10.2: Context and Causes

The Scientific Revolution directly contributed to the start of the Enlightenment. For example, Newton's Mathematical Principles (1687) demonstrated the existence of eternal, immutable laws of nature (ones that may or may not have anything to do with God) that were completely rational and understandable by humans. Thus, the idea that the universe was rational had been established.

One of the major themes of the Enlightenment was the search for equally immutable and equally rational laws that applied to everything else in nature, most importantly human nature. How do humans learn? How might a government be designed to ensure the most felicitous environment for learning and prosperity? If humans are capable of reason, why do they deviate from reasonable behavior so frequently?

Among the other causes of the Enlightenment was the significant growth of the urban literate classes, most notably what was called in France the bourgeoisie: the mercantile middle class. Ever since the Renaissance era, elites increasingly acquired basic literacy. By the eighteenth century, even artisans and petty merchants in the cities of Central and Western Europe sent their children (especially boys) to schools for at least a few years. A real reading public eagerly embraced the new ideas of the Enlightenment and provided a book market for both the official, copyrighted works of Enlightenment philosophy and pirated, illegal ones. The same group also embraced the quintessential new form of fiction: the novel, with the reading of novels becoming a major leisure activity of the period.

Enlightenment thought took place in the midst of what historians call the “growth of the public sphere.” Newspapers, periodicals, and cheap books became very common, which in turn helped the ongoing growth of literacy rates. Simultaneously, there was a full-scale shift away from the sacred languages to the vernaculars (i.e. from Latin to English, Spanish, French, etc.). For the first time, large numbers of people acquired at least a basic knowledge of the official language of their state rather than using only their local dialect. Those official languages allowed the transmission of ideas across entire kingdoms. For example, by the time the French Revolution began in the late 1780s, an entire generation of men and women was capable of expressing shared ideas about justice and politics in the official French tongue.

Groups of self-styled "enlightened" men and women gathered to discuss the new ideas of the movement. The most significant were coffee houses in England and salons in France, Germany, and Central Europe.

• Coffee houses charged an entry fee, but then provided unlimited coffee to their patrons. The patrons were from various social classes, and would discuss the latest ideas and read the periodicals provided by the coffee house.
• Salons were more aristocratic gatherings in which major philosophers would often read from their latest works. Then, the assembled group would engage in debate and discussion. Salons were noteworthy for being led by women. Aristocratic, educated women were thought to be the best moderators of learned discussion by most Enlightenment thinkers, men and women alike.

Figure 10.2.1: One of the best-known salons, run by Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin, seated on the right. All of the men pictured are their actual likeliness. Seated under the marble bust is Jean le Rond D’Alembert. The bust is of Voltaire, whose work is being read to the gathering in the picture.

The ideas and themes of the Enlightenment reached most of the reading public through the easy availability of cheap print. Even regular artisans were conversant in many Enlightenment ideas. (For example, French glassworker, Jacques-Louis Menetra, left a memoir in which he demonstrated his own command of the ideas of the period and even claimed to have chatted over drinks with the great Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau). The major Enlightenment thinkers considered themselves to be part of a “republic of letters,” similar to the "republic of science" that played such a role in the Scientific Revolution. They wrote voluminous correspondence and often sent one another unpublished manuscripts. Thus, from the republic of letters down to pirated copies of enlightenment works, the new ideas of the period permeated much of European society.