Archive for 1991

The Age of Enlightenment was the period between the 17th and 18th centuries when man’s thoughts became free of many of the chains which had enslaved them for centuries.

Our modern day life began in this age. Today, we all live lives based on technology, the resulting product of science.

The importance of the Age of Enlightenment is that is was in this era that technology was born. The scientific ideas produces during the scientific revolution were for the first time applied to everyday life.

Benjamin Franklin experimented with electricity in the now famous kite experiment, and invented the lightning conductor in 1752 to save homes from the threat of lightning. The Montgolfier brothers went up in the first hot air balloon in 1783. Farmers produced better crops due to the new knowledge, and for the first time, religion faded as never before.

As these “scientific methods” became applied to everyday situations man began to resin that since man’s intellect could change farming and industry so much for the better, why could it not work for economy and religion. Never before has the human population of Europe thought about and questioned such things.

So, religion faded into two major divisions. Some went into a belief that there was no need for a “father-figure” God, to watch over his immature and evil children who wished to destroy each other, that man was a naturally good creature and despite faults, was perfectible. Others renounced God entirely and became atheists. And then there were the deists, who believed that God had created the universe and left it to run its own course. The Age of Enlightenment was a period in which people had “never argued so much about religion and practiced it so little”.

In England, John Locke decreed that every individual had rights. “What Locke had done was to declare that just as surely as Newton’s law of gravity governed the physical universe, so there existed ‘natural rights’ and laws that ruled society.” (page 107).

The Age of Enlightenment was spawned by the unquenched thirst for knowledge. This thirst presented itself in the great demand for reading material across Europe.

As French replaced Latin as the language of education, the views of the philosophes, a group of radical thinkers who exposed all that was outdated and unjust in 18th century society, were made accessible to all. Their enlightened ideas were soon being quoted in the drawing rooms of Paris and the Russian court in St. Petersburg.

The spread of knowledge was greatly helped by the publication of the Encylopedie, a collection of articles summarizing the new enlightened ideas, complied by Denis Diderot between 1751 and 1772.

Among the authors of the many articles in the Encyclopedie were Montesquieu, who believed in division between powers and not absolute monarchs, Voltaire who wished for white bread on the table and clean clothes for the peasants as was such in England, religious tolerance (although he himself was intolerant of Orthodox Christianity), and “enlightened despotism”, as he feared democracy, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who longed for all men to be equal and classless. He wrote The Social Contract, which opens with this sentence: “Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains.” Rousseau believed that man was a natural creature and was rendered un-natural by evil and corrupt governments.

The Age of Enlightenment did not only revolutionize politics, and create technology, it also manifested itself in economics.

Groups of men called physiocrats, questions the general economic belief of the 18th century, which was mercantilism. They believed that the economy was controlled by natural laws like just about everything else. They wished to free trade and lower the high tariffs and antiquated trading policies. It was at this time that Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, stating the belief in the law of supply and demand. He believed that if one country grew rich in trade, somewhere another grew poor.

The enlightened despotism of Voltaire was experimented in many different European countries, beginning after 1740. Among these were Prussia, Austria, and Russia.

In Prussia, Frederick II the Great, was the avatar of Voltaire’s ideal monarch. Frederick gave his country prosperity through various construction contracts and developing industries. He abolished torture as a means of obtaining information, and he had plans for giving children, whether rich or poor, an education, and he enforced religious toleration.

Although he had many good qualities, he would not abandon social classes, and he gave unlimited power over the peasants to the nobles. And he refused to abolish serfdom.

In Austria, Maria Theresa’s son, Joseph II, accepted the idea of enlightened despotism, and reformed the country. He abolished serfdom, and gave equal taxation to all, granted freedom of the press, and toleration for most religions.

Joseph placed many other radical reforms, including giving the state power over the church. He angered many with such drastic and enlightened reforms. Indeed, he was too advanced for his time.

In Russia, Catherine the Great “aspired to be a enlightened monarch, at least during the earlier part of her reign” (page 120-121). She put in place significant reforms, improving the government, and codifying the laws. She limited the use of torture by the courts, and introduced a greater degree of religious toleration. Catherine also founded many schools, upgraded hospital conditions, and introduced vaccination.

None of Catherine’s reforms were as great as those of Joseph II, for she still felt the need to kiss up to certain army officers and aristocrats who had helped her rise to the throne.

However, after a civil uprising in 1773, Catherine dropped the charade of being an “enlightened” despot. She began to yield a sword of repression, backed by the aristocrats and army she had kissed up to all these years.

In return for their support, she allowed the great aristocratic landowners unlimited power over their serfs, and Catherine’s reign became renown not for enlightenment, but for the strengthening of serfdom throughout Russia.

So this was the summary of the Age of Enlightenment. We now see how the foundation stone toward the education and liberation of the peoples of the world was laid during this era, and also how it was knocked down many times by those not willing to let go of the mediaeval past.