education. Some places, especially the

Popular Culture: Carnival. Pictured here in a painting by Giovanni Signorini is a scene from thecelebration of Carnival on the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. Carnival was a period offestivities before Lent, celebrated in most Roman Catholic countries. Carnival became an occasionfor indulgence in food, drink, games, practical jokes, and merriment, all of which are evident here.

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Swiss cantons, Scotland, and the German states of Saxonyand Prussia, witnessed the emergence of universal pri-mary schools that provided a modicum of education forthe masses. But effective systems of primary educationwere hindered by the attitudes of the ruling classes, whofeared the consequences of teaching the lower classesanything beyond the virtues of hard work and deferenceto their superiors. Hannah More, an English writer whoset up a network of Sunday schools, made clear the phi-losophy of her charity school for poor children: ‘‘My planof instruction is extremely simple and limited. They learnon weekdays such coarse work as may fit them for ser-vants. I allow of no writing for the poor. My object is totrain up the lower classes in habits of industry and piety.’’

Religion and the Churches

Q FOCUS QUESTION: How did popular religion differfrom institutional religion in the eighteenthcentury?

The music of Bach and the pilgrimage and monasticchurches of southern Germany and Austria make us awareof a curious fact. Though much of the great art and musicof the time was religious, the thought of the time wasantireligious as life became increasingly secularized andmen of reason attacked the established churches. And yetmost Europeans were still Christians. Even many of thosemost critical of the churches accepted that society couldnot function without religious faith.

The Institutional ChurchIn the eighteenth century, the established Catholic andProtestant churches were basically conservative institutionsthat upheld society’s hierarchical structure, privilegedclasses, and traditions. Although churches experiencedchange because of new state policies, they did not sustainany dramatic internal changes. In both Catholic andProtestant countries, the parish church run by a priest orpastor remained the center of religious practice. In addi-tion to providing religious services, the parish church keptrecords of births, deaths, and marriages; provided charityfor the poor; supervised whatever primary education therewas; and cared for orphans.

CHURCH-STATE RELATIONS Early on, the ProtestantReformation had solved the problem of the relationshipbetween church and state by establishing the principle ofstate control over the churches. In the eighteenth century,Protestant state churches flourished throughout Europe:Lutheranism in Scandinavia and the north German states;Anglicanism in England; and Calvinism (or Reformedchurches) in Scotland, the United Provinces, and some of theSwiss cantons and German states (see Map 17.2). There werealso Protestant minorities in other European countries.

In 1700, the Catholic Church still exercised muchpower in Catholic European states: Spain, Portugal,

France, Italy, the Habsburg Empire, Poland, and most ofsouthern Germany. The church also continued to possessenormous wealth. In Spain, three thousand monastic in-stitutions housing 100,000 men and women controlledenormous landed estates.

The Catholic Church remained hierarchically structured.In most Catholic countries, the highest clerics, such asbishops, archbishops, abbots, and abbesses, were membersof the upper class, especially the landed nobility, and re-ceived enormous revenues from their landed estates andtithes from the faithful. A wide gulf existed between theupper and lower clergy. While the French bishop ofStrasbourg, for example, received 100,000 livres a year,parish priests were paid only 500.

In the eighteenth century, the governments of manyCatholic states began to seek greater authority over thechurches in their countries. This ‘‘nationalization’’ of theCatholic Church meant controlling the papacy and in turnthe chief papal agents, the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits hadproved extremely successful, perhaps too successful for theirown good. They had created special enclaves, virtually stateswithin states, in the French, Spanish, and Portuguese col-onies in the New World. As advisers to Catholic rulers, theJesuits exercised considerable political influence. But thehigh profile they achieved through their successes attracteda wide range of enemies, and a series of actions soon un-dermined Jesuit power. The Portuguese monarch destroyedthe powerful Jesuit state in Paraguay and then in 1759expelled the Jesuits from Portugal and confiscated theirproperty. In 1764, they were expelled from France and threeyears later from Spain and the Spanish colonies. In 1773,when Spain and France demanded that the entire society bedissolved, Pope Clement XIV reluctantly complied. Thedissolution of the Jesuit order, one important pillar ofCatholic strength, was yet another victory for Catholicgovernments determined to win control over their churches.

The end of the Jesuits was paralleled by a decline inpapal power. Already by the mid-eighteenth century, thepapacy played only a minor role in diplomacy and inter-national affairs. The nationalization of the churches bythe states meant the loss of the papacy’s power to appointhigh clerical officials.

TOLERATION AND RELIGIOUS MINORITIES One of thechief battle cries of the philosophes was a call for religioustoleration. Out of political necessity, a certain level of tol-erance of different creeds had occurred in the seventeenthcentury, but many rulers still found it difficult to accept.Louis XIV had turned back the clock in France at the end ofthe seventeenth century, insisting on religious uniformityand suppressing the rights of the Huguenots (see Chap-ter 15). Many rulers continued to believe that there wasonly one path to salvation; it was the true duty of a rulernot to allow subjects to be condemned to hell by beingheretics. Hence, persecution of heretics continued; the lastburning of a heretic took place in 1781.

Nevertheless, some progress was made toward religioustoleration. No ruler was more interested in the philosophes’



call for religious toleration than Joseph II of Austria. HisToleration Patent of 1781, while recognizing Catholicism’spublic practice, granted Lutherans, Calvinists, and GreekOrthodox the right to worship privately. In all other ways,all subjects were now equal: ‘‘Non-Catholics are in futureadmitted under dispensation to buy houses and realproperty, to practice as master craftsmen, to take up ac-ademic appointments and posts in public service, and arenot to be required to take the oath in any form contrary totheir religious tenets.’’16

TOLERATION AND THE JEWS The Jews remained thedespised religious minority of Europe. The largest number

of Jews (known as the Ashkenazic Jews) lived in easternEurope. Except in relatively tolerant Poland, Jews wererestricted in their movements, forbidden to own land orhold many jobs, forced to pay burdensome special taxes,and also subject to periodic outbursts of popular wrath. Theresulting pogroms, in which Jewish communities werelooted and massacred, made Jewish existence precariousand dependent on the favor of their territorial rulers.

Another major group was the Sephardic Jews, who hadbeen expelled from Spain in the fifteenth century. Al-though many had migrated to Turkish lands, some ofthem had settled in cities, such as Amsterdam, Venice,London, and Frankfurt, where they were relatively free to

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MAP 17.2 Religious Populations of Eighteenth-Century Europe. Christianity was still adominant force in eighteenth-century Europe—even many of the philosophes remainedChristians while attacking the authority and power of the established Catholic and Protestantchurches. By the end of the century, however, most monarchs had increased royal power at theexpense of religious institutions.

Q To what extent were religious majorities geographically concentrated in certain areas,and what accounted for this?

Religion and the Churches 537


participate in the banking and commercial activities thatJews had practiced since the Middle Ages. The highlysuccessful ones came to provide valuable services to rulers,especially in central Europe, where they were known asthe court Jews. But even these Jews were insecure becausetheir religion set them apart from the Christian majorityand served as a catalyst to social resentment.

Some Enlightenment thinkers in the eighteenth centuryfavored a new acceptance of Jews. They argued that Jewsand Muslims were human and deserved the full rights ofcitizenship despite their religion. Many philosophes de-nounced persecution of the Jews but made no attempt tohide their hostility and ridiculed Jewish customs. Diderot,for example, said that the Jews had ‘‘all the defects peculiarto an ignorant and superstitious nation.’’ Many Europeansfavored the assimilation of the Jews into the mainstream ofsociety, but only by the conversion of Jews to Christianityas the basic solution to the ‘‘Jewish problem.’’ This, ofcourse, was not acceptable to most Jews.

The Austrian emperor Joseph II attempted to adopt a newpolicy toward the Jews, although it too was limited. It freedJews from nuisance taxes and allowed them more freedom ofmovement and job opportunities, but they were still re-stricted from owning land and worshiping in public. At thesame time, Joseph II encouraged Jews to learn German andwork toward greater assimilation into Austrian society.

Popular Religion in theEighteenth CenturyDespite the rise of skepticism and the intellectuals’ beliefin deism and natural religion, religious devotion remainedstrong in the eighteenth century.

CATHOLIC PIETY It is difficult to assess precisely thereligiosity of Europe’s Catholics. The Catholic parishchurch remained an important center of life for the entirecommunity. How many people went to church regularlycannot be known exactly, but it has been established that 90to 95 percent of Catholic populations did go to Mass onEaster Sunday, one of the church’s most special celebrations.

Catholic religiosity proved highly selective, however. De-spite the Reformation, much popular devotion was still di-rected to an externalized form of worship focusing on prayersto saints, pilgrimages, and devotion to relics and images. Thisbothered many clergymen, who felt that their parishionerswere ‘‘more superstitious than devout,’’ as one Catholic priestput it. Many common people continued to fear witches andrelied on the intervention of the saints and the Virgin Maryto save them from personal disasters caused by the devil.

PROTESTANT REVIVALISM: PIETISM After the initialcentury of religious fervor that created Protestantism inthe sixteenth century, Protestant churches in the seven-teenth century had settled down into well-establishedpatterns controlled by state authorities and served by awell-educated clergy. Protestant churches became bureau-cratized and bereft of religious enthusiasm. In Germany

and England, where rationalism and deism had becomeinfluential and moved some theologians to a more ‘‘ra-tional’’ Christianity, the desire of ordinary Protestantchurchgoers for greater depths of religious experience ledto new and dynamic religious movements.

Pietism (PY-uh-tiz-um) in Germany was a response tothis desire for a deeper personal devotion to God. Begunin the seventeenth century by a group of German clericswho wished their religion to be more personal, Pietismwas spread by the teachings of Count Nikolaus von Zin-zendorf (NEE-koh-LOWSS fun TSIN-sin-dorf) (1700–1760). To Zinzendorf and his Moravian Brethren, as hissect was called, it was the mystical dimensions—the per-sonal experience of God—in one’s life that constitutedtrue religious experience. He was utterly opposed to whathe perceived as the rationalistic approach of orthodoxLutheran clergy, who were being educated in new ‘‘ratio-nal’’ ideas. As Zinzendorf commented, ‘‘He who wishes tocomprehend God with his mind becomes an atheist.’’

After the civil wars of the seventeenth century, En-gland too had arrived at a respectable, uniform, andcomplacent state church. A pillar of the establishment,the Anglican Church seemed to offer little spiritual ex-citement, especially to the masses of people. The dis-senting Protestant groups—Puritans, Quakers, Baptists—were relatively subdued, while the growth of deismseemed to challenge Christianity itself. The desire for deep

John Wesley. In leading a deep spiritual revival in Britain, JohnWesley founded a religious movement that came to be knownas Methodism. He loved to preach to the masses, and this 1766portrait by Nathaniel Hope shows him as he might haveappeared before a crowd of people.

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spiritual experience seemed unmet until the advent ofJohn Wesley.

WESLEY AND METHODISM An ordained Anglican min-ister, John Wesley (1703–1791) experienced a deep spir-itual crisis and underwent a mystical experience: ‘‘I felt Idid trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurancewas given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine,and saved me from the law of sin and death. I felt myheart strangely warmed.’’ To Wesley, ‘‘the gift of God’sgrace’’ assured him of salvation and led him to become amissionary to the English people, bringing the ‘‘glad tid-ings’’ of salvation to all people, despite opposition fromthe Anglican Church, which criticized this emotionalmysticism or religious enthusiasm as superstitious non-sense. To Wesley, all could be saved by experiencing Godand opening the doors to his grace.

In taking the Gospel to the people, Wesley preachedto the masses in open fields, appealing especially to thelower classes neglected by the socially elitist AnglicanChurch. He tried, he said, ‘‘to lower religion to the levelof the lowest people’s capacities.’’ Wesley’s charismaticpreaching often provoked highly charged and evenviolent conversion experiences (see the box above).Afterward, converts were organized into so-calledMethodist societies or chapels in which they could aideach other in doing the good works that Wesley con-sidered a component of salvation. Although Wesleysought to keep Methodism within the Anglican Church,after his death it became a separate and independentsect. Methodism was an important revival of Christianityand proved that the need for spiritual experience had notbeen expunged by the eighteenth-century search forreason.

The Conversion Experience in Wesley’s Methodism

After his own conversion experience, John Wesley traveledextensively to bring the ‘‘glad tidings’’ of Jesus to otherpeople. It has been estimated that he preached morethan 40,000 sermons, some of them to audiences number-ing 20,000 listeners. Wesley gave his message whereverpeople gathered—in the streets, hospitals, private houses,and even pubs. In this selection from his journal, Wesleydescribes how emotional and even violent conversionexperiences could be.

The Journal of the Reverend John Wesley

Sunday, May 20 [1759], being with Mr. B——ll at Ever-ton, I was much fatigued, and did not rise: but Mr. B.did, and observed several fainting and crying out, whileMr. Berridge was preaching: afterwards at Church, Iheard many cry out, especially children, whose agonieswere amazing: one of the eldest, a girl of ten or twelveyears old, was full in my view, in violent contortions ofbody, and weeping aloud, I think incessantly, during thewhole service. . . . The Church was equally crowded inthe afternoon, the windows being filled within and with-out, and even the outside of the pulpit to the very top;so that Mr. B. seemed almost stifled by their breath; yetfeeble and sickly as he is, he was continually strength-ened, and his voice, for the most part, distinguishable;in the midst of all the outcries. I believe there werepresent three times more men than women, a great partof whom came from far; thirty of them having set outat two in the morning, from a place thirteen miles off.The text was, Having a form of godliness, but denying thepower thereof. When the power of religion began to bespoken of, the presence of God really filled the place: andwhile poor sinners felt the sentence of death in theirsouls, what sounds of distress did I hear! The greatestnumber of them who cried or fell, were men: but some

women, and several children, felt the power of the samealmighty Spirit, and seemed just sinking into hell. Thisoccasioned a mixture of several sounds; some shrieking,some roaring aloud. The most general was a loud breath-ing, like that of people half strangled and gasping for life:and indeed almost all the cries were like those of humancreatures, dying in bitter anguish. Great numbers weptwithout any noise: others fell down as death: some sink-ing in silence; some with extreme noise and violent agita-tion. I stood on the pew-seat, as did a young man in theopposite pew, an able-bodied, fresh, healthy countryman:but in a moment, while he seemed to think of nothingless, down he dropped with a violence inconceivable. Theadjoining pews seemed to shake with his fall: I heardafterwards the stamping of his feet; ready to break theboards, as he lay in strong convulsions, at the bottom ofthe pew. Among several that were struck down in thenext pew, was a girl, who was as violently seized ashe. . . . Among the children who felt the arrows of theAlmighty, I saw a sturdy boy, about eight years old, whoroared above his fellows, and seemed in his agony tostruggle with the strength of a grown man. His face wasas red as scarlet: and almost all on whom God laid hishand, turned either very red or almost black. . . .

The violent struggling of many in the above-mentionedchurches, has broken several pews and benches. Yet it iscommon for people to remain unaffected there, and af-terwards to drop down on their way home. Some havebeen found lying as dead on the road: others, in Mr. B.’sgarden; not being able to walk from the Church to hishouse, though it is not two hundred yards.

Q What was a conversion experience? How does theemotionalism of this passage relate to enlightenedthinkers’ fascination with the passions and the work-ings of human reason?

Religion and the Churches 539


CHAPTER SUMMARYThe eighteenth century was a time of change but also oftradition. The popularization of the ideas of the ScientificRevolution, the impact of travel literature, a new skepti-cism, and the ideas of Locke and Newton led to whathistorians call the Age of Enlightenment. Its leading fig-

ures were the intellectuals knownas philosophes who hoped thatthey could create a new society byusing reason to discover the natu-ral laws that governed it. Like theChristian humanists of the fif-teenth and sixteenth centuries,they believed that education couldcreate better human beings and abetter human society. Such philo-

sophes as Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, Ques-nay, Smith, Beccaria, Condorcet, and Rousseau attackedtraditional religion as the enemy, advocated religioustoleration and freedom of thought, criticized their op-pressive societies, and created a new ‘‘science of man’’ ineconomics, politics, and education. In doing so, the philo-sophes laid the foundation for a modern worldview basedon rationalism and secularism.

Although many of the philo-sophes continued to hold tradi-tional views about women, femaleintellectuals like Mary Astell andMary Wollstonecraft began toargue for the equality of thesexes and the right of women tobe educated. The Enlightenment

appealed largely to the urban middle classes and somemembers of the nobility, and its ideas were discussed insalons, coffeehouses, reading clubs, lending libraries, andsocieties like the Freemasons.

Innovation in the arts also charac-terized the eighteenth century. Thecultural fertility of the age is evident inRococo painting and architecture; theachievements of Bach, Handel, Haydn,and Mozart in music; the birth of thenovel in literature; and new directionsin education and historical writing.

Although the philosophes attackedthe established Christian churches,many Europeans continued to practicetheir traditional faith. Moreover, a new wave of piety sweptboth Catholic and Protestant churches, especially no-ticeable in Protestant Europe with the advent of Pietism inGermany and John Wesley and Methodism in England.

Thus, despite the secular thought and secular ideas thatbegan to pervade the mental world of the ruling elites,most people in eighteenth-century Europe still lived byseemingly eternal verities and practices—God, religiousworship, and farming. The most brilliant architecture andmusic of the age were religious. And yet the forces ofsecularization were too strong to stop. In the midst ofintellectual change, economic, political, and social trans-formations of great purport were taking shape and wouldlead, as we shall see in the next two chapters, to bothpolitical and social upheavals and even revolution beforethe century’s end.

CHAPTER TIMELINE

France

Germany

1700 17401720 1760 1780 1800

England

Work of Watteau

Diderot,

Montesquieu, Voltaire,

Rousseau,

Wollstonecraft,Smith,

Bach, Mass in B Minor

Handel,

Mozart,

Haydn,

The Spirit of the LawsCandide

Encyclopedia

The Social Contract, Émile

The Wealthof Nations Vindication of the

Rights of Woman

The Marriage of Figaro

The CreationMessiah



CHAPTER REVIEW

Upon Reflection

Q What contributions did Montesquieu, Voltaire,Diderot, and Rousseau make to the Enlightenment?What did they have in common? How did they differ?

Q What is popular culture, and how was it expressedin the eighteenth century?

Q What kinds of experiences do you associate withpopular religion in the eighteenth century? How do youexplain the continuing growth of popular religiousdevotion?

Key TermsEnlightenment (p. 514)skepticism (p. 514)cultural relativism (p. 516)philosophes (p. 516)cosmopolitan (p. 516)separation of powers (p. 518)deism (p. 519)laissez-faire (p. 522)economic liberalism (p. 522)Romanticism (p. 523)feminism (p. 524)salons (p. 526)Rococo (p. 527)Neoclassicism (p. 527)high culture (p. 531)popular culture (p. 531)pogroms (p. 537)Pietism (p. 538)

Suggestions for Further ReadingEIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE Surveys of eighteenth-century

Europe include I. Woloch, Eighteenth-Century Europe (New York,

1986); M. S. Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 4th

ed. (London, 2000); R. Birn, Crisis, Absolutism, Revolution: Eu-

rope, 1648–1789, 3rd ed. (Fort Worth, Tex., 2005); and T. C. W.

Blanning, ed., The Eighteenth Century: Europe, 1689–1815

(Oxford, 2000).

THE ENLIGHTENMENT Good introductions to the Enlightenment

can be found in U. Im Hof, The Enlightenment (Oxford, 1994);

D. Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the

French Enlightenment (Ithaca, N.Y., 1994); and D. Outram, The

Enlightenment, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2005). A more detailed syn-

thesis can be found in P. Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpre-

tation, 2 vols. (New York, 1966–69). See also P. H. Reill and E. J.

Wilson, eds., Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, rev. ed. (New

York, 2004); the beautifully illustrated work by D. Outram,

Panorama of the Enlightenment (Los Angeles, 2006); and

M. Fitzpatrick et al., The Enlightenment World (New York, 2004).

On the social history of the Enlightenment, see T. Munck, The En-

lightenment: A Comparative Social History, 1721–1794 (London,

2000). Studies of the major Enlightenment intellectuals include

J. Sklar, Montesquieu (Oxford, 1987); R. Pearson, Voltaire Al-

mighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom (New York, 2005); P. N.

Furbank, Diderot: A Critical Biography (New York, 1992); and

L. Damrosch, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius (Boston,

2005). On women in the eighteenth century, see N. Z. Davis and

A. Farge, eds., A History of Women: Renaissance and Enlight-

enment Paradoxes (Cambridge, Mass., 1993); C. Lougee, Le Paradis

des Femmes: Women, Salons, and Social Stratification (Princeton,

N.J., 1976); O. Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: A History of

Women in Western Europe, 1500–1800 (New York, 1998); and

M. E. Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Eu-

rope (Cambridge, 2000).

CULTURE AND SOCIETY Two general surveys on the arts are

E. Gesine and J. F. Walther, Rococo (New York, 2007), and

D. Irwin, Neoclassicism (London, 1997). On the eighteenth-

century novel, see G. J. Barker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensi-

bility: Sex and Society in the Eighteenth-Century English Novel

(Chicago, 1992). On Gibbon, see W. B. Carnuchan, Gibbon’s Sol-

itude: The Inward World of the Historian (London, 1987). On the

growth of literacy, see R. A. Houston, Literacy in Early Modern

Europe: Culture and Education, 1500–1800 (New York, 1988).

The impact of the Enlightenment on modern views of the body can

be examined in R. Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason (New York,

2004).

POPULAR CULTURE Important studies on popular culture in-

clude P. Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (New

York, 1978); J. Mullan, ed., Eighteenth-Century Popular Culture

(Oxford, 2000); and R. Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and

Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1984).

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RELIGIOUS HISTORY A good intro-

duction to the religious history of the eighteenth century can be

found in G. R. Cragg, The Church and the Age of Reason, 1648–

1789, rev. ed. (London, 1990). On Pietism, see R. Gawthorp,

Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia (New York,

1993). On John Wesley, see H. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John

Wesley and the Rise of Methodism, 3rd ed. (New York, 2002).

Visit the CourseMate website at www.cengagebrain.com for additional study tools and review materials for this chapter.

Chapter Summary 541


541A

6. Theinteriorpicturedaboveembodiestheconceptsof

(A) fluidity,loveofnature,andsimplicity.(B) realism,classicallines,andstoicism.(C) Renaissancerenewal,religiousemotion,and

nationalism.(D) virtue,opulence,andpower.(E) restraint,gentleness,andunderstatedelegance.

7. WhichofthefollowingwasNOTafeatureofeighteenth-centurypopularculture?

(A) drinkinginlocaltaverns(B) participatinginfestivals,especiallyCarnival(C) circulationofchapbookscontainingspiritualand

secularmaterial(D) broadeningofclassdivisionsbetweentheruling

classandthepoor(E) acceptanceoftheimportanceandnecessityof

literacy

1. WesternEuropeansocietyexperiencedwhichofthefol-lowingduringtheeighteenthcentury?

(A) Widespreadfearthatpopulationgrowthwouldcauseshortagesoftheresourcesneededforsurvival.

(B) Popularmovementstomaketherighttovotemoreinclusive.

(C) Socialcampaignsthatcalledonpeasantstorefrainfromalcoholandlivemoremorallives.

(D) Widespreadadoptionofstate-sponsoredschoolsforthemasses.

(E) Theclosingofmostfoundlinghospitalsduetoariseininfantmortality.

2. WhichofthefollowingauthorsisNOTcorrectlymatchedtohiswork?

(A) DenisDiderot—Encyclopedia(B) Voltaire—Candide(C) JohnLocke—Nature(D) Montesquieu—The Spirit of the Laws(E) AdamSmith—The Wealth of Nations

3. AllofthefollowingcontributedtotheriseoftheEnlightenmentEXCEPT

(A) continuedinterestinscientificknowledge.(B) thedesiretoapplyreasontosociety.(C) theinfluenceofphilosopherssuchasJohnLocke

andThomasHobbes.(D) ariseofreligiositywithinEurope.(E) Europeanrecognitionofotherdevelopedciviliza-

tionsthroughouttheworld.

4. ThenewChristiandenominationofMethodism

(A) wasnotwidelyaccepted,asitappealedonlytothemostdevout.

(B) broughtaboutaradicalreactionbytheCatholicChurchknownasMannerismthatcondemnedthebasictenetsofMethodism.

(C) oftenappealedtothosewhofoundtraditionalreli-giontobecoldandformal.

(D) alignedwiththeAnabaptiststocreateanewreligionthatheldabroaderappealtoeasternEuropeans.

(E) splitfromCalvinismandcarriedCalvin’sideastonewlandsintheeast.

5. WhichofthefollowingwasNOTarguedbymostofthephilosophes?

(A) Capitalpunishmentshouldbeeliminated.(B) Educationshouldbeusedtokeepsocietystratified.(C) Historyshouldbebroadenedtoincludematters

beyondpoliticsandGod.(D) Womenshouldbegivensocialandpoliticalequality.(E) Godhaslittletonodirectinvolvementindailylife.

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541B

12. WhichofthefollowingbestdescribesthecontributionsofwomentotheEnlightenment?

(A) TheypublishedsignificantwritingsonEnlighten-mentsubjects.

(B) Theyestablishedandransalons,wheretheymadesomeintellectualcontributions.

(C) Theycreatedtheirownsocietiesthatallowedthemtoseektheirownphilosophicaltruths.

(D) Theywroteandspokeasequalpartnerstomen,becausethephilosophesbelievedingenderequality.

(E) Theyprovidedfinancialsupportforthephilosophes.

13. JohnLocke’stheoryofthetabula rasa

(A) helpedjustifythedivisionofthesexes.(B) wasquicklyprovedincorrectbytheologianswho

believeditdiminishedGod’simportance.(C) becamethestartingpointformodernpolitical

theory.(D) waswidelyacceptedbymostEuropeansofhistime.(E) becameanargumentforthenecessityoffixingthe

socialillsoftheday.

14. ThePhysiocrats

(A) sawmercantilismastheeconomictheorythatbestembodiedanidealeconomythatwouldbenefitallmembersofsociety.

(B) movedbeyonddeismtoopenlyespouseatheism.(C) suggestedthatthelawsofnaturecouldalsobeused

toestablishneweconomictheories.(D) werewidelyseenastheoneswhobroughtthecon-

ceptsoftheEnlightenmentdowntothecommonpeople.

(E) werenewrulersthatattemptedtoapplyreasonandrationalthoughttotheirrule.

15. JohnLocke,ThomasHobbes,andJean-JacquesRous-seaufavoredasocialcontracttheorythat

(A) suggestedthathumansoriginatedinastateofnatureandthatgovernmentcameaboutinordertopreventanarchy.

(B) suggestedthebestsocietyisonethatexistsinabso-luteanarchy.

(C) suggestedthatadivineentityhaddefinedthelawsofnatureandpromotedrulingelitestosecuresuchlaws.

(D) suggestedarighteoussocietyisonededicatedtothepremiseoftheocracy.

(E) soughttofulfilltheindividualdesiresofthecom-monmanandwoman.

8. Whichofthefollowingmovementsandideasaremostassociatedwiththephilosophes?

(A) constitutionalism,Romanticism,equality(B) feminism,pietism,submission(C) tolerance,reason,deism(D) intolerance,conservatism,criticism(E) religiosity,humanism,nationalism

9. Seventeenth-andeighteenth-centuryProtestantleadersoftenencouragedliteracymorethanCatholicleadersdidbecause

(A) Protestantswantedallpeopletobecomeliterateandtoaspiretoleadmorevirtuouslives.

(B) Catholicssawknowledgeofmathematicsasmoreimportantthanliteracy.

(C) Protestantsbelievedtheabilitytoreadwasneces-sarytounderstandtheBible.

(D) Catholicsbelievedreadingwasnecessary,butnotasimportantasspeakingLatin.

(E) ProtestantswerebetterabletoaffordthecostofeducatingtheirchildrenthanwereCatholics.

10. “Despitetheircommoninterest,subjectswillnotbeboundbytheircommitmentunlessmeansarefoundtoguaranteetheirfidelity.”WhichofthefollowingwouldNOTsupportthisconcept?

(A) JohnLocke(B) ThomasHobbes(C) DavidHume(D) Jean-JacquesRousseau(E) Voltaire

11. ManyEuropeancountriesremainedCatholicaftertheProtestantReformation.WhichofthefollowingbestdescribesthereligiousaffiliationswithinEurope?

(A) RussiaandtheOttomanEmpirebothsupportedProtestantismwithintheircountries.

(B) SouthernEuroperemainedCatholic,whiletheGermanstatesandScandinaviancountriessup-portedProtestantism.

(C) OlderEuropeancountrieslikeItalyandGreeceheldontotheirCatholictraditions,whilethenewerstateslikeFrancemoreopenlyacceptedthenewreformreligions.

(D) AstheOttomanEmpireretreatedfromeasternEurope,itsMuslimtraditionsremainedinthecountriesitvacated.

(E) BoththeEnglishandtheSpanishsoughttheguidanceandstabilitythattheCatholicChurchaffordedthem.


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