BROADLY: The gradual spread from the 16th to the 19th century of the “scientific method” for understanding the natural world and of universal literacy.NARROWLY: A movement that arose among French intellectuals (or philosophes) around 1730 to apply the scientific method to the analysis of society and politics.The philosophes agreed on these slogans: Religious toleration! Freedom of thought! Let the punishment fit the crime!

The philosophes DISAGREED about the best form of government, equality between the sexes, and many other issues….

THE TERM “ENLIGHTENMENT” CAN BE DEFINED BROADLY OR NARROWLY…

John Locke (1632-1704) fled to the Netherlands under King James II and returned to England in

1688

• “A Letter Concerning Toleration” (1689).• Second Treatise of Government (1689): Legitimate government is based on a social contract in which we promise obedience in exchange for the protection of our “life, liberty, and possessions.”• An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) applied Newtonian physics to psychology; at birth, the mind is “a blank slate.”

The French court become receptive to irreverent ideas

during the regency for the

boy king Louis XV (crowned in 1722), and

Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1721) became very popular.

Montesquieu (1689-1755) served as judge on the

parlement of Bourdeaux

Voltaire (1694-1778) was banished to England from

1726 to 1729

KEY TERMS FROM MONTESQUIEU

THE FOUR TYPES OF GOVERNMENT:

1. Despotism, based on fear2. Monarchy, based on honor3. Aristocratic republic, based on self-restraint4. Popular republic, based on civic virtue

Liberty is best preserved through a separation of powers among the:

1. Legislative branch (the people)

2. Judicial branch (the nobility)

3. Executive branch (the royal dynasty)

CAN DESPOTISM SOMETIMESBE ENLIGHTENED?

Voltaire pinned his hopes for reform largely on the “enlightened” inclinations of the following absolute monarchs:

Louis XV of France (reigned 1715-1774) Frederick the Great of Prussia (1740-86) Catherine the Great of Russia (1762-96)

But he found himself bitterly disappointed by their taste for wars of conquest....

Hyacinthe Rigaud, Louis XV in 1730

Francois Boucher, “Madame de Pompadour”

(1756)

A flute concert by Frederick the Great in Potsdam, 1750

Maria Theresa of Austria

(ruled 1740-80): France and

Prussia broke their treaties with

her father and sought to

dismember her empire

THE WAR OF AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION, 1740-48

1. Naval war broke out in 1739

2. Prussia conquers Silesia

3. Franco-Bavarian army captures Prague but must soon retreat

Voltaire at the round table of Frederick the

Great in Potsdam(1750-53)

The Seven Years’ War, 1756-63: France, Austria, & Russia seek to destroy Prussia

The British conquer Quebec, 1759

The printing press as a gift from heaven (1740)

Denis Diderot published his great Encyclopaedia, or

a Systematic Dictionary of the

Sciences, Arts and Crafts

from 1751 to 1772

Title page of Diderot’s Encyclopedia, 1751

Illustration of agricultural techniques from the Encyclopédie

Illustration of the final stages of paper-making,

from the Encyclopédie

Norman peasants signing a marriage contract: By this crude measure, French literacy rates rose to about 40% by 1780

By now Prussia, Sweden, & Scotland had achieved universal literacy.

Literacy does not necessarily imply “enlightenment”:“The Life of Saint

Benedict”

Voltaire’s Chateau in Ferney, on the Swiss border (1764)

Voltaire at Ferney:Jean Huber, “Un diner de philosophes” (1772-73)

A.-C.-G. Lemonnier, “In the Salon of Madame Geoffrin in 1755” (painted in 1812)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78),

as a fashionable young man

Rousseau in a beaver hat

(1766), now a drop-out

from polite society

ROUSSEAU AS INTELLECTUAL GADFLY

1750: His “Discourse on the Arts and Sciences” challenges the belief in progress1755: His “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” suggests that “property is theft.”1762: His novel Emile, or On Education proposes in Book V an ideal education for girls very different from that for boys.1762: On the Social Contract argues that now law is legitimate unless every citizen has an equal voice in shaping that law.