Causes
On the surface, the most apparent cause of the Enlightenment
was the Thirty Years’ War. This horribly destructive
war, which lasted from 1618 to 1648,
compelled German writers to pen harsh criticisms regarding the ideas
of nationalism and warfare. These authors, such as Hugo
Grotius and John Comenius, were some of the
first Enlightenment minds to go against tradition and propose better
solutions.
At the same time, European thinkers’ interest in the tangible world
developed into scientific study, while greater exploration of the
world exposed Europe to other cultures and philosophies. Finally,
centuries of mistreatment at the hands of monarchies and the church
brought average citizens in Europe to a breaking point, and the
most intelligent and vocal finally decided to speak out.
Pre-Enlightenment
Discoveries
The Enlightenment developed through a snowball effect:
small advances triggered larger ones, and before Europe and the
world knew it, almost two centuries of philosophizing and innovation
had ensued. These studies generally began in the fields of earth
science and astronomy, as notables such as Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei took
the old, beloved “truths” of Aristotle and disproved them. Thinkers
such as René Descartes and Francis Bacon revised
the scientific method, setting the stage for Isaac Newton and
his landmark discoveries in physics.
From these discoveries emerged a system for observing
the world and making testable hypotheses based on those
observations. At the same time, however, scientists faced ever-increasing
scorn and skepticism from people in the religious community, who
felt threatened by science and its attempts to explain matters of
faith. Nevertheless, the progressive, rebellious spirit of these
scientists would inspire a century’s worth of thinkers.
The Enlightenment
in England
The first major Enlightenment figure in England
was Thomas Hobbes, who caused great controversy
with the release of his provocative treatise Leviathan (1651).
Taking a sociological perspective, Hobbes felt that by nature, people
were self-serving and preoccupied with the gathering of a limited
number of resources. To keep balance, Hobbes continued, it was essential
to have a single intimidating ruler. A half century later, John
Locke came into the picture, promoting the opposite type
of government—a representative government—in his Two Treatises
of Government (1690).
Although Hobbes would be more influential among his contemporaries,
it was clear that Locke’s message was closer to the English people’s
hearts and minds. Just before the turn of the century, in 1688,
English Protestants helped overthrow the Catholic king James
II and installed the Protestant monarchs William and
Mary. In the aftermath of this Glorious Revolution,
the English government ratified a new Bill of Rights that granted
more personal freedoms.
The Enlightenment
in France
Many of the major French Enlightenment thinkers, or philosophes, were
born in the years after the Glorious Revolution, so France’s Enlightenment
came a bit later, in the mid-1700s.
The philosophes, though varying in style and area of particular
concern, generally emphasized the power of reason and sought to
discover the natural laws governing human society. The Baron
de Montesquieu tackled politics by elaborating upon Locke's
work, solidifying concepts such as the separation of power by
means of divisions in government. Voltaire took a more
caustic approach, choosing to incite social and political change
by means of satire and criticism. Although Voltaire’s satires arguably
sparked little in the way of concrete change, Voltaire nevertheless
was adept at exposing injustices and appealed to a wide range of
readers. His short novel Candide is regarded as one
of the seminal works in history.
Denis Diderot, unlike Montesquieu and Voltaire,
had no revolutionary aspirations; he was interested merely in collecting
as much knowledge as possible for his mammoth Encyclopédie.
The Encyclopédie, which ultimately weighed in at
thirty-five volumes, would go on to spread Enlightenment knowledge
to other countries around the world.
Romanticism
In reaction to the rather empirical philosophies
of Voltaire and others, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote The
Social Contract (1762),
a work championing a form of government based on small, direct democracy that
directly reflects the will of the population. Later, at the end
of his career, he would write Confessions, a deeply
personal reflection on his life. The unprecedented intimate perspective
that Rousseau provided contributed to a burgeoning Romantic era
that would be defined by an emphasis on emotion and instinct instead
of reason.
Skepticism
Another undercurrent that threatened the prevailing principles
of the Enlightenment was skepticism. Skeptics questioned
whether human society could really be perfected through the use
of reason and denied the ability of rational thought to reveal universal
truths. Their philosophies revolved around the idea that the perceived world
is relative to the beholder and, as such, no one can be sure whether
any truths actually exist.
Immanuel Kant, working in Germany during
the late eighteenth century, took skepticism to its greatest lengths,
arguing that man could truly know neither observed objects nor metaphysical
concepts; rather, the experience of such things depends upon the
psyche of the observer, thus rendering universal truths impossible. The
theories of Kant, along with those of other skeptics such as David
Hume, were influential enough to change the nature of European thought
and effectively end the Enlightenment.
The End of the
Enlightenment
Ultimately, the Enlightenment fell victim to competing
ideas from several sources. Romanticism was more appealing to less-educated common
folk and pulled them away from the empirical, scientific ideas of
earlier Enlightenment philosophers. Similarly, the theories of skepticism
came into direct conflict with the reason-based assertions of the
Enlightenment and gained a following of their own.
What ultimately and abruptly killed the Enlightenment,
however, was the French Revolution. Begun with the
best intentions by French citizens inspired by Enlightenment thought,
the revolution attempted to implement orderly representative assemblies
but quickly degraded into chaos and violence. Many people cited
the Enlightenment-induced breakdown of norms as the root cause of the
instability and saw the violence as proof that the masses could not
be trusted to govern themselves. Nonetheless, the discoveries and
theories of the Enlightenment philosophers continued to influence
Western society for centuries.
