19.1: The Enlightenment

19.1.1: Introduction to the Enlightenment

The Enlightenment, a philosophical movement that dominated in Europe during the 18th century, was centered around the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and advocated such ideals as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.

Learning Objective

Explain the main ideas of the Age of Enlightenment

Key Points

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that dominated in Europe during the 18th century. It was centered around the idea that reason
is the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and it advocated such ideals
as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and
separation of church and state. However, historians of race, gender, and class note that Enlightenment ideals
were not originally envisioned as universal in today’s sense of the word.
The Philosophic Movement advocated for a society based upon reason rather than
faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law, and
for science based on experiments and observation.
There
were two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought: the radical enlightenment,
advocating democracy, individual
liberty, freedom of expression, and eradication of religious authority. A
second, more moderate variety sought accommodation between reform
and the traditional systems of power and faith.
While the Enlightenment cannot be pigeonholed
into a specific doctrine or set of dogmas, science came to play a leading role
in Enlightenment discourse and thought.
The
Enlightenment brought political modernization to the west, in terms of focusing on democratic values and institutions and the
creation of modern, liberal democracies.
Enlightenment
thinkers sought to curtail the political power of organized religion, and
thereby prevent another age of intolerant religious war. The
radical Enlightenment promoted the concept of separating church and state.

Key Terms

reductionism: The term that refers to several related but distinct philosophical positions regarding the connections between phenomena, or theories, “reducing” one to another, usually considered “simpler” or more “basic.” The Oxford Companion to Philosophy suggests a three part division: ontological (a belief that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of parts); methodological (the scientific attempt to provide explanation in terms of ever smaller entities); and theory (the suggestion that a newer theory does not replace or absorb the old, but reduces it to more basic terms).
Newtonianism: A doctrine that involves following the principles and using the methods of natural philosopher Isaac Newton. Newton’s broad conception of the universe as being governed by rational and understandable laws laid the foundation for many strands of Enlightenment thought.
Encyclopédie: A general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers and was edited by Denis Diderot, and, until 1759, co-edited by Jean le Rond d’Alembert.
It is the most famous for representing the thought of the Enlightenment.
empiricism: A theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism and skepticism, it emphasizes the role of experience and evidence (especially sensory experience), in the formation of ideas, over the notion of innate ideas or traditions.
scientific method: A body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. The Oxford Dictionaries Online define it as “a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.”

Introduction

The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Enlightenment, was a philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century. It was centered around the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and it advocated such ideals as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state. The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism, along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy.
The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the church, and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.

French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715, the year that Louis XIV died, and 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution. Some recent historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution. However, different national varieties of the movement flourished between the first decades of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century.

The ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789 and emphasized the rights of the common men, as opposed to the exclusive rights of the elites. However, historians of race, gender, and class note that Enlightenment ideals were not originally envisioned as universal in the today’s sense of the word. Although they did eventually inspire the struggle for rights of people of color, women, or the working masses, most Enlightenment thinkers did not advocate equality for all, regardless of race, gender, or class, but rather insisted that rights and freedoms were not hereditary. This perspective directly attacked the traditionally exclusive position of the European aristocracy, but was still largely limited to expanding the political and individual rights of white males of particular social standing.

Philosophy

In the mid-18th century, Europe witnessed an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity that challenged traditional doctrines and dogmas. The philosophic movement was led by Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law, and for science based on experiments and observation. The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution. While the philosophers of the French Enlightenment were not revolutionaries, and many were members of the nobility, their ideas played an important part in undermining the legitimacy of the Old Regime and shaping the French Revolution.

There were two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought: the radical enlightenment, inspired by the philosophy of Spinoza, advocating democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression, and eradication of religious authority. A second, more moderate variety, supported by René Descartes, John Locke, Christian Wolff, Isaac Newton and others, sought accommodation between reform and the traditional systems of power and faith.

Much of what is incorporated in the scientific method (the nature of knowledge, evidence, experience, and causation), and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion, were developed by David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume became a major figure in the skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy. Immanuel Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason. Kant’s work continued to shape German thought, and indeed all of European philosophy, well into the 20th century. Mary Wollstonecraft was one of England’s earliest feminist philosophers. She argued for a society based on reason, and that women, as well as men, should be treated as rational beings.

Encyclopedie’s frontispiece, full version; engraving by Benoît Louis Prévost.

“If there is something you know, communicate it. If there is something you don’t know, search for it.” An engraving from the 1772 edition of the Encyclopédie. Truth, in the top center, is surrounded by light and unveiled by the figures to the right, Philosophy and Reason.

Science

While the Enlightenment cannot be pigeonholed into a specific doctrine or set of dogmas, science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences, and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favor of the development of free speech and thought. Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought, and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally.

Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centers of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. Many scientific theories reached the wide public, notably through the Encyclopédie (a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772) and the popularization of Newtonianism.
The 18th century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics, and physics; the development of biological taxonomy; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry.

Modern Western Government

The Enlightenment has long been hailed as the foundation of modern western political and intellectual culture. It brought political modernization to the west, in terms of focusing on democratic values and institutions, and the creation of modern, liberal democracies.

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes ushered in a new debate on government with his work Leviathan in 1651. Hobbes also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be “representative” and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.

John Locke and Rousseau also developed social contract theories. While differing in details, Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau agreed that a social contract, in which the government’s authority lies in the consent of the governed, is necessary for man to live in civil society. Locke is particularly known for his statement that individuals have a right to “Life, Liberty and Property,” and his belief that the natural right to property is derived from labor. His theory of natural rights has influenced many political documents, including the United States Declaration of Independence and the French National Constituent Assembly’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Though much of Enlightenment’s political thought was dominated by social contract theorists, some Scottish philosophers, most notably David Hume and Adam Ferguson, criticized this camp. Theirs was the assumption that governments derived from a ruler’s authority and force (Hume) and polities grew out of social development rather than social contract (Ferguson).

Religion

Enlightenment era religious commentary was a response to the preceding century of religious conflict in Europe. Enlightenment thinkers sought to curtail the political power of organized religion, and thereby prevent another age of intolerant religious war. A number of novel ideas developed, including Deism (belief in God the Creator, with no reference to the Bible or any other source)

and atheism. The latter was much discussed but there were few proponents. Many, like Voltaire, held that without belief in a God who punishes evil, the moral order of society was undermined.

The radical Enlightenment promoted the concept of separating church and state, an idea often credited to Locke. According to Locke’s principle of the social contract, the government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right in the liberty of conscience, which he said must therefore remain protected from any government authority. These views on religious tolerance and the importance of individual conscience, along with the social contract, became particularly influential in the American colonies and the drafting of the United States Constitution.

Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie (c. 1797), National Portrait Gallery, London.

While the philosophy of the Enlightenment was dominated by men, the question of women’s rights appeared as one of the most controversial ideas. Mary Wollstonecraft, one of few female thinkers of the time, was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. She is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.

19.1.2: Rationalism

Rationalism, or a belief that we come to knowledge through the use of logic, and thus independently of sensory experience, was critical to the debates of the Enlightenment period, when most philosophers lauded the power of reason but insisted that knowledge comes from experience.

Learning Objective

Define rationalism and its role in the ideas of the Enlightenment

Key Points

Rationalism—as an appeal to human reason as a
way of obtaining knowledge—has a philosophical history dating from antiquity.
While rationalism did not dominate the Enlightenment, it laid critical
basis for the debates that developed over the course of the 18th century.
René
Descartes (1596-1650), the first of the modern rationalists, laid the groundwork for debates developed during the Enlightenment. He thought that
the knowledge of eternal truths could be attained by reason alone (no experience was necessary).
Since the Enlightenment, rationalism is usually
associated with the introduction of mathematical methods into philosophy as
seen in the works of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. This is commonly called
continental rationalism, because it was predominant in the continental schools
of Europe, whereas in Britain empiricism dominated.
Both Spinoza and Leibniz asserted that, in
principle, all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be gained
through the use of reason alone, though they both observed that this was not
possible in practice for human beings, except in specific areas, such as mathematics.
While
empiricism (a theory that knowledge comes
only or primarily from a sensory experience) dominated the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant, attempted to combine the principles of empiricism and rationalism.
He concluded that both reason and
experience are necessary for human knowledge.
Since the Enlightenment, rationalism in politics
historically emphasized a “politics of reason” centered upon rational
choice, utilitarianism, and secularism.

Key Terms

cogito ergo sum

A Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes, the first modern rationalist, usually translated into English as “I think, therefore I am.” This proposition became a fundamental element of western philosophy, as it purported to form a secure foundation for knowledge in the face of radical doubt. Descartes asserted that the very act of doubting one’s own existence served, at minimum, as proof of the reality of one’s own mind.

empiricism

A theory that states
that knowledge comes only, or primarily, from sensory experience. One of
several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with
rationalism and skepticism, it emphasizes the role of experience and
evidence, especially sensory experience, in the formation of ideas over the
notion of innate ideas or traditions.

metaphysics

A traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, it attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms: “Ultimately, what is there?” and “What is it like?”

Introduction

Rationalism—as an appeal to human reason as a way of obtaining knowledge—has a philosophical history dating from antiquity. While rationalism, as the view that reason is the main source of knowledge, did not dominate the Enlightenment, it laid critical basis for the debates that developed over the course of the 18th century.
As the Enlightenment centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, many philosophers of the period drew from earlier philosophical contributions, most notably those of René

Descartes (1596-1650), a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist.
Descartes was the first of the modern rationalists. He thought that only knowledge of eternal truths (including the truths of mathematics and the foundations of the sciences) could be attained by reason alone, while the knowledge of physics required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method. He argued that reason alone determined knowledge, and that this could be done independently of the senses. For instance, his famous dictum, cogito ergo sum, or “I think, therefore I am,” is a conclusion reached a priori (i.e., prior to any kind of experience on the matter). The simple meaning is that doubting one’s existence, in and of itself, proves that an “I” exists to do the thinking.

René Descartes, after Frans Hals, 2nd half of the 17th century.

Descartes laid the foundation for 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Leibniz, Spinoza, and Descartes were all well-versed in mathematics, as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as well.

Rationalism v. Empiricism

Since the Enlightenment, rationalism is usually associated with the introduction of mathematical methods into philosophy, as seen in the works of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. This is commonly called continental rationalism, because it was predominant in the continental schools of Europe, whereas in Britain, empiricism, or a theory that knowledge comes only or primarily from a sensory experience, dominated. Although rationalism and empiricism are traditionally seen as opposing each other, the distinction between rationalists and empiricists was drawn at a later period, and would not have been recognized by philosophers involved in Enlightenment debates. Furthermore, the distinction between the two philosophies is not as clear-cut as is sometimes suggested. For example, Descartes and John Locke, one of the most important Enlightenment thinkers, have similar views about the nature of human ideas.

Proponents of some varieties of rationalism argue that, starting with foundational basic principles, like the axioms of geometry, one could deductively derive the rest of all possible knowledge. The philosophers who held this view most clearly were Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, whose attempts to grapple with the epistemological and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes led to a development of the fundamental approach of rationalism. Both Spinoza and Leibniz asserted that, in principle, all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be gained through the use of reason alone, though they both observed that this was not possible in practice for human beings, except in specific areas, such as mathematics. On the other hand, Leibniz admitted in his book, Monadology, that “we are all mere Empirics in three fourths of our actions.”

Immanuel Kant

Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz are usually credited for laying the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment. During the mature Enlightenment period, Immanuel Kant attempted to explain the relationship between reason and human experience, and to move beyond the failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He wanted to put an end to an era of futile and speculative theories of human experience, and regarded himself as ending and showing the way beyond the impasse between rationalists and empiricists. He is widely held to have synthesized these two early modern traditions in his thought.

Kant named his brand of epistemology (theory of knowledge) “transcendental idealism,” and he first laid out these views in his famous work, The Critique of Pure Reason. In it, he argued that there were fundamental problems with both rationalist and empiricist dogma. To the rationalists he argued, broadly, that pure reason is flawed when it goes beyond its limits and claims to know those things that are necessarily beyond the realm of all possible experience (e.g., the existence of God, free will, or the immortality of the human soul). To the empiricist, he argued that while it is correct that experience is fundamentally necessary for human knowledge, reason is necessary for processing that experience into coherent thought. He therefore concluded that both reason and experience are necessary for human knowledge. In the same way, Kant also argued that it was wrong to regard thought as mere analysis. In his views, a priori concepts do exist, but if they are to lead to the amplification of knowledge, they must be brought into relation with empirical data.

Immanuel Kant, author unknown

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) rejected the dogmas of both rationalism and empiricism, and tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, and individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason. His work continued to shape German thought, and indeed all of European philosophy, well into the 20th century.

Politics

Since the Enlightenment, rationalism in politics historically emphasized a “politics of reason” centered upon rational choice, utilitarianism, and secularism (later, relationship between rationalism and religion was ameliorated by the adoption of pluralistic rationalist methods practicable regardless of religious or irreligious ideology). Some philosophers today, most notably John Cottingham, note that rationalism, a methodology, became socially conflated with atheism, a worldview. Cottingham writes,

In the past, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries, the term ‘rationalist’ was often used to refer to free thinkers of an anti-clerical and anti-religious outlook, and for a time the word acquired a distinctly pejorative force (…). The use of the label ‘rationalist’ to characterize a world outlook which has no place for the supernatural is becoming less popular today; terms like ‘humanist’ or ‘materialist’ seem largely to have taken its place. But the old usage still survives.

19.1.3: Natural Rights

Natural rights, understood as those that are not dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government,(and therefore, universal and inalienable) were central to the debates during the Enlightenment on the relationship between the individual and the government.

Learning Objective

Identify natural rights and why they were important to the philosophers of the Enlightenment.

Key Points

Natural rights are those that are not dependent
on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and
are therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed
or restrained by human laws). They are usually defined in opposition to legal rights, or
those bestowed onto a person by a given legal
system.
Although natural rights have been discussed
since antiquity, it was the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment that
developed the modern concept of natural rights, which has been critical to the
modern republican government and civil society.
During the Enlightenment, natural rights developed as part of
the social contract theory. The theory addressed the questions of the origin of
society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.
Thomas Hobbes’ conception of natural rights
extended from his conception of man in a “state of nature.” He objected to the
attempt to derive rights from “natural law,” arguing that law
(“lex”) and right (“jus”) though often confused, signify
opposites, with law referring to obligations, while rights refers to the absence
of obligations.
The most famous natural right formulation comes
from John Locke, who argued that the natural rights include
perfect equality and freedom, and the right to preserve life and property. Other Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment philosophers that developed and complicated the concept of natural rights were John Lilburne, Francis Hutcheson, Georg Hegel, and Thomas
Paine.
The modern European anti-slavery movement drew heavily from the concept of natural rights that became central to the efforts of European abolitionists.

Key Terms

Natural rights: The rights that are not dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and are therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws). Some, yet not all, see them as synonymous with human rights.
natural law: A philosophy that certain rights or values are inherent by virtue of human nature, and can be universally understood through human reason. Historically, it refers to the use of reason to analyze both social and personal human nature in order to deduce binding rules of moral behavior. The law of nature, like nature itself, is universal.
Legal rights: The rights bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (i.e., rights that can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws).
social contract theory: In moral and political philosophy, a theory or model originating during the Age of Enlightenment that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. It typically posits that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights.

Natural Rights and Natural Law

Natural rights are usually juxtaposed with the concept of
legal rights. Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (i.e., rights that can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws). Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and are therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws). Natural rights are closely related to the concept of natural law (or laws). During the Enlightenment, the concept of natural laws was used to challenge the divine right of kings, and became an alternative justification for the establishment of a social contract, positive law, and government (and thus, legal rights) in the form of classical republicanism (built around concepts such as civil society, civic virtue, and mixed government). Conversely, the concept of natural rights is used by others to challenge the legitimacy of all such establishments.

The idea of natural rights is also closely related to that of human rights; some acknowledge no difference between the two, while others choose to keep the terms separate to eliminate association with some features traditionally associated with natural rights. Natural rights, in particular, are considered beyond the authority of any government or international body to dismiss.

Natural Rights and Social Contract

Although natural rights have been discussed since antiquity, it was the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment that developed the modern concept of natural rights, which has been critical to the modern republican government and civil society.
At the time, natural rights developed as part of the social contract theory, which addressed the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory.

Thomas Hobbes’ conception of natural rights extended from his conception of man in a “state of nature.” He argued that the essential natural (human) right was “to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life.” Hobbes sharply distinguished this natural “liberty” from natural “laws.” In his natural state, according to Hobbes, man’s life consisted entirely of liberties, and not at all of laws. He objected to the attempt to derive rights from “natural law,” arguing that law (“lex”) and right (“jus”) though often confused, signify opposites, with law referring to obligations, while rights refer to the absence of obligations. Since by our (human) nature, we seek to maximize our well being, rights are prior to law, natural or institutional, and people will not follow the laws of nature without first being subjected to a sovereign power, without which all ideas of right and wrong are meaningless.

Portrait of Thomas Hobbes by John Michael Wright, National Portrait Gallery, London

Thomas Hobbes’ 1651 book Leviathan established social contract theory, the foundation of most later western political philosophy. Though on rational grounds a champion of absolutism for the sovereign, Hobbes also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be “representative” and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law that leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.

The most famous natural right formulation comes from John Locke in his Second Treatise, when he introduces the state of nature. For Locke, the law of nature is grounded on mutual security, or the idea that one cannot infringe on another’s natural rights, as every man is equal and has the same inalienable rights. These natural rights include perfect equality and freedom and the right to preserve life and property. Such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the social contract. Another 17th-century Englishman, John Lilburne (known as Freeborn John) argued for level human rights that he called “freeborn rights,” which he defined as being rights that every human being is born with, as opposed to rights bestowed by government or by human law. The distinction between alienable and unalienable rights was introduced by Francis Hutcheson, who argued that “Unalienable Rights are essential Limitations in all Governments.” In the German Enlightenment, Georg Hegel gave a highly developed treatment of the inalienability argument. Like Hutcheson, he based the theory of inalienable rights on the de facto inalienability of those aspects of personhood that distinguish persons from things. A thing, like a piece of property, can in fact be transferred from one person to another. According to Hegel, the same would not apply to those aspects that make one a person. Consequently, the question of whether property is an aspect of natural rights remains a matter of debate.

Thomas Paine further elaborated on natural rights in his influential work Rights of Man (1791), emphasizing that rights cannot be granted by any charter because this would legally imply they can also be revoked, and under such circumstances, they would be reduced to privileges.

Portrait of John Locke, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Britain, 1697,
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

The most famous natural right formulation comes from John Locke in his Second Treatise. For Locke, the natural rights include perfect equality and freedom, and the right to preserve life and property.

Natural Rights, Slavery, and Abolitionism

In discussion of social contract theory, “inalienable rights” were those rights that could not be surrendered by citizens to the sovereign. Such rights were thought to be natural rights, independent of positive law. Some social contract theorists reasoned, however, that in the natural state only the strongest could benefit from their rights. Thus, people form an implicit social contract, ceding their natural rights to the authority to protect the people from abuse, and living henceforth under the legal rights of that authority.

Many historical apologies for slavery and illiberal government were based on explicit or implicit voluntary contracts to alienate any natural rights to freedom and self-determination.
Locke argued against slavery on the basis that enslaving yourself goes against the law of nature; you cannot surrender your own rights, your freedom is absolute and no one can take it from you. Additionally, Locke argues that one person cannot enslave another because it is morally reprehensible, although he introduces a caveat by saying that enslavement of a lawful captive in time of war would not go against one’s natural rights.

The de facto inalienability arguments of Hutcheson and his predecessors provided the basis for the anti-slavery movement to argue not simply against involuntary slavery but against any explicit or implied contractual forms of slavery. Any contract that tried to legally alienate such a right would be inherently invalid. Similarly, the argument was used by the democratic movement to argue against any explicit or implied social contracts of subjection by which a people would supposedly alienate their right of self-government to a sovereign.

19.2: The Age of Discovery

19.2.1: Europe’s Early Trade Links

A prelude to the Age of Discovery was a series of European land expeditions
across Eurasia in the late Middle Ages. These expeditions were undertaken by a number of explorers, including Marco Polo, who left behind a detailed and inspiring record of his travels across Asia.

Learning Objective

Understand the exploration of Eurasia in the Middle Ages by Marco Polo, and why it was a prelude to the advent of the Age of Discovery in the 15th Century

Key Points

European medieval knowledge about Asia beyond the reach of Byzantine Empire was sourced in partial reports, often obscured by legends.
In 1154, Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi
created what would be known as the Tabula Rogeriana—

a description
of the world and world map. It contains
maps showing the Eurasian continent in its entirety, but only the northern part
of the African continent. It remained the most accurate world map for the next
three centuries.
Indian Ocean trade routes were sailed by Arab
traders. Between 1405 and 1421, the Yongle Emperor of Ming China sponsored a
series of long range tributary missions. The fleets visited Arabia, East Africa,
India, Maritime Southeast Asia, and Thailand.
A series
of European expeditions crossing Eurasia by land in the late Middle Ages marked a prelude to the Age of Discovery.
Although the Mongols had threatened Europe with pillage and destruction, Mongol
states also unified much of Eurasia and, from 1206 on, the Pax
Mongolica allowed safe trade routes and communication lines stretching
from the Middle East to China.
Christian
embassies were sent as far as Karakorum during the Mongol invasions of Syria. The first of these
travelers was Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, who journeyed to Mongolia and back
from 1241 to 1247. Others traveled to various regions of Asia between 13th and the third quarter of the 15th centuries; these travelers included Russian Yaroslav of Vladimir
and his sons Alexander Nevsky and Andrey II of Vladimir, French André
de Longjumeau and Flemish William of Rubruck, Moroccan
Ibn Battuta, and Italian Niccolò de’ Conti.
Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant, dictated an
account of journeys throughout Asia from 1271 to 1295. Although he was not the first European to
reach China, he was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his
experience. The book inspired Christopher Columbus and many other travelers in the following Age of Discovery.

Key Terms

Pax Mongolica: A historiographical term, modeled after the original phrase Pax Romana, which describes the stabilizing effects of the conquests of the Mongol Empire on the social, cultural, and economic life of the inhabitants of the vast Eurasian territory that the Mongols conquered in the 13th and 14th centuries. The term is used to describe the eased communication and commerce that the unified administration helped to create, and the period of relative peace that followed the Mongols’ vast conquests.
Tabula Rogeriana: A book containing a description of the world and world map created by the Arab geographer, Muhammad al-Idrisi, in 1154. Written in Arabic, it is divided into seven climate zones and contains maps showing the Eurasian continent in its entirety, but only the northern part of the African continent. The map is oriented with the North at the bottom. It remained the most accurate world map for the next three centuries.
Maritime republics: City-states that flourished in Italy and across the Mediterranean. From the 10th to the 13th centuries, they built fleets of ships both for their own protection and to support extensive trade networks across the Mediterranean, giving them an essential role in the Crusades.

Background

European medieval knowledge about Asia beyond the reach of Byzantine Empire was sourced in partial reports, often obscured by legends, dating back from the time of the conquests of Alexander the Great and his successors. In 1154, Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi created what would be known as the Tabula Rogeriana at the court of King Roger II of Sicily. The book, written in Arabic, is a description of the world and world map. It is divided into seven climate zones and contains maps showing the Eurasian continent in its entirety, but only the northern part of the African continent. It remained the most accurate world map for the next three centuries, but it also demonstrated that Africa was only partially known to either Christians, Genoese and Venetians, or the Arab seamen, and its southern extent was unknown. Knowledge about the Atlantic African coast was fragmented, and derived mainly from old Greek and Roman maps based on Carthaginian knowledge, including the time of Roman exploration of Mauritania. The Red Sea was barely known and only trade links with the Maritime republics, the Republic of Venice especially, fostered collection of accurate maritime knowledge.

Indian Ocean trade routes were sailed by Arab traders. Between 1405 and 1421, the Yongle Emperor of Ming China sponsored a series of long-range tributary missions. The fleets visited Arabia, East Africa, India, Maritime Southeast Asia, and Thailand. But the journeys, reported by Ma Huan, a Muslim voyager and translator, were halted abruptly after the emperor’s death, and were not followed up, as the Chinese Ming Dynasty retreated in the haijin, a policy of isolationism, having limited maritime trade.

Prelude to the Age of Discovery

A series of European expeditions crossing Eurasia by land in the late Middle Ages marked a prelude to the Age of Discovery. Although the Mongols had threatened Europe with pillage and destruction, Mongol states also unified much of Eurasia and, from 1206 on, the Pax Mongolica allowed safe trade routes and communication lines stretching from the Middle East to China. A series of Europeans took advantage of these in order to explore eastward. Most were Italians, as trade between Europe and the Middle East was controlled mainly by the Maritime republics.

Christian embassies were sent as far as Karakorum during the Mongol invasions of Syria, from which they gained a greater understanding of the world. The first of these travelers was Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, who journeyed to Mongolia and back from 1241 to 1247. About the same time, Russian prince Yaroslav of Vladimir, and subsequently his sons, Alexander Nevsky and Andrey II of Vladimir, traveled to the Mongolian capital. Though having strong political implications, their journeys left no detailed accounts. Other travelers followed, like French André de Longjumeau and Flemish William of Rubruck, who reached China through Central Asia. From 1325 to 1354, a Moroccan scholar from Tangier, Ibn Battuta, journeyed through North Africa, the Sahara desert, West Africa, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, having reached China. In 1439, Niccolò de’ Conti published an account of his travels as a Muslim merchant to India and Southeast Asia and, later in 1466-1472, Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin of Tver travelled to India.

Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant, dictated an account of journeys throughout Asia from 1271 to 1295. His travels are recorded in Book of the Marvels of the World, (also known as The Travels of Marco Polo, c. 1300),

a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. Marco Polo was not the first European to reach China, but he was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his experience. The book inspired Christopher Columbus and many other travelers.

The Travels of Marco Polo

Marco Polo traveling, miniature from the book The Travels of Marco Polo (Il milione), originally published during Polo’s lifetime (c. 1254-January 8, 1324), but frequently reprinted and translated.

The painting shows a ship on a river or inlet anchored near a castle wall. The ship is filled with animals, including one elephant and three camels. One of the men from the ship, presumably Marco Polo, speaks men at the gate.

The Age of Discovery

The geographical exploration of the late Middle Ages eventually led to what today is known as the Age of Discovery: a loosely defined European historical period, from the 15th century to the 18th century, that witnessed extensive overseas exploration emerge as a powerful factor in European culture and globalization. Many lands previously unknown to Europeans were discovered during this period, though most were already inhabited, and, from the perspective of non-Europeans, the period was not one of discovery, but one of invasion and the arrival of settlers from a previously unknown continent. Global exploration started with the successful Portuguese travels to the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores, the coast of Africa, and the sea route to India in 1498; and, on behalf of the Crown of Castile (Spain), the trans-Atlantic Voyages of Christopher Columbus between 1492 and 1502, as well as the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1519-1522. These discoveries led to numerous naval expeditions across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, and land expeditions in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia that continued into the late 19th century, and ended with the exploration of the polar regions in the 20th century.

19.2.2: Portuguese Explorers

During the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese explorers were at the forefront of European overseas exploration, which led them to reach India, establish multiple trading posts in Asia and Africa, and settle what would become Brazil, creating one of the most powerful empires.

Learning Objective

Compare the Portuguese Atlantic explorations from 1415-1488 with the Indian Exploration, led by Vasco da Gama from 1497-1542

Key Points

Portuguese sailors were at
the vanguard of European overseas exploration, discovering and mapping the
coasts of Africa, Asia, and Brazil. As early as 1317, King Denis made an
agreement with Genoese merchant sailor Manuel Pessanha, laying the basis for the Portuguese Navy and the establishment
of a powerful Genoese merchant community in Portugal.
In 1415, the city of Ceuta
was occupied by the Portuguese in an effort to control
navigation of the African coast. Henry the Navigator, aware of profit possibilities in the Saharan trade routes, invested
in sponsoring voyages that, within two decades of exploration, allowed Portuguese ships to bypass the Sahara.
The
Portuguese goal of finding a sea route to Asia was finally
achieved in a ground-breaking voyage commanded by Vasco da Gama, who reached Calicut in western India in 1498, becoming the first European to reach India.
The
second voyage to India was dispatched in 1500 under Pedro Álvares Cabral. While
following the same south-westerly route as Gama across the Atlantic Ocean,
Cabral made landfall on the Brazilian coast—

the territory that he recommended Portugal settle.
Portugal’s purpose in the Indian Ocean was to ensure the monopoly of the spice
trade. Taking advantage of the rivalries that pitted Hindus against Muslims,
the Portuguese established several forts and trading posts between 1500 and
1510.
Portugal established
trading ports at far-flung locations like Goa, Ormuz, Malacca, Kochi, the
Maluku Islands, Macau, and Nagasaki. Guarding its trade from both European and
Asian competitors, it dominated not only the trade between Asia and Europe, but
also much of the trade between different regions of Asia, such as India, Indonesia,
China, and Japan.

Key Terms

Cape of Good Hope: A rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa, named because of the great optimism engendered by the opening of a sea route to India and the East.
Vasco da Gama: A Portuguese explorer and one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery; the first European to reach India by sea.

Introduction

Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European overseas exploration, discovering and mapping the coasts of Africa, Asia, and Brazil. As early as 1317, King Denis made an agreement with Genoese merchant sailor Manuel Pessanha (Pesagno), appointing him first Admiral with trade privileges with his homeland, in return for twenty war ships and crews, with the goal of defending the country against Muslim pirate raids. This created the basis for the Portuguese Navy and the establishment of a Genoese merchant community in Portugal.

In the second half of the 14th century, outbreaks of bubonic plague led to severe depopulation; the economy was extremely localized in a few towns, unemployment rose, and migration led to agricultural land abandonment. Only the sea offered alternatives, with most people settling in fishing and trading in coastal areas. Between 1325-1357, Afonso IV of Portugal granted public funding to raise a proper commercial fleet, and ordered the first maritime explorations, with the help of Genoese, under command of admiral Pessanha. In 1341, the Canary Islands, already known to Genoese, were officially explored under the patronage of the Portuguese king, but in 1344, Castile disputed them, further propelling the Portuguese navy efforts.

Atlantic Exploration

In 1415, the city of Ceuta (north coast of Africa)
was occupied by the Portuguese aiming to control navigation of the African coast. Young Prince Henry the Navigator was there and became aware of profit possibilities in the Saharan trade routes. He invested in sponsoring voyages down the coast of Mauritania, gathering a group of merchants, shipowners, stakeholders, and participants interested in the sea lanes.

Henry the Navigator took the lead role in encouraging Portuguese maritime exploration, until his death in 1460. At the time, Europeans did not know what lay beyond Cape Bojador on the African coast.
In 1419, two of Henry’s captains, João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, were driven by a storm to Madeira, an uninhabited island off the coast of Africa, which had probably been known to Europeans since the 14th century. In 1420, Zarco and Teixeira returned with Bartolomeu Perestrelo and began Portuguese settlement of the islands.
A Portuguese attempt to capture Grand Canary, one of the nearby Canary Islands, which had been partially settled by Spaniards in 1402, was unsuccessful and met with protests from Castile. Around the same time, the Portuguese began to explore the North African coast.
Diogo Silves reached the Azores island of Santa Maria in 1427, and in the following years, Portuguese discovered and settled the rest of the Azores. Within two decades of exploration, Portuguese ships bypassed the Sahara.

In 1443, Prince Pedro, Henry’s brother, granted him the monopoly of navigation, war, and trade in the lands south of Cape Bojador. Later, this monopoly would be enforced by two Papal bulls (1452 and 1455), giving Portugal the trade monopoly for the newly appropriated territories, laying the foundations for the Portuguese empire.

India and Brazil

The long-standing Portuguese goal of finding a sea route to Asia was finally achieved in a ground-breaking voyage commanded by Vasco da Gama. His squadron left Portugal in 1497, rounded the Cape and continued along the coast of East Africa, where a local pilot was brought on board who guided them across the Indian Ocean, reaching Calicut in western India in May 1498. Reaching the legendary Indian spice routes unopposed helped the Portuguese improve their economy that, until Gama, was mainly based on trades along Northern and coastal West Africa. These spices were at first mostly pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. This led to a commercial monopoly for several decades.

The second voyage to India was dispatched in 1500 under Pedro Álvares Cabral. While following the same south-westerly route as Gama across the Atlantic Ocean, Cabral made landfall on the Brazilian coast. This was probably an accident but it has been speculated that the Portuguese knew of Brazil’s existence. Cabral recommended to the Portuguese king that the land be settled, and two follow-up voyages were sent in 1501 and 1503. The land was found to be abundant in pau-brasil, or brazilwood, from which it later inherited its name, but the failure to find gold or silver meant that for the time being Portuguese efforts were concentrated on India.

Gama’s voyage was significant and paved the way for the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire in Asia. The route meant that the Portuguese would not need to cross the highly disputed Mediterranean, or the dangerous Arabian Peninsula, and that the entire voyage would be made by sea.

First Voyage of Vasco da Gama

The route followed in Vasco da Gama’s first voyage (1497-1499). Gama’s squadron left Portugal in 1497, rounded the Cape and continued along the coast of East Africa. They reached Calicut in western India in May 1498.

The map shows that Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, stopping at St. Helena Bay, Mossel Bay, and Natal. His expedition then traveled north along the east coast of Africa, making four stops, including stopping in Mombasa and Malindi. The expedition then crossed the Arabian Sea to India, where they stopped in Calicut and then Goa.

Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia Explorations

The aim of Portugal in the Indian Ocean was to ensure the monopoly of the spice trade. Taking advantage of the rivalries that pitted Hindus against Muslims, the Portuguese established several forts and trading posts between 1500 and 1510. After the victorious sea Battle of Diu, Turks and Egyptians withdrew their navies from India, setting the Portuguese trade dominance for almost a century, and greatly contributing to the growth of the Portuguese Empire. It also marked the beginning of the European colonial dominance in Asia. A second Battle of Diu in 1538 ended Ottoman ambitions in India, and confirmed Portuguese hegemony in the Indian Ocean.

In 1511, Albuquerque sailed to Malacca in Malaysia, the most important eastern point in the trade network, where Malay met Gujarati, Chinese, Japanese, Javan, Bengali, Persian, and Arabic traders. The port of Malacca became the strategic base for Portuguese trade expansion with China and Southeast Asia. Eventually, the Portuguese Empire expanded into the Persian Gulf as Portugal contested control of the spice trade with the Ottoman Empire. In a shifting series of alliances, the Portuguese dominated much of the southern Persian Gulf for the next hundred years.

A Portuguese explorer funded by the Spanish Crown, Ferdinand Magellan, organized the Castilian (Spanish) expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522. Selected by King Charles I of Spain to search for a westward route to the Maluku Islands (the “Spice Islands,” today’s Indonesia), he headed south through the Atlantic Ocean to Patagonia, passing through the Strait of Magellan into a body of water he named the “peaceful sea” (the modern Pacific Ocean). Despite a series of storms and mutinies, the expedition reached the Spice Islands in 1521, and returned home via the Indian Ocean to complete the first circuit of the globe.

In 1525, after Magellan’s expedition, Spain, under Charles V, sent an expedition to colonize the Maluku islands. García Jofre de Loaísa reached the islands and the conflict with the Portuguese was inevitable, starting nearly a decade of skirmishes. An agreement was reached only with the Treaty of Zaragoza (1529), attributing the Maluku to Portugal, and the Philippines to Spain.

Portugal established trading ports at far-flung locations like Goa, Ormuz, Malacca, Kochi, the Maluku Islands, Macau, and Nagasaki. Guarding its trade from both European and Asian competitors, it dominated not only the trade between Asia and Europe, but also much of the trade between different regions of Asia, such as India, Indonesia, China, and Japan. Jesuit missionaries followed the Portuguese to spread Roman Catholic Christianity to Asia, with mixed success.

19.2.3: Spanish Exploration

The voyages of Christopher Columbus initiated the European exploration and colonization of the American continents that eventually turned Spain into the most powerful European empire.

Learning Objective

Outline the successes and failures of Christopher Columbus during his four voyages to the Americas

Key Points

Only late in the 15th century
did an emerging modern Spain become fully committed to the search for new trade
routes overseas. In 1492, Christopher Columbus’s expedition was funded in the hope of bypassing
Portugal’s monopoly on west African sea routes, to reach “the Indies.”
On the evening of August 3, 1492, Columbus
departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships. Land was sighted on October 12, 1492 and Columbus called the island (now
The Bahamas) San Salvador, in what he thought to be the “West
Indies.” Following
the first American voyage, Columbus made three more.
A division of
influence became necessary to avoid conflict between the Spanish and
Portuguese. An agreement was reached in 1494, with the Treaty of Tordesillas
dividing the world between the two powers.
After
Columbus, the Spanish colonization of the Americas was led by a series of
soldier-explorers, called conquistadors. The Spanish forces, in addition to
significant armament and equestrian advantages, exploited the rivalries between
competing indigenous peoples, tribes, and nations.
One
of the most accomplished conquistadors was Hernán Cortés, who achieved the Spanish conquest of the
Aztec Empire. Of equal
importance was the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire under
Francisco Pizarro.
In
1565, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Philippines was founded, which added a critical Asian post to the empire. The
Manilla Galleons shipped goods from all over Asia, across the Pacific to
Acapulco on the coast of Mexico.

Key Terms

Christopher Columbus: An Italian explorer, navigator, and colonizer who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean under the monarchy of Spain, which led to general European awareness of the American continents.
Treaty of Tordesillas: A 1494 treaty that divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Portugal and the Crown of Castile, along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa. This line of demarcation was about halfway between the Cape Verde islands (already Portuguese) and the islands entered by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage (claimed for Castile and León).
Treaty of Zaragoza: A 1529 peace treaty between the Spanish Crown and Portugal that defined the areas of Castilian (Spanish) and Portuguese influence in Asia to resolve the “Moluccas issue,” when both kingdoms claimed the Moluccas islands for themselves, considering it within their exploration area established by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. The conflict sprang in 1520, when the expeditions of both kingdoms reached the Pacific Ocean, since there was not a set limit to the east.
reconquista: A period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula, spanning approximately 770 years, between the initial Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 710s, and the fall of the Emirate of Granada, the last Islamic state on the peninsula, to expanding Christian kingdoms in 1492.

Introduction

While Portugal led European explorations of non-European territories, its neighboring fellow Iberian rival, Castile, embarked upon its own mission to create an overseas empire. It began to establish its rule over the Canary Islands, located off the West African coast, in 1402, but then became distracted by internal Iberian politics and the repelling of Islamic invasion attempts and raids through most of the 15th century. Only late in the century, following the unification of the crowns of Castile and Aragon and the completion of the reconquista, did an emerging modern Spain become fully committed to the search for new trade routes overseas. In 1492, the joint rulers conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada, which had been providing Castile with African goods through tribute, and decided to fund Christopher Columbus’s expedition in the hope of bypassing Portugal’s monopoly on west African sea routes, to reach “the Indies” (east and south Asia) by traveling west. Twice before, in 1485 and 1488, Columbus had presented the project to king John II of Portugal, who rejected it.

Columbus’s Voyages

On the evening of August 3, 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships: Santa María, Pinta (the Painted) and Santa Clara. Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands, where he restocked for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean, crossing a section of the Atlantic that became known as the Sargasso Sea. Land was sighted on October 12, 1492, and Columbus called the island (now The Bahamas) San Salvador, in what he thought to be the “West Indies.” He also explored the northeast coast of Cuba and the northern coast of Hispaniola. Columbus left 39 men behind and founded the settlement of La Navidad in what is present-day Haiti.

Following the first American voyage, Columbus made three more. During the second, 1493, voyage, he enslaved 560 native Americans, in spite of the Queen’s explicit opposition to the idea. Their transfer to Spain resulted in the death and disease of hundreds of the captives. The object of the third voyage was to verify the existence of a continent that King John II of Portugal claimed was located to the southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. In 1498, Columbus left port with a fleet of six ships. He explored the Gulf of Paria, which separates Trinidad from mainland Venezuela, and then the mainland of South America. Columbus described these new lands as belonging to a previously unknown new continent, but he pictured them hanging from China. Finally, the fourth voyage, nominally in search of a westward passage to the Indian Ocean, left Spain in 1502. Columbus spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay, Panama. After his ships sustained serious damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba, Columbus and his men remained stranded on Jamaica for a year. Help finally arrived and Columbus and his men arrived in Castile in November 1504.

The Treaty of Tordesillas

Shortly after Columbus’s arrival from the “West Indies,” a division of influence became necessary to avoid conflict between the Spanish and Portuguese. An agreement was reached in 1494 with the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the world between the two powers. In the treaty, the Portuguese received everything outside Europe east of a line that ran 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands (already Portuguese), and the islands reached by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage (claimed for Spain—Cuba, and Hispaniola). This gave them control over Africa, Asia, and eastern South America (Brazil). The Spanish (Castile) received everything west of this line, territory that was still almost completely unknown, and proved to be mostly the western part of the Americas, plus the Pacific Ocean islands.

“The First Voyage”, chromolithograph by L. Prang & Co., published by The Prang Educational Co., Boston, 1893

A scene of Christopher Columbus bidding farewell to the Queen of Spain on his departure for the New World, August 3, 1492.

Further Explorations of the Americas

After Columbus, the Spanish colonization of the Americas was led by a series of soldier-explorers, called conquistadors. The Spanish forces, in addition to significant armament and equestrian advantages, exploited the rivalries between competing indigenous peoples, tribes, and nations, some of which were willing to form alliances with the Spanish in order to defeat their more powerful enemies, such as the Aztecs or Incas—a tactic that would be extensively used by later European colonial powers. The Spanish conquest was also facilitated by the spread of diseases (e.g., smallpox), common in Europe but never present in the New World, which reduced the indigenous populations in the Americas. This caused labor shortages for plantations and public works, and so the colonists initiated the Atlantic slave trade.

One of the most accomplished conquistadors was Hernán Cortés, who led a relatively small Spanish force, but with local translators and the crucial support of thousands of native allies, achieved the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the campaigns of 1519-1521 (present day Mexico). Of equal importance was the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. After years of preliminary exploration and military skirmishes, 168 Spanish soldiers under Francisco Pizarro, and their native allies, captured the Sapa Inca Atahualpa in the 1532 Battle of Cajamarca. It was the first step in a long campaign that took decades of fighting, but ended in Spanish victory in 1572 and colonization of the region as the Viceroyalty of Peru. The conquest of the Inca Empire led to spin-off campaigns into present-day Chile and Colombia, as well as expeditions towards the Amazon Basin.

Further Spanish settlements were progressively established in the New World: New Granada in the 1530s (later in the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1717 and present day Colombia), Lima in 1535 as the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, Buenos Aires in 1536 (later in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776), and Santiago in 1541. Florida was colonized in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.

The Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan died while in the Philippines commanding a Castilian expedition in 1522, which was the first to circumnavigate the globe. The Basque commander, Juan Sebastián Elcano, would lead the expedition to success. Therefore, Spain sought to enforce their rights in the Moluccan islands, which led a conflict with the Portuguese, but the issue was resolved with the Treaty of Zaragoza (1525). In 1565, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Philippines was founded by Miguel López de Legazpi, and the service of Manila Galleons was inaugurated. The Manilla Galleons shipped goods from all over Asia across the Pacific to Acapulco on the coast of Mexico. From there, the goods were transshipped across Mexico to the Spanish treasure fleets, for shipment to Spain. The Spanish trading post of Manila was established to facilitate this trade in 1572.

19.2.4: England and the High Seas

Throughout the 17th century, the British established numerous successful American colonies and dominated the Atlantic slave trade, which eventually led to creating the most powerful European empire.

Learning Objective

Explain why England was interested in establishing a maritime empire

Key Points

In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following
the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, commissioned John
Cabot to lead a voyage to discover a route
to Asia via the North Atlantic. Cabot sailed in 1497 and he successfully made
landfall on the coast of Newfoundland but did not establish a colony.
In 1562, the English Crown encouraged the
privateers John Hawkins and Francis Drake to engage in slave-raiding attacks
against Spanish and Portuguese ships off the coast of West Africa, with the aim
of breaking into the Atlantic trade system. Drake carried out the second
circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580.
In
1578, Elizabeth I granted a patent to Humphrey Gilbert for discovery and
overseas exploration. In 1583, he
claimed the harbor of Newfoundland
for England, but no settlers were left
behind. Gilbert did not survive the return journey to England, and was
succeeded by his half-brother, Walter Raleigh, who founded the colony of Roanoke, the first but failed British settlement.
In the first decade of the 17th century, English attention shifted from preying on other
nations’ colonial infrastructures to the business of establishing its own
overseas colonies. The Caribbean initially provided England’s most important
and lucrative colonies.
The
introduction of the 1951 Navigation Acts led to war with the Dutch Republic, which was the first war
fought largely, on the English side, by purpose-built, state-owned warships.
After the English monarchy was restored in 1660, Charles II re-established the
Navy, but as a national institution known, since then, as “The Royal Navy.”
Throughout the 17th century, the British established numerous successful American colonies, all based largely on slave labor. The colonization of the Americas and the participation in the Atlantic slave trade allowed the British to gradually build the most powerful European empire.

Key Terms

First Anglo-Dutch War: A 1652-1654 conflict fought entirely at sea between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Caused by disputes over trade, the war began with English attacks on Dutch merchant shipping, but expanded to vast fleet actions. Ultimately, it resulted in the English Navy gaining control of the seas around England, and forced the Dutch to accept an English monopoly on trade with England and her colonies.
Navigation Acts: A series of English laws that restricted the use of foreign ships for trade between every country except England. They were first enacted in 1651, and were repealed nearly 200 years later in 1849. They reflected the policy of mercantilism, which sought to keep all the benefits of trade inside the empire, and minimize the loss of gold and silver to foreigners.
Roanoke: Also known as the Lost Colony; a late 16th-century attempt by Queen Elizabeth I to establish a permanent English settlement in the Americas. The colony was founded by Sir Walter Raleigh. The colonists disappeared during the Anglo-Spanish War, three years after the last shipment of supplies from England.
Plymouth: An English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691, first surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and at its height, it occupied most of the southeastern portion of the modern state of Massachusetts.
Jamestown: The first permanent English settlement in the Americas, established by the Virginia Company of London as “James Fort” on May 4, 1607, and considered permanent after brief abandonment in 1610. It followed several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

Introduction

The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, commissioned John Cabot (Venetian born as
Giovanni Caboto) to lead a voyage to discover a route to Asia via the North Atlantic.
Spain put limited efforts into exploring the northern part of the Americas, as its resources were concentrated in Central and South America where more wealth had been found.
Cabot sailed in 1497, five years after Europeans reached America, and although he successfully made landfall on the coast of Newfoundland (mistakenly believing, like Christopher Columbus, that he had reached Asia), there was no attempt to found a colony. Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year, but nothing was heard of his ships again.

The Early Empire

No further attempts to establish English colonies in the Americas were made until well into the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, during the last decades of the 16th century. In the meantime, the Protestant Reformation had turned England and Catholic Spain into implacable enemies. In 1562, the English Crown encouraged the privateers John Hawkins and Francis Drake to engage in slave-raiding attacks against Spanish and Portuguese ships off the coast of West Africa, with the aim of breaking into the Atlantic trade system. Drake carried out the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, and was the first to complete the voyage as captain while leading the expedition throughout the entire circumnavigation. With his incursion into the Pacific, he inaugurated an era of privateering and piracy in the western coast of the Americas—an area that had previously been free of piracy.

In 1578, Elizabeth I granted a patent to Humphrey Gilbert for discovery and overseas exploration. That year, Gilbert sailed for the West Indies with the intention of engaging in piracy and establishing a colony in North America, but the expedition was aborted before it had crossed the Atlantic. In 1583, he embarked on a second attempt, on this occasion to the island of Newfoundland whose harbor he formally claimed for England, although no settlers were left behind. Gilbert did not survive the return journey to England, and was succeeded by his half-brother, Walter Raleigh, who was granted his own patent by Elizabeth in 1584. Later that year, Raleigh founded the colony of Roanoke on the coast of present-day North Carolina, but lack of supplies caused the colony to fail.

Empire in the Americas

In 1603, James VI, King of Scots, ascended (as James I) to the English throne, and in 1604 negotiated the Treaty of London, ending hostilities with Spain. Now at peace with its main rival, English attention shifted from preying on other nations’ colonial infrastructures, to the business of establishing its own overseas colonies. The Caribbean initially provided England’s most important and lucrative colonies. Colonies in Guiana, St Lucia, and Grenada failed but settlements were successfully established in St. Kitts (1624), Barbados (1627), and Nevis (1628). The colonies soon adopted the system of sugar plantations, successfully used by the Portuguese in Brazil, which depended on slave labor, and—at first—Dutch ships, to sell the slaves and buy the sugar. To ensure that the increasingly healthy profits of this trade remained in English hands, Parliament decreed in the 1651 Navigation Acts that only English ships would be able to ply their trade in English colonies.
In 1655, England annexed the island of Jamaica from the Spanish, and in 1666 succeeded in colonizing the Bahamas.

African slaves working in 17th-century Virginia (tobacco cultivation), by an unknown artist, 1670

In 1672, the Royal African Company was inaugurated, receiving from King Charles a monopoly of the trade to supply slaves to the British colonies of the Caribbean. From the outset, slavery was the basis of the British Empire in the West Indies and later in North America. Until the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, Britain was responsible for the transportation of 3.5 million African slaves to the Americas, a third of all slaves transported across the Atlantic.

The introduction of the Navigation Acts led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-1654), the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organization. English tactical improvements resulted in a series of crushing victories in 1653, bringing peace on favorable terms. This was the first war fought largely, on the English side, by purpose-built, state-owned warships. After the English monarchy was restored in 1660, Charles II re-established the navy, but from this point on, it ceased to be the personal possession of the reigning monarch, and instead became a national institution, with the title of “The Royal Navy.”

England’s first permanent settlement in the Americas was founded in 1607 in Jamestown, led by Captain John Smith and managed by the Virginia Company. Bermuda was settled and claimed by England as a result of the 1609 shipwreck there of the Virginia Company’s flagship. The Virginia Company’s charter was revoked in 1624 and direct control of Virginia was assumed by the crown, thereby founding the Colony of Virginia. In 1620, Plymouth was founded as a haven for puritan religious separatists, later known as the Pilgrims. Fleeing from religious persecution would become the motive of many English would-be colonists to risk the arduous trans-Atlantic voyage; Maryland was founded as a haven for Roman Catholics (1634), Rhode Island (1636) as a colony tolerant of all religions, and Connecticut (1639) for Congregationalists. The Province of Carolina was founded in 1663. With the surrender of Fort Amsterdam in 1664, England gained control of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, renaming it New York. In 1681, the colony of Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn. The American colonies were less financially successful than those of the Caribbean, but had large areas of good agricultural land and attracted far larger numbers of English emigrants who preferred their temperate climates.

From the outset, slavery was the basis of the British Empire in the West Indies. Until the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, Britain was responsible for the transportation of 3.5 million African slaves to the Americas, a third of all slaves transported across the Atlantic. In the British Caribbean, the percentage of the population of African descent rose from 25% in 1650 to around 80% in 1780, and in the 13 Colonies from 10% to 40% over the same period (the majority in the southern colonies). For the slave traders, the trade was extremely profitable, and became a major economic mainstay.

Map of the British colonies in North America, 1763 to 1775. First published in: Shepherd, William Robert (1911) “The British Colonies in North America, 1763–1765” in Historical Atlas, New York, United States: Henry Holt and Company, p. 194.

Although Britain was relatively late in its efforts to explore and colonize the New World, lagging behind Spain and Portugal, it eventually gained significant territories in North America and the Caribbean.

The map shows British holdings in North America, including the thirteen original colonies of the United States and a portion of present-day Canada controlled by the Hudson Bay Company.

19.2.5: French Explorers

France established colonies in North America, the Caribbean, and India in the 17th century, and while it lost most of its American holdings to Spain and Great Britain before the end of the 18th century, it eventually expanded its Asian and African territories in the 19th century.

Learning Objective

Describe some of the discoveries made by French explorers

Key Points

Competing with Spain, Portugal, the Dutch Republic, and later Britain, France began to establish
colonies in North America, the Caribbean, and India in the 17th century.
Major French exploration of North America began under
the rule of Francis I of France. In 1524, he sent Italian-born Giovanni da
Verrazzano to explore the region between Florida and
Newfoundland for a route to the Pacific Ocean.
In 1534, Francis sent Jacques Cartier on
the first of three voyages to explore the coast of Newfoundland and the St.
Lawrence River. Cartier founded New France and was the first European to travel inland in North America.
Cartier attempted to create the first permanent
European settlement in North America at Cap-Rouge (Quebec City) in 1541, but the settlement was abandoned the next year. A number of
other failed attempts to establish French settlements in North America followed
throughout the rest of the 16th century.
Prior to the establishment of the 1663 Sovereign
Council, the territories of New France were developed as mercantile colonies.
It was only after 1665 that France gave its American colonies the proper means
to develop population colonies comparable to that of the British. By the first
decades of the 18th century, the French created and controlled a number of settlement colonies in North America.
As the French empire in North America grew, the
French also began to build a smaller but more profitable empire in the West
Indies.
While the French quite rapidly lost nearly all of its colonial gains in the Americas, their colonial expansion also covered territories in Africa and Asia where France grew to be a major colonial power in the 19th century.

Key Terms

New France: The area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534, and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763. At its peak in 1712, the territory extended from Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains, and from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, including all the Great Lakes of North America.
Sovereign Council: A governing body in New France. It acted as both Supreme Court for the colony of New France and as a policy making body, although, its policy role diminished over time. Though officially established in 1663 by King Louis XIV, it was not created whole cloth, but rather evolved from earlier governing bodies.
mercantile colonies: Colonies that sought to derive the maximum material benefit from the colony, for the homeland, with a minimum of imperial investment in the colony itself. The mercantilist ideology at its foundations was embodied in New France through the establishment under Royal Charter of a number of corporate trading monopolies.
Carib Expulsion: The French-led ethnic cleansing that terminated most of the Carib population in 1660 from present-day Martinique. This followed the French invasion in 1635 and its conquest of the people on the Caribbean island, which made it part of the French colonial empire.

The French in the New World: New France

Competing with Spain, Portugal, the United Provinces (the Dutch Republic), and later Britain, France began to establish colonies in North America, the Caribbean, and India in the 17th century.
The French first came to the New World as explorers, seeking a route to the Pacific Ocean and wealth. Major French exploration of North America began under the rule of Francis I of France. In 1524, Francis sent Italian-born Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the region between Florida and Newfoundland for a route to the Pacific Ocean. Verrazzano gave the names Francesca and Nova Gallia to the land between New Spain and English Newfoundland, thus promoting French interests.

In 1534, Francis sent Jacques Cartier on the first of three voyages to explore the coast of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence River. Cartier founded New France by planting a cross on the shore of the Gaspé Peninsula. He is believed to have accompanied Verrazzano to Nova Scotia and Brazil, and was the first European to travel inland in North America, describing the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, which he named “The Country of Canadas” after Iroquois names, and claiming what is now Canada for France.

He attempted to create the first permanent European settlement in North America at Cap-Rouge (Quebec City) in 1541 with 400 settlers, but the settlement was abandoned the next year. A number of other failed attempts to establish French settlement in North America followed throughout the rest of the 16th century.

Portrait of Jacques Cartier by Théophile Hamel (1844), Library and Archives Canada (there are no known paintings of Cartier that were created during his lifetime)

In 1534, Jacques Cartier planted a cross in the Gaspé Peninsula and claimed the land in the name of King Francis I. It was the first province of New France. However, initial French attempts at settling the region met with failure.

Although, through alliances with various Native American tribes, the French were able to exert a loose control over much of the North American continent, areas of French settlement were generally limited to the St. Lawrence River Valley. Prior to the establishment of the 1663 Sovereign Council, the territories of New France were developed as mercantile colonies. It was only after 1665 that France gave its American colonies the proper means to develop population colonies comparable to that of the British.
By the first decades of the 18th century, the French created and controlled such colonies as Quebec, La Baye des Puants (present-day Green Bay), Ville-Marie (Montreal), Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit (modern-day Detroit), or La Nouvelle Orléans (New Orleans) and Baton Rouge. However, there was relatively little interest in colonialism in France, which concentrated on dominance within Europe, and for most of its history, New France was far behind the British North American colonies in both population and economic development. Acadia itself was lost to the British in 1713.

In 1699, French territorial claims in North America expanded still further, with the foundation of Louisiana in the basin of the Mississippi River. The extensive trading network throughout the region connected to Canada through the Great Lakes, was maintained through a vast system of fortifications, many of them centered in the Illinois Country and in present-day Arkansas.

Map of North America (1750): France (blue), Britain (pink), and Spain (orange)

New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534, and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763. At its peak in 1712, the territory of New France extended from Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains, and from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, including all the Great Lakes of North America.

The map shows that the entirety of present-day New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana were controlled by France. It also shows that portions of present-day Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Maine, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota were controlled by France. It shows that the entirety of present-day New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware were controlled by the British. It also shows that portions of present-day Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia were controlled by the British. It shows that present-day Nova Scotia and portions of Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba were ceded by France to Great Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Finally, it shows that portions of present-day Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Mexico were controlled by Spain.

The West Indies

As the French empire in North America grew, the French also began to build a smaller but more profitable empire in the West Indies. Settlement along the South American coast in what is today French Guiana began in 1624, and a colony was founded on Saint Kitts in 1625. Colonies in Guadeloupe and Martinique were founded in 1635 and on Saint Lucia in 1650. The food-producing plantations of these colonies were built and sustained through slavery, with the supply of slaves dependent on the African slave trade. Local resistance by the indigenous peoples resulted in the Carib Expulsion of 1660.

France’s most important Caribbean colonial possession was established in 1664, when the colony of Saint-Domingue (today’s Haiti) was founded on the western half of the Spanish island of Hispaniola. In the 18th century, Saint-Domingue grew to be the richest sugar colony in the Caribbean. The eastern half of Hispaniola (today’s Dominican Republic) also came under French rule for a short period, after being given to France by Spain in 1795.

In the middle of the 18th century, a series of colonial conflicts began between France and Britain, which ultimately resulted in the destruction of most of the first French colonial empire and the near complete expulsion of France from the Americas.

Africa and Asia

French colonial expansion wasn’t limited to the New World. In Senegal in West Africa, the French began to establish trading posts along the coast in 1624. In 1664, the French East India Company was established to compete for trade in the east. With the decay of the Ottoman Empire, in 1830 the French seized Algiers, thus beginning the colonization of French North Africa. Colonies were also established in India in Chandernagore (1673) and Pondichéry in the south east (1674), and later at Yanam (1723), Mahe (1725), and Karikal (1739). Finally, colonies were founded in the Indian Ocean, on the Île de Bourbon (Réunion, 1664), Isle de France (Mauritius, 1718), and the Seychelles (1756).

While the French never rebuilt its American gains, their influence in Africa and Asia expanded significantly over the course of the 19th century.

19.3: The Scientific Revolution

19.3.1: Roots of the Scientific Revolution

The scientific revolution, which emphasized systematic experimentation as the most valid research method,
resulted in developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, and chemistry. These developments transformed the views of society about nature.

Learning Objective

Outline the changes that occurred during the Scientific Revolution that resulted in developments towards a new means for experimentation

Key Points

The scientific revolution was the emergence
of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in
mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy), and
chemistry transformed societal views about nature.
The change to the medieval idea of science occurred for four reasons: collaboration, the derivation of new experimental methods, the ability to build on the legacy of existing scientific philosophy, and institutions that enabled academic publishing.
Under the scientific method, which was defined and
applied in the 17th century, natural and artificial circumstances were
abandoned and a research tradition of systematic experimentation was slowly
accepted throughout the scientific community.
During the scientific revolution, changing
perceptions about the role of the scientist in respect to nature, and the value of
experimental or observed evidence, led to a scientific methodology in
which empiricism played a large, but not absolute, role.
As the scientific revolution was not marked by
any single change, many new ideas contributed. Some of them were revolutions in their own fields.
Science
came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many
Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences, and
associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and
traditional authority in favor of the development of free speech and thought.

Key Terms

scientific method: A body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge, through the application of empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. It has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.
Baconian method: The investigative method developed by Sir Francis Bacon. It was put forward in Bacon’s book Novum Organum (1620), (or New Method), and was supposed to replace the methods put forward in Aristotle’s Organon. This method was influential upon the development of the scientific method in modern science, but also more generally in the early modern rejection of medieval Aristotelianism.
Galileo: An Italian thinker (1564-1642) and key figure in the scientific revolution who improved the telescope, made astronomical observations, and put forward the basic principle of relativity in physics.
empiricism: A theory stating that knowledge comes only, or primarily, from sensory experience. It emphasizes evidence, especially the kind of evidence gathered through experimentation and by use of the scientific method.
British Royal Society: A British learned society for science; possibly the oldest such society still in existence, having been founded in November 1660.

The Scientific Revolution

The scientific revolution was the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy), and chemistry transformed societal views about nature. The scientific revolution began in Europe toward the end of the Renaissance period, and continued through the late 18th century, influencing the intellectual social movement known as the Enlightenment. While its dates are disputed, the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) is often cited as marking the beginning of the scientific revolution.

The scientific revolution was built upon the foundation of ancient Greek learning and science in the Middle Ages, as it had been elaborated and further developed by Roman/Byzantine science and medieval Islamic science. The Aristotelian tradition was still an important intellectual framework in the 17th century, although by that time natural philosophers had moved away from much of it. Key scientific ideas dating back to classical antiquity had changed drastically over the years, and in many cases been discredited. The ideas that remained (for example, Aristotle’s cosmology, which placed the Earth at the center of a spherical hierarchic cosmos, or the Ptolemaic model of planetary motion) were transformed fundamentally during the scientific revolution.

The change to the medieval idea of science occurred for four reasons:

Seventeenth century scientists and philosophers were able to collaborate with members of the mathematical and astronomical communities to effect advances in all fields.
Scientists realized the inadequacy of medieval experimental methods for their work and so felt the need to devise new methods (some of which we use today).
Academics had access to a legacy of European, Greek, and Middle Eastern scientific philosophy that they could use as a starting point (either by disproving or building on the theorems).
Institutions (for example, the British Royal Society) helped validate science as a field by providing an outlet for the publication of scientists’ work.

New Methods

Under the scientific method that was defined and applied in the 17th century, natural and artificial circumstances were abandoned, and a research tradition of systematic experimentation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community. The philosophy of using an inductive approach to nature (to abandon assumption and to attempt to simply observe with an open mind) was in strict contrast with the earlier, Aristotelian approach of deduction, by which analysis of known facts produced further understanding. In practice, many scientists and philosophers believed that a healthy mix of both was needed—the willingness to both question assumptions, and to interpret observations assumed to have some degree of validity.

During the scientific revolution, changing perceptions about the role of the scientist in respect to nature, the value of evidence, experimental or observed, led towards a scientific methodology in which empiricism played a large, but not absolute, role. The term British empiricism came into use to describe philosophical differences perceived between two of its founders—Francis Bacon, described as empiricist, and René Descartes, who was described as a rationalist.
Bacon’s works established and popularized inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or sometimes simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today. Correspondingly,
Descartes distinguished between the knowledge that
could be attained by reason alone (rationalist approach), as, for example, in mathematics, and the knowledge that required experience of the world, as in physics.

Thomas Hobbes, George Berkeley, and David Hume were the primary exponents of empiricism, and developed a sophisticated empirical tradition as the basis of human knowledge. The recognized founder of the approach was John Locke, who proposed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) that the only true knowledge that could be accessible to the human mind was that which was based on experience.

New Ideas

Many new ideas contributed to what is called the scientific revolution. Some of them were revolutions in their own fields. These include:

The heliocentric model that involved the radical displacement of the earth to an orbit around the sun (as opposed to being seen as the center of the universe). Copernicus’ 1543 work on the heliocentric model of the solar system tried to demonstrate that the sun was the center of the universe.
The discoveries of Johannes Kepler and Galileo gave the theory credibility and the work culminated in Isaac Newton’s Principia, which formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries.
Studying human anatomy based upon the dissection of human corpses, rather than the animal dissections, as practiced for centuries.
Discovering and studying magnetism and electricity, and thus, electric properties of various materials.
Modernization of disciplines (making them more as what they are today), including dentistry, physiology, chemistry, or optics.
Invention of tools that deepened the understating of sciences, including mechanical calculator,
steam digester (the forerunner of the steam engine), refracting and reflecting telescopes, vacuum pump, or mercury barometer.

The Shannon Portrait of the Hon. Robert Boyle F. R. S. (1627-1691)

Robert Boyle (1627-1691), an Irish-born English scientist, was an early supporter of the scientific method and founder of modern chemistry. Boyle is known for his pioneering experiments on the physical properties of gases, his authorship of the Sceptical Chymist, his role in creating the Royal Society of London, and his philanthropy in the American colonies.

The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment

The scientific revolution laid the foundations for the Age of Enlightenment, which centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and emphasized the importance of the scientific method. By the 18th century, when the Enlightenment flourished, scientific authority began to displace religious authority, and disciplines until then seen as legitimately scientific (e.g., alchemy and astrology) lost scientific credibility.

Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences, and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favor of the development of free speech and thought. Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought, and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. At the time, science was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centers of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. The century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics, and physics; the development of biological taxonomy; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry.

Isaac Newton’s Principia, developed the first set of unified scientific laws

19.3.2: Physics and Mathematics

In the 16th and 17th centuries, European scientists began increasingly applying quantitative measurements to the measurement of physical phenomena on the earth, which translated into the rapid development of mathematics and physics.

Learning Objective

Distinguish between the different key figures of the scientific revolution and their achievements in mathematics and physics

Key Points

The philosophy of using an
inductive approach to nature was in strict contrast with the earlier,
Aristotelian approach of deduction, by which analysis of known facts produced
further understanding. In practice, scientists believed
that a healthy mix of both was needed—the willingness to question
assumptions, yet also to interpret observations assumed to have some degree of
validity. That principle was particularly true for mathematics and physics.
In
the 16th and 17th centuries, European scientists began increasingly applying
quantitative measurements to the measurement of physical phenomena on the earth.
The Copernican Revolution, or the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic model of the heavens to the heliocentric model with the sun at the center of the solar system, began with the publication of Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, and ended with Newton’s work over a century later.
Galileo showed a remarkably modern appreciation
for the proper relationship between mathematics, theoretical physics, and
experimental physics.
His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter, and the observation and analysis of sunspots.
Newton’s Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. He removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the solar system.
The electrical science
developed rapidly following the first discoveries of William Gilbert.

Key Terms

scientific revolution

The emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy), and chemistry transformed societal views about nature. It began in Europe towards the end of the Renaissance period, and continued through the late 18th century, influencing the intellectual social movement known as the Enlightenment.

scientific method

A body of techniques for investigating phenomena,
acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge that
apply empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles
of reasoning. It has characterized natural science since the 17th
century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and
the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.

Copernican Revolution

The paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic model of the heavens, which described the cosmos as having Earth stationary at the center of the universe, to the heliocentric model with the sun at the center of the solar system. Beginning with the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, contributions to the “revolution” continued, until finally ending with Isaac Newton’s work over a century later.

Introduction

Under the scientific method that was defined and applied in the 17th century, natural and artificial circumstances were abandoned, and a research tradition of systematic experimentation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community. The philosophy of using an inductive approach to nature—to abandon assumption and to attempt to simply observe with an open mind—was in strict contrast with the earlier, Aristotelian approach of deduction, by which analysis of known facts produced further understanding. In practice, many scientists (and philosophers) believed that a healthy mix of both was needed—the willingness to question assumptions, yet also to interpret observations assumed to have some degree of validity. That principle was particularly true for mathematics and physics.
René

Descartes, whose thought emphasized the power of reasoning but also helped establish the scientific method, distinguished
between the knowledge that could be attained by reason alone (rationalist
approach), which he thought was mathematics, and the knowledge that required
experience of the world, which he thought was physics.

Mathematization

To the extent that medieval natural philosophers used mathematical problems, they limited social studies to theoretical analyses of local speed and other aspects of life. The actual measurement of a physical quantity, and the comparison of that measurement to a value computed on the basis of theory, was largely limited to the mathematical disciplines of astronomy and optics in Europe. In the 16th and 17th centuries, European scientists began increasingly applying quantitative measurements to the measurement of physical phenomena on Earth.

The Copernican Revolution

While the dates of the scientific revolution are disputed, the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) is often cited as marking the beginning of the scientific revolution.
The book proposed a heliocentric system contrary to the widely accepted geocentric system of that time. Tycho Brahe accepted Copernicus’s model but reasserted geocentricity. However, Tycho challenged the Aristotelian model when he observed a comet that went through the region of the planets. This region was said to only have uniform circular motion on solid spheres, which meant that it would be impossible for a comet to enter into the area. Johannes Kepler followed Tycho and developed the three laws of planetary motion. Kepler would not have been able to produce his laws without the observations of Tycho, because they allowed Kepler to prove that planets traveled in ellipses, and that the sun does not sit directly in the center of an orbit, but at a focus. Galileo Galilei came after Kepler and developed his own telescope with enough magnification to allow him to study Venus and discover that it has phases like a moon. The discovery of the phases of Venus was one of the more influential reasons for the transition from geocentrism to heliocentrism. Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica concluded the Copernican Revolution. The development of his laws of planetary motion and universal gravitation explained the presumed motion related to the heavens by asserting a gravitational force of attraction between two objects.

Other Advancements in Physics and Mathematics

Galileo was one of the first modern thinkers to clearly state that the laws of nature are mathematical. In broader terms, his work marked another step towards the eventual separation of science from both philosophy and religion, a major development in human thought. Galileo showed a remarkably modern appreciation for the proper relationship between mathematics, theoretical physics, and experimental physics. He understood the parabola, both in terms of conic sections and in terms of the ordinate (y) varying as the square of the abscissa (x). He further asserted that the parabola was the theoretically ideal trajectory of a uniformly accelerated projectile in the absence of friction and other disturbances.

Newton’s Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. By deriving Kepler’s laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos. This work also demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth, and of celestial bodies, could be described by the same principles. His prediction that Earth should be shaped as an oblate spheroid was later vindicated by other scientists. His laws of motion were to be the solid foundation of mechanics; his law of universal gravitation combined terrestrial and celestial mechanics into one great system that seemed to be able to describe the whole world in mathematical formulae. Newton also developed the theory of gravitation. After the exchanges with Robert Hooke,
English natural philosopher, architect and polymath, he worked out proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector.

The scientific revolution also witnessed the development of modern optics. Kepler published Astronomiae Pars Optica (The Optical Part of Astronomy) in 1604. In it, he described the inverse-square law governing the intensity of light, reflection by flat and curved mirrors, and principles of pinhole cameras, as well as the astronomical implications of optics, such asparallax and the apparent sizes of heavenly bodies. Willebrord Snellius found the mathematical law of refraction, now known as Snell’s law, in 1621. Subsequently, Descartes showed, by using geometric construction and the law of refraction (also known as Descartes’ law), that the angular radius of a rainbow is 42°. He also independently discovered the law of reflection. Finally, Newton investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colors, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicolored spectrum into white light. He also showed that the colored light does not change its properties by separating out a colored beam and shining it on various objects.

Portrait of Galileo Galilei
by Giusto Sustermans, 1636

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) improved the telescope, with which he made several important astronomical discoveries, including the four largest moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and the rings of Saturn, and made detailed observations of sunspots. He developed the laws for falling bodies based on pioneering quantitative experiments, which he analyzed mathematically.

Dr. William Gilbert, in De Magnete, invented the New Latin word electricus from ἤλεκτρον (elektron), the Greek word for “amber.” Gilbert undertook a number of careful electrical experiments, in the course of which he discovered that many substances were capable of manifesting electrical properties. He also discovered that a heated body lost its electricity, and that moisture prevented the electrification of all bodies, due to the now well-known fact that moisture impaired the insulation of such bodies. He also noticed that electrified substances attracted all other substances indiscriminately, whereas a magnet only attracted iron. The many discoveries of this nature earned for Gilbert the title of “founder of the electrical science.”

Robert Boyle also worked frequently at the new science of electricity, and added several substances to Gilbert’s list of electrics. In 1675, he stated that electric attraction and repulsion can act across a vacuum. One of his important discoveries was that electrified bodies in a vacuum would attract light substances, this indicating that the electrical effect did not depend upon the air as a medium. He also added resin to the then known list of electrics. By the end of the 17th Century, researchers had developed practical means of generating electricity by friction with an anelectrostatic generator, but the development of electrostatic machines did not begin in earnest until the 18th century, when they became fundamental instruments in the studies about the new science of electricity. The first usage of the word electricity is ascribed to Thomas Browne in 1646 work. In 1729, Stephen Gray demonstrated that electricity could be “transmitted” through metal filaments.

19.3.3: Astronomy

Though astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, its development during the scientific revolution entirely transformed societal views about nature by moving from geocentrism to heliocentrism.

Learning Objective

Assess the work of both Copernicus and Kepler and their revolutionary ideas

Key Points

The development of astronomy during the period
of the scientific revolution entirely transformed societal views about
nature. The publication of Nicolaus
Copernicus’ De revolutionibus in 1543 is often
seen as marking the beginning of the time when scientific disciplines gradually transformed into the modern sciences as we know them today.
Copernican heliocentrism is the name given
to the astronomical model developed by Copernicus that positioned the sun near the center of the universe,
motionless, with Earth and the other planets rotating around it in circular
paths, modified by epicycles and at uniform speeds.
For over a century, few astronomers were
convinced by the Copernican system. Tycho Brahe went so far as to construct
a cosmology precisely equivalent to that of Copernicus, but with the earth held
fixed in the center of the celestial sphere, instead of the sun. However, Tycho’s idea also contributed to the defense of the heliocentric model.
In 1596, Johannes Kepler published his first book,
which was the first to openly endorse
Copernican cosmology by an astronomer since the 1540s. Kepler’s work on Mars and planetary motion further confirmed the heliocentric theory.
Galileo Galilei designed his own telescope, with which he made a number
of critical astronomical observations. His observations and discoveries were among the most influential in the transition from geocentrism to heliocentrism.
Isaac
Newton developed further ties between physics and astronomy through his law of
universal gravitation, and irreversibly confirmed and further developed heliocentrism.

Key Terms

Copernican heliocentrism: The name given to the astronomical model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus and published in 1543. It positioned the sun near the center of the universe, motionless, with Earth and the other planets rotating around it in circular paths, modified by epicycles and at uniform speeds. It departed from the Ptolemaic system that prevailed in western culture for centuries, placing Earth at the center of the universe.
Copernicus: A Renaissance mathematician and astronomer (1473-1543), who formulated a heliocentric model of the universe which placed the sun, rather than the earth, at the center.
epicycles: The geometric model used to explain the variations in speed and direction of the apparent motion of the moon, sun, and planets in the Ptolemaic system of astronomy.

The Emergence of Modern Astronomy

While astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, dating back to antiquity, its development during the period of the scientific revolution entirely
transformed the views of society about nature. The publication of the seminal work in the field of astronomy, Nicolaus Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) published in 1543, is, in fact, often seen as marking the beginning of the time when scientific disciplines, including astronomy, began to apply modern empirical research methods, and gradually transformed into the modern sciences as we know them today.

The Copernican Heliocentrism

Copernican heliocentrism is the name given to the astronomical model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus and published in 1543. It positioned the sun near the center of the universe, motionless, with Earth and the other planets rotating around it in circular paths, modified by epicycles and at uniform speeds. The Copernican model departed from the Ptolemaic system that prevailed in western culture for centuries, placing Earth at the center of the universe. Copernicus’ De revolutionibus marks the beginning of the shift away from a geocentric (and anthropocentric) universe with Earth at its center. Copernicus held that Earth is another planet revolving around the fixed sun once a year, and turning on its axis once a day. But while he put the sun at the center of the celestial spheres, he did not put it at the exact center of the universe, but near it. His system used only uniform circular motions, correcting what was seen by many as the chief inelegance in Ptolemy’s system.

The Copernican Revolution

From 1543 until about 1700, few astronomers were convinced by the Copernican system. Forty-five years after the publication of De Revolutionibus, the astronomer Tycho Brahe went so far as to construct a cosmology precisely equivalent to that of Copernicus, but with Earth held fixed in the center of the celestial sphere instead of the sun. However, Tycho challenged the Aristotelian model when he observed a comet that went through the region of the planets. This region was said to only have uniform circular motion on solid spheres, which meant that it would be impossible for a comet to enter into the area. Following Copernicus and Tycho, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, both working in the first decades of the 17th century, influentially defended, expanded and modified the heliocentric theory.

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler was a German scientist who initially worked as Tycho’s assistant. In 1596, he published his first book, the Mysterium cosmographicum, which was the first to openly endorse Copernican cosmology by an astronomer since the 1540s. The book described his model that used Pythagorean mathematics and the five Platonic solids to explain the number of planets, their proportions, and their order. In 1600, Kepler set to work on the orbit of Mars, the second most eccentric of the six planets known at that time. This work was the basis of his next book, the Astronomia nova (1609). The book argued heliocentrism and ellipses for planetary orbits, instead of circles modified by epicycles. It contains the first two of his eponymous three laws of planetary motion (in 1619, the third law was published). The laws state the following:

All planets move in elliptical orbits, with the sun at one focus.
A line that connects a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times.
The time required for a planet to orbit the sun, called its period, is proportional to long axis of the ellipse raised to the 3/2 power. The constant of proportionality is the same for all the planets.

Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei was an Italian scientist who is sometimes referred to as the “father of modern observational astronomy.” Based on the designs of Hans Lippershey, he designed his own telescope, which he had improved to 30x magnification. Using this new instrument, Galileo made a number of astronomical observations, which he published in the Sidereus Nuncius in 1610.
In this book, he described the surface of the moon as rough, uneven, and imperfect. His observations challenged Aristotle’s claim that the moon was a perfect sphere, and the larger idea that the heavens were perfect and unchanging. While observing Jupiter over the course of several days, Galileo noticed four stars close to Jupiter whose positions were changing in a way that would be impossible if they were fixed stars. After much observation, he concluded these four stars were orbiting the planet Jupiter and were in fact moons, not stars. This was a radical discovery because, according to Aristotelian cosmology, all heavenly bodies revolve around Earth, and a planet with moons obviously contradicted that popular belief. While contradicting Aristotelian belief, it supported Copernican cosmology, which stated that Earth is a planet like all others.

In 1610, Galileo also observed that Venus had a full set of phases, similar to the phases of the moon, that we can observe from Earth. This was explainable by the Copernican system, which said that all phases of Venus would be visible due to the nature of its orbit around the sun, unlike the Ptolemaic system, which stated only some of Venus’s phases would be visible. Due to Galileo’s observations of Venus, Ptolemy’s system became highly suspect and the majority of leading astronomers subsequently converted to various heliocentric models, making his discovery one of the most influential in the transition from geocentrism to heliocentrism.

Heliocentric model of the solar system,

Nicolas Copernicus,
De revolutionibus, p. 9, from an original edition, currently at
the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland

Copernicus was a polyglot and polymath who obtained a doctorate in canon law and also practiced as a physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist. In 1517 he derived a quantity theory of money–a key concept in economics–and in 1519, he formulated a version of what later became known as Gresham’s law (also in economics).

Uniting Astronomy and Physics: Isaac Newton

Although the motions of celestial bodies had been qualitatively explained in physical terms since Aristotle introduced celestial movers in his Metaphysics and a fifth element in his On the Heavens, Johannes Kepler was the first to attempt to derive mathematical predictions of celestial motions from assumed physical causes. This led to the discovery of the three laws of planetary motion that carry his name.

Isaac Newton developed further ties between physics and astronomy through his law of universal gravitation. Realizing that the same force that attracted objects to the surface of Earth held the moon in orbit around the Earth, Newton was able to explain, in one theoretical framework, all known gravitational phenomena.
Newton’s Principia (1687) formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. By deriving Kepler’s laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos. This work also demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. His laws of motion were to be the solid foundation of mechanics; his law of universal gravitation combined terrestrial and celestial mechanics into one great system that seemed to be able to describe the whole world in mathematical formulae.

Jan Matejko, Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God, 1873

Oil painting by the Polish artist Jan Matejko depicting Nicolaus Copernicus observing the heavens from a balcony by a tower near the cathedral in Frombork.
Currently, the painting is in the collection of the Jagiellonian University of Cracow, which purchased it from a private owner with money donated by the Polish public.

19.3.4: The Medical Renaissance

The Renaissance period witnessed groundbreaking developments in medical sciences, including advancements in human anatomy, physiology, surgery, dentistry, and microbiology.

Learning Objective

List the discoveries and progress made by leading medical professionals during the Early Modern era

Key Points

During
the Renaissance, experimental investigation, particularly in the field of dissection
and body examination, advanced the knowledge of human anatomy and modernized medical
research.
De humani corporis
fabrica by Andreas Vesalius emphasized the priority of dissection and what has
come to be called the “anatomical” view of the body. It laid the foundations for the modern study of human anatomy.
Further groundbreaking work was carried out by
William Harvey, who published De Motu Cordis in 1628. Harvey
made a detailed analysis of the overall structure of the heart and blood circulation.
French
surgeon Ambroise Paré (c. 1510-1590) is considered one of the fathers of
surgery and modern forensic pathology, and a pioneer in surgical techniques and
battlefield medicine, especially in the treatment of wounds.
Herman
Boerhaave (1668-1738) is regarded as the founder
of clinical teaching, and of the modern academic hospital. He is sometimes
referred to as “the father of physiology.”
French
physician Pierre Fauchard started dentistry science as we know it today,
and he has been named “the father of modern dentistry.”

Key Terms

William Harvey: An English physician (1578-1657), and the first to describe completely and in detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the brain and body by the heart.
Ambroise Paré: A French surgeon (1510-1590) who is considered one of the fathers of surgery and modern forensic pathology, and a pioneer in surgical techniques and battlefield medicine, especially in the treatment of wounds.
Galen: A prominent Greek physician (129 CE-c. 216 CE), surgeon, and philosopher in the Roman Empire.
Arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, he influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic.
Andreas Vesalius: A Belgian anatomist (1514-1564), physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body).
humorism: A system of medicine detailing the makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by the Indian Ayurveda system of medicine, and Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers. It posits that an excess or deficiency of any of four distinct bodily fluids in a person—known as humors or humours—directly influences their temperament and health.

The Renaissance and Medical Sciences

The Renaissance brought an intense focus on varied scholarship to Christian Europe. A major effort to translate the Arabic and Greek scientific works into Latin emerged, and Europeans gradually became experts not only in the ancient writings of the Romans and Greeks, but also in the contemporary writings of Islamic scientists. During the later centuries of the Renaissance, which overlapped with the scientific revolution, experimental investigation, particularly in the field of dissection and body examination, advanced the knowledge of human anatomy. Other developments of the period also contributed to the modernization of medical research, including printed books that allowed for a wider distribution of medical ideas and anatomical diagrams, more open attitudes of Renaissance humanism, and the Church’s diminishing impact on the teachings of the medical profession and universities. In addition, the invention and popularization of microscope in the 17th century greatly advanced medical research.

Human Anatomy

The writings of ancient Greek physician Galen had dominated European thinking in medicine.
Galen’s understanding of anatomy and medicine was principally influenced by the then-current theory of humorism (also known as the four humors: black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm), as advanced by ancient Greek physicians, such as Hippocrates. His theories dominated and influenced western medical science for more than 1,300 years. His anatomical reports, based mainly on dissection of monkeys and pigs, remained uncontested until 1543, when printed descriptions and illustrations of human dissections were published in the seminal work De humani corporis fabrica by Andreas Vesalius, who first demonstrated the mistakes in the Galenic model. His anatomical teachings were based upon the dissection of human corpses, rather than the animal dissections that Galen had used as a guide. Vesalius’ work emphasized the priority of dissection and what has come to be called the “anatomical” view of the body, seeing human internal functioning as an essentially corporeal structure filled with organs arranged in three-dimensional space. This was in stark contrast to many of the anatomical models used previously.

Further groundbreaking work was carried out by William Harvey, who published De Motu Cordis in 1628. Harvey made a detailed analysis of the overall structure of the heart, going on to an analysis of the arteries, showing how their pulsation depends upon the contraction of the left ventricle, while the contraction of the right ventricle propels its charge of blood into the pulmonary artery. He noticed that the two ventricles move together almost simultaneously and not independently like had been thought previously by his predecessors. Harvey also estimated the capacity of the heart, how much blood is expelled through each pump of the heart, and the number of times the heart beats in a half an hour. From these estimations, he went on to prove how the blood circulated in a circle.

Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica, 1543, p. 174

In 1543, Vesalius asked Johannes Oporinus to publish the seven-volume De humani corporis fabrica (On the fabric of the human body), a groundbreaking work of human anatomy. It emphasized the priority of dissection and what has come to be called the “anatomical view” of the human body.

An illustration of the human body from De humani corporis fabrica.

Other Medical Advances

Various other advances in medical understanding and practice were made. French surgeon Ambroise Paré (c. 1510-1590) is considered one of the fathers of surgery and modern forensic pathology, and a pioneer in surgical techniques and battlefield medicine, especially in the treatment of wounds. He was also an anatomist and invented several surgical instruments, and was part of the Parisian Barber Surgeon guild. Paré was also an important figure in the progress of obstetrics in the middle of the 16th century.

Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738), a Dutch botanist, chemist, Christian humanist and physician of European fame, is regarded as the founder of clinical teaching and of the modern academic hospital. He is sometimes referred to as “the father of physiology,” along with the Venetian physician Santorio Santorio (1561-1636), who introduced the quantitative approach into medicine, and with his pupil Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777). He is best known for demonstrating the relation of symptoms to lesions and, in addition, he was the first to isolate the chemical urea from urine. He was the first physician that put thermometer measurements to clinical practice.

Bacteria and protists were first observed with a microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1676, initiating the scientific field of microbiology.

French physician Pierre Fauchard started dentistry science as we know it today, and he has been named “the father of modern dentistry.”
He is widely known for writing the first complete scientific description of dentistry, Le Chirurgien Dentiste (“The Surgeon Dentist”), published in 1728. The book described basic oral anatomy and function, signs and symptoms of oral pathology, operative methods for removing decay and restoring teeth, periodontal disease (pyorrhea), orthodontics, replacement of missing teeth, and tooth transplantation.

Andreas Vesalius, De corporis humani fabrica libri septem,
illustration attributed to Jan van Calcar (circa 1499–1546/1550)

The front cover illustration of De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body, 1543), showing a public dissection being carried out by Vesalius himself. The book advanced the modern study of human anatomy.

19.4: Enlightenment Thinkers

19.4.1: Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes,
an English philosopher and scientist, was one of the key figures in the political debates of the Enlightenment period. He introduced a social contract theory based on the relation between the absolute sovereign and the civil society.

Learning Objective

Describe Thomas Hobbes’ beliefs on the relationship between government and the people

Key Points

Thomas
Hobbes, an English philosopher and scientist, was one of the key figures in the
political debates of the Enlightenment period. Despite advocating the idea of absolutism of
the sovereign, he developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal
thought.
Hobbes was the first modern philosopher to
articulate a detailed social contract theory that appeared in his 1651 work Leviathan.
In it, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate
governments and creating an objective science of morality.
Hobbes argued that in order to avoid chaos, which he associated with the state of nature, people accede to a
social contract and establish a civil society.
One of the most influential tensions in Hobbes’ argument is a relation between the absolute sovereign and the society. According to Hobbes, society is
a population beneath a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that
society cede some rights for the sake of protection. Any power exercised by
this authority cannot be resisted because the protector’s sovereign power
derives from individuals’ surrendering their own sovereign power for
protection.
Hobbes
also included a discussion of natural rights in his moral and political
philosophy. While he recognized the inalienable rights of the human, he argued that if humans wished to live peacefully, they had to give up most of their natural rights and create moral obligations, in order to
establish political and civil society.

Key Terms

Leviathan: A book written by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and published in 1651. The work concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory. It argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign.
social contract theory: A theory or a model that typically posits that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights.
natural rights: The rights that are not dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and are therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws).
English Civil War: A series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians (“Roundheads”) and Royalists (“Cavaliers”) over, principally, the manner of England’s government. The first (1642-1646) and second (1648-1649) conflicts pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third (1649-1651) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament.

Background: The Age of Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century. It included a range of ideas centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and came to advance ideals, such as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.
The Enlightenment has also been hailed as the foundation of modern western political and intellectual culture. It brought political modernization to the west by introducing democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern, liberal democracies. Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher and scientist, was one of the key figures in the political debates of the period. Despite advocating the idea of absolutism of the sovereign, Hobbes developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be “representative” and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law that leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.

Leviathan: Social Contract

Hobbes was the first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed social contract theory that appeared in his 1651 work Leviathan.
In it, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate governments and creating an objective science of morality. As Leviathan was written during the English Civil War, much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war.

Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and the passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a “war of all against all.” In such a state, people fear death and lack both the things necessary to commodious living and the hope of being able to toil to obtain them. So, in order to avoid it, people accede to a social contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population beneath a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede some rights for the sake of protection. Any power exercised by this authority cannot be resisted because the protector’s sovereign power derives from individuals’ surrendering their own sovereign power for protection. The individuals are thereby the authors of all decisions made by the sovereign. There is no doctrine of separation of powers in Hobbes’s discussion. According to Hobbes, the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial, and ecclesiastical powers.

Thomas Hobbes by John Michael Wright,
circa 1669-1670, National Portrait Gallery, London

Hobbes was one of the founders of modern political philosophy and political science. He also contributed to a diverse array of other fields, including history, geometry, the physics of gases, theology, ethics, and general philosophy.

Natural Rights

Hobbes also included a discussion of natural rights in his moral and political philosophy. His’ conception of natural rights extended from his conception of man in a “state of nature.” He argued that the essential natural (human) right was “to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life (…).” Hobbes sharply distinguished this natural “liberty” from natural “laws.” In his natural state, man’s life consisted entirely of liberties and not at all of laws, which leads to the world of chaos created by unlimited rights. Consequently, if humans wish to live peacefully, they must give up most of their natural rights and create moral obligations in order to establish political and civil society.

Hobbes objected to the attempt to derive rights from “natural law,” arguing that law (“lex”) and right (“jus”) though often confused, signify opposites, with law referring to obligations, while rights refer to the absence of obligations. Since by our (human) nature, we seek to maximize our well being, rights are prior to law, natural or institutional, and people will not follow the laws of nature without first being subjected to a sovereign power, without which all ideas of right and wrong are meaningless. This marked an important departure from medieval natural law theories which gave precedence to obligations over rights.

19.4.2: John Locke

John Locke, an English philosopher and
physician, is regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment
thinkers, whose work greatly contributed to the development of the notions of social contract and natural rights.

Learning Objective

Explain Locke’s conception of the social contract

Key Points

John Locke was an English philosopher and
physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment
thinkers, and commonly known as the “Father of
Liberalism.” His writings were immensely influential for the development of social contract theory.
Two Treatises of Government,
Locke’s most important work on political theory, is divided into the First Treatise and
the Second Treatise. The First Treatise is focused
on the refutation of Sir Robert Filmer, in particular his Patriarcha,
which argued that civil society was founded on a divinely sanctioned
patriarchalism. The Second
Treatise outlines a theory of civil society.
Locke’s political theory was founded on social
contract theory. He believed that human nature is
characterized by reason and tolerance, but he assumed that the
sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people
established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help from
government in a state of society.
Locke’s conception of natural rights is captured
in his best known statement that individuals have a right to protect
their “life, health, liberty, or possessions” and in his belief that
the natural right to property is derived from labor.
The debate continues among scholars over the disparities between
Locke’s philosophical arguments and his personal involvement in the slave trade
and slavery in North American colonies, and over whether his writings provide,
in fact, justification of slavery.

Key Terms

social contract theory

A theory or a model that
typically posits that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly,
to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or
magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of
their remaining rights.

Two Treatises of Government

A work of political philosophy published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke. The first section attacks patriarchalism in the form of sentence-by-sentence refutation of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, while the second outlines Locke’s ideas for a more civilized society based on natural rights and contract theory.

empiricism

A theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.

natural rights

The rights that are not
dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or
government, and are therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that
cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws).

Rye House Plot

A 1683 plan to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother (and heir to the throne) James, Duke of York. Historians vary in their assessment of the degree to which details of the conspiracy were finalized.

John Locke: Introduction

John Locke was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the “Father of Liberalism.” Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.

Locke was born in 1632 in Wrington, Somerset, about 12 miles from Bristol, and grew up in the nearby town of Pensford. In 1647, he was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London, and after completing studies there, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford in 1652. Although a capable student, Locke was irritated by the undergraduate curriculum of the time. He found the works of modern philosophers, such as René Descartes, more interesting than the classical material taught at the university. Through a friend, Locke was introduced to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued at other universities and in the Royal Society, of which he eventually became a member. In 1667, he moved to London to serve as a personal physician, and to resume his medical studies. He also served as Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords Proprietor of Carolina, which helped to shape his ideas on international trade and economics.
Locke fled to the Netherlands in 1683, under strong suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot, although there is little evidence to suggest that he was directly involved in the scheme.
In the Netherlands, he had time to return to his writing, although the bulk of Locke’s publishing took place upon his return from exile in 1688. He died in 1704. Locke never married nor had children.

Portrait of John Locke, by Sir Godfrey Kneller,1697, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

Locke’s theory of mind has been as influential as his political theory, and is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perceptions.

Two Treatises of Government

Two Treatises of Government, Locke’s most important and influential work on political theory, was first published anonymously in 1689. It is divided into the First Treatise and the Second Treatise. The First Treatise is focused on the refutation of Sir Robert Filmer, in particular his Patriarcha, which argued that civil society was founded on a divinely sanctioned patriarchalism. Locke proceeds through Filmer’s arguments, contesting his proofs from Scripture and ridiculing them as senseless, until concluding that no government can be justified by an appeal to the divine right of kings. The Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society. Locke begins by describing the state of nature, a picture much more stable than Thomas Hobbes’ state of “war of every man against every man,” and argues that all men are created equal in the state of nature by God. He goes on to explain the hypothetical rise of property and civilization, in the process explaining that the only legitimate governments are those that have the consent of the people. Therefore, any government that rules without the consent of the people can, in theory, be overthrown.

Locke’s political theory was founded on social contract theory. Unlike Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance. Similarly to Hobbes, he assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help from government in a state of society. However, Locke never refers to Hobbes by name and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day. He also advocated governmental separation of powers, and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances. These ideas would come to have profound influence on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. However,
Locke did not demand a republic. Rather, he believed a legitimate contract could easily exist between citizens and a monarchy, an oligarchy, or in some mixed form.

Natural Rights

Locke’s conception of natural rights is captured in his best known statement that individuals have a right to protect their “life, health, liberty, or possessions” and in his belief that the natural right to property is derived from labor. He defines the state of nature as a condition, in which humans are rational and follow natural law, and in which all men are born equal with the right to life, liberty and property. However, when one citizen breaks the Law of Nature, both the transgressor and the victim enter into a state of war, from which it is virtually impossible to break free. Therefore, Locke argued that individuals enter into civil society to protect their natural rights via an “unbiased judge” or common authority, such as courts.

Constitution of Carolina and Views on Slavery

Locke’s writings have often been tied to liberalism, democracy, and the foundation of the United States as the first modern democratic republic. However, historians also note that Locke was a major investor in the English slave-trade through the Royal African Company. In addition, he participated in drafting the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which established a feudal aristocracy and gave a master absolute power over his slaves. Because of his opposition to aristocracy and slavery in his major writings, some historians accuse Locke of hypocrisy and racism, and point out that his idea of liberty is reserved to Europeans or even the European capitalist class only. The debate continues among scholars over the disparities between Locke’s philosophical arguments and his personal involvement in the slave trade and slavery in North American colonies, and over whether his writings provide, in fact, justification of slavery.

19.4.3: Baron de Montesquieu

Montesquieu was a French political philosopher of the Enlightenment period, whose articulation of the theory of separation of powers is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world.

Learning Objective

Describe Montesquieu’s solution for keeping power from falling into the hands of any one individual

Key Points

Montesquieu was a French lawyer, man of
letters, and one of the most influential political philosophers of the Age of
Enlightenment. His political theory work, particularly the idea of separation of powers, shaped the modern democratic government.
The Spirit of the Laws is a treatise on
political theory that was first published anonymously by Montesquieu in 1748. Montesquieu covered many
topics, including the law, social life, and the study of anthropology, and provided more than 3,000 commendations.
In this political treatise, Montesquieu pleaded
in favor of a constitutional system of government and the separation of powers,
the ending of slavery, the preservation of civil liberties and the law, and the
idea that political institutions should reflect the social and geographical
aspects of each community.
Montesquieu defines three main political
systems: republican, monarchical, and despotic. As he defines them, republican
political systems vary depending on how broadly they extend citizenship rights.
Another major theme in The Spirit of
Laws concerns political liberty and the best means of preserving it. Establishing political liberty requires two
things: the separation of the powers of government, and the appropriate framing
of civil and criminal laws so as to ensure personal security.
Montesquieu argues that the executive,
legislative, and judicial functions of government (the so-called tripartite
system) should be assigned to different bodies, so that attempts by one
branch of government to infringe on political liberty might be restrained by
the other branches (checks and balances). He also argues
against slavery and for the freedom of thought, speech,
and assembly.

Key Terms

The Spirit of the Laws: A treatise on political theory first published anonymously by Montesquieu in 1748. In it, Montesquieu pleaded in favor of a constitutional system of government and the separation of powers, the ending of slavery, the preservation of civil liberties and the law, and the idea that political institutions ought to reflect the social and geographical aspects of each community.
separation of powers: A model for the governance of a state (or who controls the state), first proposed in ancient Greece and developed and modernized by the French political philosopher Montesquieu. Under this model, the state is divided into branches, each with separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with the powers associated with the other branches. The typical division of branches is legislature, executive, and judiciary.
Glorious Revolution: The overthrow of King James II of England (James VII of Scotland and James II of Ireland) by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau (William of Orange). William’s successful invasion of England with a Dutch fleet and army led to his ascending of the English throne as William III of England jointly with his wife Mary II of England, in conjunction with the documentation of the Bill of Rights 1689.
Index Librorum Prohibitorum: A list of publications deemed heretical, anti-clerical, or lascivious, and therefore banned by the Catholic Church.

Introduction: Montesquieu

Baron de Montesquieu, usually referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French lawyer, man of letters, and one of the most influential political philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment. He was born in France in 1689. After losing both parents at an early age, he became a ward of his uncle, the Baron de Montesquieu. He became a counselor of the Bordeaux Parliament in 1714. A year later, he married Jeanne de Lartigue, a Protestant, who bore him three children. Montesquieu’s early life occurred at a time of significant governmental change. England had declared itself a constitutional monarchy in the wake of its Glorious Revolution (1688-89), and had joined with Scotland in the Union of 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. In France, the long-reigning Louis XIV died in 1715, and was succeeded by five year-old Louis XV. These national transformations had a great impact on Montesquieu, who would refer to them repeatedly in his work. Montesquieu withdrew from the practice of law to devote himself to study and writing.

Besides writing works on society and politics, Montesquieu traveled for a number of years through Europe, including Austria and Hungary, spending a year in Italy and 18 months in England, where he became a freemason before resettling in France. He was troubled by poor eyesight and was completely blind by the time he died from a high fever in 1755.

Montesquieu, portrait by an unknown artist, c. 1727

Montesquieu is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He is also known for doing more than any other author to secure the place of the word “despotism” in the political lexicon.

The Spirit of Laws

The Spirit of the Laws is a treatise on political theory first published anonymously by Montesquieu in 1748. The book was originally published anonymously partly because Montesquieu’s works were subject to censorship, but its influence outside France grew with rapid translation into other languages. In 1750, Thomas Nugent published the first English translation. In 1751, the Catholic Church added it to its Index Librorum Prohibitorum (list of prohibited books). Yet Montesquieu’s political treatise had an enormous influence on the work of many others, most notably the founding fathers of the United States Constitution, and Alexis de Tocqueville, who applied Montesquieu’s methods to a study of American society in Democracy in America.

Montesquieu spent around 21 years researching and writing The Spirit of the Laws, covering many things, including the law, social life, and the study of anthropology, and providing more than 3,000 commendations. In this political treatise, Montesquieu pleaded in favor of a constitutional system of government and the separation of powers, the ending of slavery, the preservation of civil liberties and the law, and the idea that political institutions should reflect the social and geographical aspects of each community.

Montesquieu defines three main political systems: republican, monarchical, and despotic. As he defines them, republican political systems vary depending on how broadly they extend citizenship rights—those that extend citizenship relatively broadly are termed democratic republics, while those that restrict citizenship more narrowly are termed aristocratic republics. The distinction between monarchy and despotism hinges on whether or not a fixed set of laws exists that can restrain the authority of the ruler. If so, the regime counts as a monarchy. If not, it counts as despotism.

A second major theme in The Spirit of Laws concerns political liberty and the best means of preserving it.
Montesquieu’s political liberty is what we might call today personal security, especially insofar as this is provided for through a system of dependable and moderate laws. He distinguishes this view of liberty from two other, misleading views of political liberty. The first is the view that liberty consists in collective self-government (i.e., that liberty and democracy are the same). The second is the view that liberty consists of being able to do whatever one wants without constraint. Political liberty is not possible in a despotic political system, but it is possible, though not guaranteed, in republics and monarchies. Generally speaking, establishing political liberty requires two things: the separation of the powers of government, and
the appropriate framing of civil and criminal laws so as to ensure personal security.

Separation of Powers and Appropriate Laws

Building on and revising a discussion in John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, Montesquieu argues that the executive, legislative, and judicial functions of government
(the so-called
tripartite system) should be assigned to different bodies, so that attempts by one branch of government to infringe on political liberty might be restrained by the other branches (checks and balances).
Montesquieu based this model on the Constitution of the Roman Republic and the British constitutional system. He took the view that the Roman Republic had powers separated so that no one could usurp complete power. In the British constitutional system, Montesquieu discerned a separation of powers among the monarch, Parliament, and the courts of law.

He also notes that liberty cannot be secure where there is no separation of powers, even in a republic. Montesquieu also intends what modern legal scholars might call the rights to “robust procedural due process,” including the right to a fair trial, the presumption of innocence, and the proportionality in the severity of punishment. Pursuant to this requirement to frame civil and criminal laws appropriately to ensure political liberty, Montesquieu also argues against slavery and for the freedom of thought, speech, and assembly.

19.4.4: Voltaire

Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher, who attacked the Catholic Church and advocated freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state.

Learning Objective

Discuss Voltaire’s thoughts on the masses and government

Key Points

Voltaire was a French
Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit,
his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of
religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state.
Voltaire’s political and philosophical views can
be found in nearly all of his prose writings. Most of his prose was written as polemics, with the goal of conveying radical
political and philosophical messages.
Voltaire’s works
frequently contain the word “l’infâme” and the
expression “écrasez l’infâme,” or “crush the
infamous.” The phrase refers to abuses of the people by royalty and the
clergy, and the superstition and intolerance that
the clergy bred within the people. His two most famous works elaborating the concept are
The Treatise on Tolerance and The Philosophical Dictionary.
Voltaire had an enormous influence on the
development of historiography through his demonstration of fresh new ways to
look at the past. His best-known works are The Age of Louis
XIV and The Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the
Nations.
In his criticism of the French society and
existing social structures, Voltaire hardly spared anyone. He perceived the
French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be
parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the church as a static and oppressive force.
Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating
the idiocy of the masses. He long thought only an enlightened monarch could
bring about change, and that it was in the king’s rational interest to
improve the education and welfare of his subjects.

Key Terms

Ancien Régime: The monarchic-aristocratic, social, and political system established in the Kingdom of France from approximately the 15th century until the latter part of the 18th century (“early modern France”), under the late Valois and Bourbon Dynasties. The term is occasionally used to refer to the similar feudal social and political order of the time elsewhere in Europe.
The Philosophical Dictionary: An encyclopedic dictionary published by Voltaire in 1764. The alphabetically arranged articles often criticize the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions. It represents the culmination of Voltaire’s views on Christianity, God, morality, and other subjects.
The Treatise on Tolerance: A work by French philosopher Voltaire, published in 1763, in which he calls for tolerance between religions, and targets religious fanaticism, especially that of the Jesuits (under whom Voltaire received his early education), indicting all superstitions surrounding religions.
deism: A theological/philosophical position that combines the rejection of revelation and authority as a source of religious knowledge, with the conclusion that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of a single creator of the universe.

Introduction: Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet, known by his literary pseudonym Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state.

He was born in Paris in 1694 and educated by the Jesuits at the Collège Louis-le-Grand (1704-1711). By the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, who wanted him to become a lawyer. Under his father’s pressure, he studied law but he continued to write, producing essays and historical studies. In 1713, his father obtained a job for him as a secretary to a French ambassador in the Netherlands, but Voltaire was forced to return to France after a scandalous affair. From early on, he had trouble with the authorities over his critiques of the government. These activities were to result in two imprisonments and a temporary exile to England. One satirical verse, in which Voltaire accused Philippe II, Duke of Orléans,

of incest with his own daughter, led to an eleven-month imprisonment in the Bastille (after which he adopted the name Voltaire). He mainly argued for religious tolerance and freedom of thought. He campaigned to eradicate priestly and aristocratic-monarchical authority, and supported a constitutional monarchy that protects people’s rights.

Voltaire,
portrait by Nicolas de Largillière, c. 1724

Voltaire was a versatile writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken advocate of several liberties, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day.

Political and Philosophical Views

Voltaire’s political and philosophical views can be found in nearly all of his prose writings, even in what would be typically categorized as fiction. Most of his prose, including such genres as romance, drama, or satire, was written as polemics with the goal of conveying radical political and philosophical messages.
His works, especially private letters, frequently contain the word “l’infâme” and the expression “écrasez l’infâme,” or “crush the infamous.” The phrase refers to abuses of the people by royalty and the clergy that Voltaire saw around him, and the superstition and intolerance that the clergy bred within the people.
Voltaire’s first major philosophical work in his battle against “l’infâme” was The Treatise on Tolerance (1763), in which he calls for tolerance between religions and targets religious fanaticism, especially that of the Jesuits, indicting all superstitions surrounding religions. The book was quickly banned. Only a year later, he published The Philosophical Dictionary—

an encyclopedic dictionary with alphabetically arranged articles that criticize the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions. In it, Voltaire is concerned with the injustices of the Catholic Church, which he sees as intolerant and fanatical. At the same time, he espouses deism, tolerance, and freedom of the press. The Dictionary was Voltaire’s lifelong project, modified and expanded with each edition. It represents the culmination of his views on Christianity, God, morality, and other subjects.

Voltaire as Historian

Voltaire had an enormous influence on the development of historiography through his demonstration of fresh new ways to look at the past. His best-known historiography works are The Age of Louis XIV (1751) and The Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756). Voltaire broke from the tradition of narrating diplomatic and military events, and emphasized customs, social history, and achievements in the arts and sciences. The Essay traced the progress of world civilization in a universal context, thereby rejecting both nationalism and the traditional Christian frame of reference. Voltaire was also the first scholar to make a serious attempt to write the history of the world, eliminating theological frameworks and emphasizing economics, culture, and political history. He treated Europe as a whole, rather than a collection of nations. He was the first to emphasize the debt of medieval culture to Middle Eastern civilization, and consistently exposed the intolerance and frauds of the church over the ages.

Views on the Society

In his criticism of the French society and existing social structures, Voltaire hardly spared anyone. He perceived the French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the church as a static and oppressive force useful only on occasion as a counterbalance to the rapacity of kings, although all too often, even more rapacious itself. Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. He long thought only an enlightened monarch could bring about change, given the social structures of the time and the extremely high rates of illiteracy, and that it was in the king’s rational interest to improve the education and welfare of his subjects. But his disappointments and disillusions with Frederick the Great changed his philosophy and soon gave birth to one of his most enduring works, his novella Candide, or Optimism (1759), which ends with a new conclusion: “It is up to us to cultivate our garden.”

He is remembered and honored in France as a courageous polemicist who indefatigably fought for civil rights (as the right to a fair trial and freedom of religion), and who denounced the hypocrisies and injustices of the Ancien Régime. The Ancien Régime involved an unfair balance of power and taxes between the three Estates: clergy and nobles on one side, the commoners and middle class, who were burdened with most of the taxes, on the other.

19.4.5: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Francophone Genevan philosopher and writer, whose conceptualization of social contract, the theory of natural human, and works on education greatly influenced the political, philosophical, and social western tradition.

Learning Objective

Identify the components of Rousseau’s philosophy, particularly the idea of the General Will

Key Points

Jean-Jacques
Rousseau was a Francophone Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His
political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment in France and
across Europe. It was also important to the French Revolution and the
overall development of modern political and educational thought.
In common with other philosophers of the day,
Rousseau looked to a hypothetical state of nature as a normative guide.
In The
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men, he maintained that the stage of human development
associated with what he called “savages” was the best or optimal in
human development.
In his Discourse on the Moral
Effects of the Arts and Sciences, Rousseau argued, in opposition
to the dominant stand of Enlightenment thinkers, that the arts and sciences
corrupt human morality.
The Social Contract outlines
the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical
republicanism. Published in 1762, it became one of the most influential works
of political philosophy in the western tradition.
Rousseau’s philosophy of education concerns itself
with developing the students’ character and moral sense, so that they may learn
to practice self-mastery and remain virtuous even in the unnatural and
imperfect society in which they will have to live.
Rousseau was a believer in the moral superiority
of the patriarchal family on the antique Roman model. To him, ideal woman is
educated to be governed by
her husband, while ideal man is educated to be
self-governing.

Key Terms

general will

A philosophical and political concept, developed and popularized in the 18th century, that denoted the will of the people as a whole. It served to designate the common interest embodied in legal tradition, as distinct from, and transcending, people’s private and particular interests at any particular time.

The Social Contract

A 1762 treatise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in which he theorized the best way to establish a political community in the face of the problems of commercial society. The work helped inspire political reforms and revolutions in Europe. It argued against the idea that monarchs were divinely empowered to legislate. Rousseau asserts that only the people, who are sovereign, have that all-powerful right.

Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences

A 1750 treatise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which argued that the arts and sciences corrupt human morality. It was Rousseau’s first expression of his influential views about nature vs. society, to which he would dedicate most of his intellectual life.

state of nature

A concept used in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories, and international law to denote the hypothetical conditions of what the lives of people might have been like before societies came into existence. In some versions of social contract theory, there are no rights in the state of nature, only freedoms, and it is the contract that creates rights and obligations. In other versions the opposite occurs—

the contract imposes restrictions upon individuals that curtail their natural rights.

The Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men

A work by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau that first exposes his conception of a human state of nature and of human perfectibility, an early idea of progress. In it, Rousseau explains how, according to him, people may have established civil society, which leads him to present private property as the original source and basis of all inequality.

“noble savage”

A literary stock character who embodies the concept of an idealized indigene, outsider, or “other” who has not been “corrupted” by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity’s innate goodness. In English, the phrase first appeared in the 17th century in John Dryden’s heroic play The Conquest of Granada (1672).

Introduction: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Francophone Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment in France and across Europe. It was also important to the French Revolution and the overall development of modern political and educational thought.

Rousseau was born in 1712 in Geneva, which was at the time a city-state and a Protestant associate of the Swiss Confederacy. His mother died several days after he was born, and
after his father remarried a few years later, Jean-Jacques was left with his maternal uncle, who packed him away, along with his own son, to board for two years with a Calvinist minister in a hamlet outside Geneva. Here, the boys picked up the elements of mathematics and drawing.
After his father and uncle had more or less disowned him, the teenage Rousseau supported himself for a time as a servant, secretary, and tutor, wandering in Italy and France. He had been an indifferent student, but during his 20s, which were marked by long bouts of hypochondria, he applied himself to the study of philosophy, mathematics, and music. Rousseau spent his adulthood holding numerous administrative positions and moving across Europe, often to escape a controversy caused by his radical writings. His relationships with various women had important impacts on his life choices (e.g., temporary conversion to Catholicism) and inspired many of his writings. His decision to place his five children (born from a long-term domestic partnership with
Thérèse Levasseur) in a shelter for abandoned children was widely criticized by his contemporaries and generations to come, particularly in light of his progressive works on education. Rousseau died in 1778.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, portrait by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, c. 1753

During the period of the French Revolution, Rousseau was the most popular of the philosophers among members of the Jacobin Club. Rousseau was interred as a national hero in the Panthéon in Paris, in 1794, 16 years after his death.

The Theory of Natural Human

In common with other philosophers of the day, Rousseau looked to a hypothetical state of nature as a normative guide. Contrary to Thomas Hobbes’ views, Rousseau holds that “uncorrupted morals” prevail in the “state of nature.”
In The Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men (1754), Rousseau maintained that man in a state of nature had been a solitary, ape-like creature, who was not méchant (bad), as Hobbes had maintained, but (like some other animals) had an “innate repugnance to see others of his kind suffer.”

He asserted that the stage of human development associated with what he called “savages” was the best or optimal in human development, between the less-than-optimal extreme of brute animals on the one hand, and the extreme of decadent civilization on the other. Espousing the belief that all degenerates in men’s hands, Rousseau taught that men would be free, wise, and good in the state of nature, and that instinct and emotion, when not distorted by the unnatural limitations of civilization, are nature’s voices and instructions to the good life. Rousseau’s “noble savage” stands in direct opposition to the man of culture (however, while Rousseau discusses the concept, he never uses the phrase that appears in other authors’ writings of the period). In his Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences (1750), Rousseau argued, in opposition to the dominant stand of Enlightenment thinkers, that the arts and sciences corrupt human morality.

The Social Contract

The Social Contract outlines the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical republicanism. Published in 1762, it became one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the western tradition. Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation. As society developed, division of labor and private property required the human race to adopt institutions of law. According to Rousseau, by joining together into civil society through the social contract, and abandoning their claims of natural right, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others, and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law.
The idea of general will denoted the will of the people as a whole. It served to designate the common interest embodied in legal tradition, as distinct from, and transcending, people’s private and particular interests at any particular time.

Although Rousseau argues that sovereignty (or the power to make the laws) should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between the sovereign and the government.
He posits that the political aspects of a society should be divided into two parts. First, there must be a sovereign consisting of the whole population, women included, that represents the general will and is the legislative power within the state. The second division is that of the government, being distinct from the sovereign. This division is necessary because the sovereign cannot deal with particular matters like applications of the law. Doing so would undermine its generality, and therefore damage its legitimacy. Thus, government must remain a separate institution from the sovereign body. When the government exceeds the boundaries set in place by the people, it is the mission of the people to abolish such government, and begin anew.

Education Theory

Rousseau’s philosophy of education, elaborated
in his 1762 treatise Emile, or On Education, concerns itself with developing the students’ character and moral sense, so that they may learn to practice self-mastery and remain virtuous even in the unnatural and imperfect society in which they will have to live. The hypothetical boy, Émile, is to be raised in the countryside, which, Rousseau believes, is a more natural and healthy environment than the city, under the guardianship of a tutor, who will guide him through various learning experiences arranged by the tutor. Rousseau felt that children learn right and wrong through experiencing the consequences of their acts, rather than through physical punishment. The tutor will make sure that no harm results to Émile through his learning experiences. Rousseau became an early advocate of developmentally appropriate education.

Although many of Rousseau’s ideas foreshadowed modern ones in many ways, in one way they do not; Rousseau was a believer in the moral superiority of the patriarchal family on the antique Roman model. Sophie, the young woman Émile is destined to marry, as a representative of ideal womanhood, is educated to be governed by her husband, while Émile, as representative of the ideal man, is educated to be self-governing. This is an essential feature of Rousseau’s educational and political philosophy, and particularly important to the distinction between private, personal relations and the public world of political relations. The private sphere as Rousseau imagines it depends on the subordination of women, in order for both it and the public political sphere (upon which it depends) to function as Rousseau imagines it could and should. Rousseau anticipated the modern idea of the bourgeois nuclear family, with the mother at home taking responsibility for the household, childcare, and early education.

19.4.6: Marquis de Condorcet

Although Marquis de Condorcet’s ideas are
considered to embody the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, his support of liberal economy, free and equal public instruction, constitutionalism, and equal rights for women and people of all races distinguish him from most of his contemporaries.

Learning Objective

Compare and contrast the Marquis de Condorcet’s thoughts on popular rule with the other Enlightenment thinkers

Key Points

Marquis de Condorcet, was a French philosopher,
mathematician, and early political scientist. Unlike many of his
contemporaries, he advocated a liberal economy, free and equal public
instruction, constitutionalism, and equal rights for women and people of
all races.
He launched a career as a mathematician, soon reaching international fame. However, his political ideas,
particularly that of radical democracy and opposition to slavery, were criticized heavily in the
English-speaking world.
Condorcet took a leading role when the French
Revolution swept France in 1789. He hoped for a rationalist reconstruction of
society, and championed many liberal causes, including women’s suffrage.
Condorcet’s Sketch for a Historical
Picture of the Progress of the Human Spirit is perhaps the
most influential formulation of the Idea of Progress ever written. It narrates
the history of civilization as one of progress in the sciences, and shows the
intimate connection between scientific progress and the development of human
rights and justice.
According to Condorcet, for republicanism to
exist the nation needed enlightened citizens, and education needed democracy to
become truly public. In order to educate citizens, he proposed a system of free public education.

Key Terms

Idea of Progress: In intellectual history, the idea that advances in technology, science, and social organization can produce an improvement in the human condition. That is, people can become better, in terms of quality of life (social progress), through economic development (modernization), and the application of science and technology (scientific progress). The assumption is that the process will happen once people apply their reason and skills, for it is not divinely foreordained.
rationalism: In epistemology, the view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge, or any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification. More formally, it is defined as a methodology, or a theory, in which the criterion of the truth is not a result of experience but of intellect and deduction.

Marquis de Condorcet: The Radical of the Enlightenment

Nicolas de Condorcet, known also as Marquis de Condorcet, was a French philosopher, mathematician, and early political scientist. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he advocated a liberal economy, free and equal public instruction, constitutionalism, and equal rights for women and people of all races. Although his ideas and writings are considered to embody the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment and rationalism, they were much more radical that those of most of his contemporaries, even those who were also seen as radicals.

Condorcet was born in 1743 and raised by a devoutly religious mother. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Reims and at the Collège de Navarre in Paris, where he quickly showed his intellectual ability and gained his first public distinctions in mathematics. From 1765 to 1774, he focused on science. In 1765, he published his first work on mathematics, launching his career as a mathematician. In 1769, he was elected to the French Royal Academy of Sciences. Condorcet worked with Leonhard Euler and Benjamin Franklin. He soon became an honorary member of many foreign academies and philosophic societies, but his political ideas, particularly that of radical democracy, were criticized heavily in the English-speaking world, most notably by John Adams.
In 1781, Condorcet wrote a pamphlet, Reflections on Negro Slavery, in which he denounced slavery.

Portrait of Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, date unknown

Condorcet’s political views, including suffrage of women, opposition of slavery, equal rights regardless of race, or free public education, were unique even in the context of many radical ideas proposed during the Enlightenment period, He was also one of the first to systematically apply mathematics in the social sciences.

Role in the French Revolution

Condorcet took a leading role when the French Revolution swept France in 1789. He hoped for a rationalist reconstruction of society, and championed many liberal causes. In 1792, he presented a project for the reformation of the education system, aiming to create a hierarchical structure, under the authority of experts who would work as the guardians of the Enlightenment and who, independent of power, would be the guarantors of public liberties. The project was judged to be contrary to the republican and egalitarian virtues. Condorcet also advocated women’s suffrage for the new government, publishing “For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women” in 1790. This view went much further than the views of other major Enlightenment thinkers, including the champions of women’s rights. Even Mary Wollstonecraft, a British writer and philosopher
who attacked gender oppression, pressed for equal educational opportunities, and demanded “justice” and “rights to humanity” for all, did not go as far as to demand equal political rights for women.

At the time of the Trial of Louis XVI, Condorcet, who opposed the death penalty but still supported the trial itself, spoke out against the execution of the King during the public vote at the Convention. He proposed to send the king to the galleys. Changing forces and shifts in power among different revolutionary groups eventually positioned largely independent Condorcet in the role of the critic of predominant ideas. His political opponents branded him a traitor, and in 1793, a warrant was issued for Condorcet’s arrest. After a period of hiding, he was captured and in 1794 he mysteriously died in prison.

The Idea of Progress

Condorcet’s Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Spirit (1795) was perhaps the most influential formulation of the Idea of Progress ever written. It
narrates the history of civilization as one of progress in the sciences, shows the intimate connection between scientific progress and the development of human rights and justice, and outlines the features of a future rational society entirely shaped by scientific knowledge. It also made the notion of progress a central concern of Enlightenment thought. Condorcet argued that expanding knowledge in the natural and social sciences would lead to an ever more just world of individual freedom, material affluence, and moral compassion. He believed that through the use of our senses and communication with others, knowledge could be compared and contrasted as a way of analyzing our systems of belief and understanding. None of Condorcet’s writings refer to a belief in a religion or a god who intervenes in human affairs. Instead, he frequently wrote of his faith in humanity itself and its ability to progress with the help of philosophers. He envisioned man as continually progressing toward a perfectly utopian society. However, he stressed that for this to be a possibility, man must unify regardless of race, religion, culture, or gender.

Education and Rights

According to Condorcet, for republicanism to exist the nation needed enlightened citizens, and education needed democracy to become truly public. Democracy implied free citizens and ignorance was the source of servitude. Citizens had to be provided with the necessary knowledge to exercise their freedom and understand the rights and laws that guaranteed their enjoyment. Although education could not eliminate disparities in talent, all citizens, including women, had the right to free education. In opposition to those who relied on revolutionary enthusiasm to form the new citizens, Condorcet maintained that revolution was not made to last, and that revolutionary institutions were not intended to prolong the revolutionary experience but to establish political rules and legal mechanisms that would insure future changes without revolution. In a democratic city there would be no Bastille to be seized. Public education would form free and responsible citizens, not revolutionaries.

19.4.7: Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights, whose focus on women’s rights, and particularly women’s access to education, distinguished her from most of male Enlightenment thinkers.

Learning Objective

Summarize the ways in which Wollstonecraft’s philosophy differed from the other Enlightenment thinkers

Key Points

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was an English writer,
philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. She was the major female voice of
the Enlightenment. Until the late 20th century, however, Wollstonecraft’s life,
received more attention than her writing.
The majority of Wollstonecraft’s early works focus on education.
She advocates educating children into the emerging middle-class ethos:
self-discipline, honesty, frugality, and social contentment. She also
advocates the education of women, a controversial topic at the time and one
which she would return to throughout her career.
In response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the
Revolution in France (1790), which was a defense of constitutional
monarchy, aristocracy, and the Church of England, Wollstonecraft’s A
Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) attacks aristocracy and
advocates republicanism.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft
argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in
society, and claims that women are essential to the nation because they
educate its children and because they could be “companions” to their
husbands, rather than just wives.
Scholars of feminism still debate to what extent Wollstonecraft
was, indeed, a feminist; while she does call for equality between the
sexes in particular areas of life, such as morality, she does not explicitly
state that men and women are equal.
Wollstonecraft addresses her writings to the middle class, and
represents a class bias by her condescending treatment of the poor.

Key Terms

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: A 1792 work by the 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft that is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft argues that women should have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be “companions” to their husbands, rather than just wives.
Reflections on the Revolution in France: A political pamphlet written by the Irish statesman Edmund Burke and published in 1790. One of the best-known intellectual attacks against the French Revolution, it is a defining tract of modern conservatism as well as an important contribution to international theory.
A Vindication of the Rights of Men: A 1790 political pamphlet written by the 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, which attacks aristocracy and advocates republicanism. It was the first response in a pamphlet war sparked by the publication of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), a defense of constitutional monarchy, aristocracy, and the Church of England.

Woman’s Voice at the Age of Enlightenment

Mary Wollstonecraft
(1759-1797) was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s
rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel
narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children’s
book. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft’s life, which encompassed an illegitimate child, passionate love affairs, and suicide attempts, received
more attention than her writing. After two ill-fated affairs, with Henry Fuseli
and Gilbert Imlay (by whom she had a daughter, Fanny Imlay), Wollstonecraft
married the philosopher William Godwin, one of the forefathers of the anarchist
movement. She died at the age of 38, eleven days after giving birth to her
second daughter, leaving behind several unfinished manuscripts. The second
daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, became an accomplished writer herself as
Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.

After Wollstonecraft’s death,
her widower published a memoir (1798)
of her life, revealing her unorthodox lifestyle, which inadvertently destroyed
her reputation for almost a century. However, with the emergence of the
feminist movement at the turn of the twentieth century, Wollstonecraft’s
advocacy of women’s equality and critiques of conventional femininity became
increasingly important. Today, Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding
feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and work as
important influences.

Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie (c. 1797), National Portrait Gallery, London

Despite the controversial topic, the Rights of Woman received favorable reviews and was a great success. It was almost immediately released in a second edition in 1792, several American editions appeared, and it was translated into French. It was only the later revelations of her personal life that
resulted in negative views towards Wollstonecraft, which persisted for over a century.

Education Theory

The majority of
Wollstonecraft’s early works focus on education. She assembled an anthology of
literary extracts “for the improvement of young women” entitled The
Female Reader. In both her
conduct book Thoughts
on the Education of Daughters (1787) and
her children’s book Original
Stories from Real Life (1788),
Wollstonecraft advocates educating children into the emerging middle-class
ethos of self-discipline, honesty, frugality, and social contentment. Both
books also emphasize the importance of teaching children to reason, revealing
Wollstonecraft’s intellectual debt to the important 17th-century
educational philosopher John Locke. Both texts also advocate the education of
women, a controversial topic at the time, and one which she would return to
throughout her career. Wollstonecraft argues that well-educated women will be
good wives and mothers, and ultimately contribute positively to the nation.

A Vindication of the Rights of Man

Published in response to Edmund
Burke’s Reflections
on the Revolution in France (1790),
which was a defense of constitutional monarchy, aristocracy, and the Church of
England, and an attack on Wollstonecraft’s friend, Richard Price,
Wollstonecraft’s A
Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790)
attacks aristocracy and advocates republicanism. Wollstonecraft attacked not
only monarchy and hereditary privilege, but also the gendered language that
Burke used to defend and elevate it. Burke associated the beautiful with
weakness and femininity, and the sublime with strength and masculinity.
Wollstonecraft turns these definitions against him, arguing that his theatrical
approach turn Burke’s readers—the citizens—into weak women who are swayed by
show. In her first unabashedly feminist critique, Wollstonecraft indicts
Burke’s defense of an unequal society founded on the passivity of women.

In her arguments for
republican virtue, Wollstonecraft invokes an emerging middle-class ethos in
opposition to what she views as the vice-ridden aristocratic code of manners.
Influenced by Enlightenment thinkers, she believed in progress, and derides
Burke for relying on tradition and custom. She argues for rationality, pointing
out that Burke’s system would lead to the continuation of slavery, simply
because it had been an ancestral tradition.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is one of the
earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft argues that women
ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, and then
proceeds to redefine that position, claiming that women are essential to the
nation because they educate its children and because they could be
“companions” to their husbands rather than just wives. Instead of
viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage,
Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same
fundamental rights as men. Large sections of the Rights
of Woman respond
vitriolically to the writers, who wanted to deny women an education.

While Wollstonecraft does
call for equality between the sexes in particular areas of life, such as
morality, she does not explicitly state that men and women are equal. She
claims that men and women are equal in the eyes of God. However, such
statements of equality stand in contrast to her statements respecting the
superiority of masculine strength and valor. Her ambiguous position regarding
the equality of the sexes have since made it difficult to classify
Wollstonecraft as a modern feminist. Her focus on the rights of women does
distinguish Wollstonecraft from most of her male Enlightenment counterparts.
However, some of them, most notably Marquis de Condorcet, expressed a much more
explicit position on the equality of men and women. Already in 1790, Condorcet
advocated women’s suffrage.

Wollstonecraft addresses her
text to the middle class, which she describes as the “most natural
state,” and in many ways the Rights
of Woman is
inflected by a bourgeois view of the world. It encourages modesty and industry
in its readers and attacks the uselessness of the aristocracy. But
Wollstonecraft is not necessarily a friend to the poor. For example, in her
national plan for education, she suggests that, after the age of nine, the
poor, except for those who are brilliant, should be separated from the rich and
taught in another school.

19.1: The Enlightenment

19.1.1: Introduction to the Enlightenment

Learning Objective

Key Points

Key Terms

Introduction

Philosophy

Encyclopedie’s frontispiece, full version; engraving by Benoît Louis Prévost.

Science

Modern Western Government

Religion

Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie (c. 1797), National Portrait Gallery, London.

19.1.2: Rationalism

Learning Objective

Key Points

Key Terms

Introduction

René Descartes, after Frans Hals, 2nd half of the 17th century.

Rationalism v. Empiricism

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant, author unknown

Politics

19.1.3: Natural Rights

Learning Objective

Key Points

Key Terms

Natural Rights and Natural Law

Natural Rights and Social Contract

Portrait of Thomas Hobbes by John Michael Wright, National Portrait Gallery, London

Portrait of John Locke, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Britain, 1697, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

Natural Rights, Slavery, and Abolitionism

19.2: The Age of Discovery

19.2.1: Europe’s Early Trade Links

Learning Objective

Key Points

Key Terms

Background

Prelude to the Age of Discovery

The Travels of Marco Polo

The Age of Discovery

19.2.2: Portuguese Explorers

Learning Objective

Key Points

Key Terms

Introduction

Atlantic Exploration

India and Brazil

First Voyage of Vasco da Gama

Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia Explorations

19.2.3: Spanish Exploration

Learning Objective

Key Points

Key Terms

Introduction

Columbus’s Voyages

The Treaty of Tordesillas

“The First Voyage”, chromolithograph by L. Prang & Co., published by The Prang Educational Co., Boston, 1893

Further Explorations of the Americas

19.2.4: England and the High Seas

Learning Objective

Key Points

Key Terms

Introduction

The Early Empire

Empire in the Americas

African slaves working in 17th-century Virginia (tobacco cultivation), by an unknown artist, 1670

Map of the British colonies in North America, 1763 to 1775. First published in: Shepherd, William Robert (1911) “The British Colonies in North America, 1763–1765” in Historical Atlas, New York, United States: Henry Holt and Company, p. 194.

19.2.5: French Explorers

Learning Objective

Key Points

Key Terms

The French in the New World: New France

Portrait of Jacques Cartier by Théophile Hamel (1844), Library and Archives Canada (there are no known paintings of Cartier that were created during his lifetime)

Map of North America (1750): France (blue), Britain (pink), and Spain (orange)

The West Indies

Africa and Asia

19.3: The Scientific Revolution

19.3.1: Roots of the Scientific Revolution

Learning Objective

Key Points

Portrait of John Locke, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Britain, 1697,
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

Portrait of Galileo Galilei
by Giusto Sustermans, 1636

Heliocentric model of the solar system,

Nicolas Copernicus,
De revolutionibus, p. 9, from an original edition, currently at
the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland

Andreas Vesalius, De corporis humani fabrica libri septem,
illustration attributed to Jan van Calcar (circa 1499–1546/1550)

Thomas Hobbes by John Michael Wright,
circa 1669-1670, National Portrait Gallery, London