The term “the Enlightenment” has been given to the period of history in the 1700’s when many of the ideas of the modern world were developed. It was during this period that philosophers and thinkers began to argue that a society based on the ideas of individual rights, democratic government and freedom of expression, would be a better society. Before the Enlightenment, people believed that society should be run according to tradition, that some people (nobles) were superior to other people (commoners and peasants) and authority should not be questioned. In Europe, this traditional society was based on the nobility having power and religion deciding what was right and wrong. The Enlightenment philosophers challenged this traditional society through arguing that society should be guided by rational thought and not tradition. The Enlightenment philosopher Emanuel Kant summed this up when he wrote, “Have the courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment...”
The Enlightenment philosophers were inspired to use rational thought to guide society by the work of early scientists in the Scientific Revolution. These early scientists used logic and experimentation to challenge the traditional religious view of the how the universe worked. For centuries, the religious authorities in Europe said that the earth was at the center of the universe and that everything (pushed by angles) orbited around the earth and that illness and disease were simply god’s will. The religious authorities said that the forces of nature were mysterious and that people could never understand how things worked because they were controlled by god. Beginning in the 1500’s, the early scientists used telescopes, controlled experiments and mathematics to study the starts and show that the sun was really at the center of the solar system and the earth orbited around the sun. The scientist Isaac Newton developed the mathematics of calculus and formal experiments of physics to show that the movement of everything in the universe was governed by the same natural laws. At the same time, other early scientists showed that the human body also worked by systems, such as circulation of blood through the body. These early scientists organized “scientific societies” to share and publish their work so other people could learn about these new discoveries. This work was important because it showed that the traditional authorities were incorrect about how things worked, and that people could use rational thought to study the natural world to discover the natural laws that worked in the world. The Enlightenment philosophers took the idea of natural laws governing the natural world and said that there were also natural laws that governed society. The Enlightenment philosophers believed that a society governed by these natural laws would be a more successful and happier society.
The Enlightenment had a large influence on England because of the events of the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution in which the people of England overthrew their monarch and set up a democratic government. England was different from France which developed into an absolute monarchy under the rule of Louis XIV. During the Middle Ages, England developed a “limited monarchy” in which a group of leading nobles and common people formed a Parliament that restricted the power of the monarch. In the 1600’s, the English monarchs began to challenge the right of Parliament to limit the monarch’s power. The first conflict resulted in the English Civil War in which the king went to war against Parliament. In this war, Parliament won and executed the king for treason. However, Parliament was not able to rule the country and, after a period of military dictatorship, the monarchy was restored. However, this did not solve the conflict over power between the monarchy and Parliament. Thirty years after the restoration of the monarchy, Parliament overthrew the king again in the Glorious Revolution. This time, the king fled to France and Parliament appointed a new king and wrote the English Bill of Rights to protect the rights of the people from the power of the king. The development of a written rule of law that limited the power of the monarch and protected the rights of the people from the monarch was a crucial development that inspired the Enlightenment philosophers. The English philosopher John Locke, who supported Parliament in the Glorious Revolution, wrote how the people of a country are justified in overthrowing a government that does not protect their natural rights to “life, liberty and property”.
The Enlightenment philosophers believed that people had natural rights, which could not be taken away by the government, and that it was the job of the government to protect people’s rights. These philosophers held that society was happier and more prosperous if people had their liberty, or freedom, to run their own lives. More importantly, they thought that a democratic government in which the powers of the government were limited by written law would be the best at creating the greatest amount of freedom. This idea directly challenged the powers of the absolute monarchs, which dominated most of Europe at the time – England was the only large country where the power of the monarch was limited by written law. As a result, many Enlightenment thinkers in other parts of Europe looked to England as a model of an ideal government. The French philosopher Montesquieu used English government to develop his idea that government powers should be separated into executive, legislative and judicial branches. One hundred years later, the American Revolution, in which England’s North American Colonies won their independence and then set up a democratic government with a written constitution, a bill of rights and no king, became the example of Enlightenment ideals being put into practice.
The Enlightenment also introduced the idea that all people are equal and possessed the same natural rights. This was a radical idea at the time when nobles were born with power and privilege over common peasants. However, it became an important idea in the formation of democracy based on everyone having an vote and equality in law. While at the time of the Enlightenment the idea of equality was only applied to white European men, over time this idea would be important in women winning legal equality and bringing about the end of end of slavery.
The Enlightenment philosophers also thought that natural rights also applied to economic issues. They believed that people had a right to private property – basically, they had freedom to control their property, just like they had freedom in other parts of their lives. Again, this put the Enlightenment philosophers in conflict with the practice of mercantilism in which the government controlled the economy to make the monarch wealthier and more and powerful. The Enlightenment philosopher Adam Smith argued that society would be wealthier if people had the right to control their own property, free from government control. This idea became the centerpiece of the modern idea of capitalism, which is the dominant economic philosophy in the world today.
Free speech and the free exchange of ideas was a central ideal for the Enlightenment philosophers because they thought that the more people who understood their ideas, the more people who would support their ideas. They believed that the logic and reason of their arguments would convince people of the correctness of their ideas. The Enlightenment philosophers wrote books and newspapers to spread their ideas. The French writer Denis Diderot wrote an Encyclopedia collected the thoughts and works of Enlightenment thinkers and described them in a way that made them accessible to average readers. The monarchs across Europe responded to the challenges created by these Enlightenment ideas by censoring them to prevented the publication of these ideas. For this reason, freedom of speech became an important goal of the Enlightenment. The French writer Voltaire, who had to flee France because the king opposed his writings, was an example of this when he said, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
The Enlightenment has had a long lasting impact on the world. It, along with the example of the Enlightenment created United States, inspired people around the world to revolt against oppressive governments and form democracies. More importantly, it established the idea that political and economic systems that were developed through rational thought would result in happier, wealthier and more successful societies.