An outline, era by era

Enlightenment

Early Modern Era · ~1500 – ~1800

The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement that flourished mainly in Europe and its American colonies from the late 1600s to the late 1700s. Its thinkers, often called philosophes in France, held that reason, evidence and open debate could improve human knowledge, government and everyday life. They wrote about nature, religion, law, economics, education and the rights of individuals, and they questioned inherited authority, whether of church, king or custom.

The movement grew out of the Scientific Revolution and spread through books, journals, salons, coffeehouses, academies and Masonic lodges. Its ideas shaped the American and French revolutions, modern constitutions, arguments for religious toleration and campaigns against torture and slavery. It also had limits and contradictions: many Enlightenment writers accepted racial hierarchies or excluded women from public life, and several rulers used its language to strengthen their own power. Historians still debate how unified the movement was.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Locke's Essay and Two Treatises

    Event

    What happened

    In 1689 John Locke publishes his Letter Concerning Toleration, and in 1689 and 1690 the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and the Two Treatises of Government. The Essay argues that knowledge comes mainly from experience. The Two Treatises argue that government rests on consent and exists to protect life, liberty and property.

    The rest is history

    Locke's ideas were taken up widely in the eighteenth century. Voltaire praised him, and his arguments about consent and natural rights echoed in the American Declaration of Independence of 1776. His work on toleration was limited, since it excluded Catholics and atheists. The Two Treatises were published anonymously, and Locke only acknowledged authorship in his will.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryLocke, John. Two Treatises of Government. London, 1689 (dated 1690).Argues for government by consent.
    2. BookAshcraft, Richard. Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two Treatises of Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.

  2. Bayle's Dictionary and the Republic of Letters

    Event

    What happened

    Pierre Bayle, a French Protestant exile in the Dutch Republic, publishes his Historical and Critical Dictionary in 1697. It is a vast work whose long footnotes examine religious claims and persecution. He had earlier edited the journal News from the Republic of Letters, from 1684.

    The rest is history

    The Dutch Republic's relatively free presses let such work appear. Bayle argued for toleration, even of atheists, and his Dictionary became a quarry of arguments for later thinkers including Voltaire and Diderot. Paul Hazard saw the years around 1680 to 1715 as the crisis in which European thought turned toward Enlightenment themes. The Dictionary was reprinted many times through the eighteenth century.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryBayle, Pierre. Dictionnaire historique et critique. Rotterdam, 1697.
    2. BookHazard, Paul. The European Mind, 1680-1715. London: Hollis and Carter, 1953.

  3. Newton's Principia and its reception

    Event

    What happened

    In 1687 Isaac Newton publishes the Principia Mathematica, setting out the laws of motion and universal gravitation. In the following decades writers such as Voltaire and Émilie du Châtelet explain and translate his work for wider audiences. Du Châtelet's French translation with commentary is completed before her death in 1749.

    The rest is history

    Newton's success persuaded many that nature followed knowable laws, and that similar method could be applied to society, law and the mind. This is a main link between the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. Voltaire's Elements of Newton's Philosophy appeared in 1738. Du Châtelet's translation was published in 1756 and 1759, and remains the standard French version.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryNewton, Isaac. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. London, 1687.
    2. BookIsrael, Jonathan. Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

  4. Montesquieu and the Spirit of the Laws

    Event

    What happened

    In 1748 Montesquieu publishes The Spirit of the Laws anonymously in Geneva. It compares governments and argues that liberty is best protected when legislative, executive and judicial powers are kept apart. The Catholic Church places it on its Index of banned books in 1751.

    The rest is history

    The book was widely read and shaped the debates over the United States Constitution in 1787, whose framers cited Montesquieu often. His ideas on separation of powers became a basic element of modern constitutional design. His claims about climate and national character are no longer accepted by historians.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryMontesquieu. De l'esprit des lois. Geneva, 1748.
    2. BookShackleton, Robert. Montesquieu: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961.

  5. The Encyclopédie

    Event

    What happened

    From 1751 to 1772 Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert edit the Encyclopédie in France, with contributions from many writers. It grows to 28 volumes of text and plates. The authorities suspend it in 1752 and the royal privilege is revoked in 1759, and the Pope condemns it that year.

    The rest is history

    Work continued in spite of the bans, helped by protectors in the government such as Malesherbes, the royal censor. The Encyclopédie gathered practical knowledge of trades along with criticism of superstition and arbitrary power. Its many editions, including cheaper ones, carried Enlightenment ideas to a larger public across Europe.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryDiderot, Denis, and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, eds. Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Paris, 1751-1772.
    2. BookDarnton, Robert. The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, 1775-1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.

  6. Hume, Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment

    Event

    What happened

    In Edinburgh and Glasgow in the mid-1700s, thinkers including David Hume, Adam Smith, Francis Hutcheson and Adam Ferguson study human nature and society. Hume publishes A Treatise of Human Nature in 1739 and 1740. Smith publishes The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759 and The Wealth of Nations in 1776.

    The rest is history

    These writers helped found modern economics, sociology and empirical psychology. Smith argued that the division of labour and free exchange raise prosperity, and he criticised monopolies. Hume's scepticism about miracles and causation influenced Kant, who said Hume woke him from his dogmatic slumber.

    Sources

    1. PrimarySmith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London, 1776.
    2. BookBroadie, Alexander. The Scottish Enlightenment: The Historical Age of the Historical Nation. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2001.

  7. Beccaria's attack on torture

    Event

    What happened

    In 1764 the Milanese writer Cesare Beccaria publishes On Crimes and Punishments, anonymously at first. It argues against torture and the death penalty and for punishments that are proportionate, public and prompt. It is translated into French in 1766 and into English soon after.

    The rest is history

    The book influenced reforms across Europe. Tuscany under Grand Duke Leopold abolished the death penalty in 1786, and torture was formally banned in Prussia, Austria and elsewhere in the later 1700s. It also influenced American founders such as Jefferson. Many states kept capital punishment, so its impact was partial.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryBeccaria, Cesare. Dei delitti e delle pene. Livorno, 1764.
    2. BookBellamy, Richard, ed. Beccaria: On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

  8. Kant answers the question 'What is Enlightenment?'

    Event

    What happened

    In December 1784 the Berlinische Monatsschrift publishes Immanuel Kant's essay answering the question 'What is Enlightenment?'. He defines it as humanity's emergence from self-imposed immaturity, and gives the motto 'Dare to know'. He argues for free public use of reason while accepting obedience in one's official duties.

    The rest is history

    Kant wrote in Frederick the Great's Prussia, which he called an age of enlightenment rather than an enlightened age. The essay is the best known contemporary definition of the movement, and it was part of a German debate on the term. Later thinkers, including Foucault, wrote on it again.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryKant, Immanuel. 'Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?' Berlinische Monatsschrift, December 1784.
    2. BookSchmidt, James, ed. What Is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

  9. Voltaire and 'I disapprove of what you say'

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Voltaire is often quoted as saying, 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it'. It is repeated as a summary of Enlightenment tolerance.

    The rest is history

    Voltaire never wrote this. It comes from Evelyn Beatrice Hall's 1906 book The Friends of Voltaire, where she gave it as her own summary of his attitude. She later said she did not mean it as a quotation. Voltaire did campaign for toleration, notably in the Calas affair, which led to his Treatise on Tolerance in 1763. He also wrote prejudiced remarks about Jews and others.

    Sources

    1. BookHall, Evelyn Beatrice. The Friends of Voltaire. London: Smith, Elder, 1906.
    2. PrimaryVoltaire. Traité sur la tolérance. Geneva, 1763.

  10. Enlightened despots

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Rulers such as Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia and Joseph II of Austria are often described as enlightened despots who reformed their states on philosophers' advice.

    The rest is history

    These rulers did correspond with philosophes. Catherine exchanged letters with Voltaire and Diderot, and Frederick hosted Voltaire at Potsdam from 1750 to 1753. They also reformed law, education and religious policy; Joseph II issued a Patent of Toleration in 1781. But they mainly aimed to strengthen their states, and serfdom and autocracy stayed. Historians debate whether 'enlightened absolutism' is a useful label.

    Sources

    1. BookScott, H. M., ed. Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth-Century Europe. London: Macmillan, 1990.
    2. BookMadariaga, Isabel de. Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981.

  11. The Enlightenment caused the French Revolution

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that Voltaire and Rousseau caused the French Revolution of 1789, and that philosophers planned it.

    The rest is history

    Enlightenment ideas supplied vocabulary for the revolutionaries, and Rousseau's Social Contract of 1762 was widely cited. But the Revolution grew out of a fiscal crisis, social tensions and political conflict, and most leading philosophes died before 1789; Voltaire and Rousseau both died in 1778. Historians such as Roger Chartier have argued that the ideas were read in the light of events, as much as events being driven by the ideas.

    Sources

    1. BookChartier, Roger. The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991.
    2. PrimaryRousseau, Jean-Jacques. Du contrat social. Amsterdam, 1762.

  12. Rousseau and the noble savage

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Jean-Jacques Rousseau is said to have taught that humans in the state of nature are 'noble savages', good until civilisation corrupts them.

    The rest is history

    Rousseau never used the phrase 'noble savage'; it appears in John Dryden's 1672 play The Conquest of Granada. In his Discourse on Inequality of 1755 he imagined a hypothetical natural state, not a real people, and said it might never have existed. He argued that social inequality grew with property and dependence on others' opinions.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryRousseau, Jean-Jacques. Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes. Amsterdam, 1755.
    2. BookDamrosch, Leo. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

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