The Enlightenment caused people to question all aspects of life. It is best said by Kant “Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!” This new passion and view on life was catching on fast. People began to question everything in an effort to have a better understanding of all things in life. While Newton questioned the natural laws that regulated nature, others became motivated to question society and those who governed it, which produced political philosophers.
The intellectuals of the Enlightenment were called by a French term, philosophes. These people were not all French and not always by the definition philosophers but instead they were people such as professors, statesmen, political scientist, and social reformers. Most of these people came from nobility or the middle class. The main purpose of the Enlightenment philosophes was to change the world.
Some of the key political ideas of this time came from Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, and Adam Smith. Voltaire believed in religious tolerance. He used England and Holland as examples of countries where they had religious tolerance and it had created no problems. His view was “all men are brothers under God.” Voltaire also promoted Deism, which is a belief that God created the universe but played no part in it instead God allowed it to run under its own natural laws.
Montesquieu distinguished three basic types of governments: republics which are good for small states and are based on citizen involvement, monarchy which is good for mid-sized states and are grounded in the ruling class’s adherence to law, and despotism for large empires who use fear to inspire obedience. Rousseau believed that people adopted laws and governors to protect their property but instead had become enslaved by government. His idea was that a society should govern itself through means of a social contract. This meant that a society would follow what was best for all people because he believed what was best for all was bet for an individual. This would also prevent a parliament from forming in order to create laws.
He also believed that education should encourage children to follow natural instincts since much of what he knew was from life experiences. Diderot was very much against Christianity more than any other religion because of how it’s filled with dogmatic beliefs. He wrote a twenty eight volume encyclopedia on various topics such as religion and improvements for social, political, and legal matters. His goal was to spread his views which would hopefully help to create a more human and tolerant society. Adam Smith concerned himself with the “natural law” of economics. He stressed such things as supply and demand as well as the rights of individuals to pursue their own economic interests. He believed that the government should in no way regulate the economy.
These new political ideas created a new political age. With people starting to think for themselves, question their society, and follow the lead of the philosophes the European monarchs had to be aware of what was going on and be open to the idea of change if they were to continue their rule. In most of the countries in Europe monarchs did make adjustments and people would begin to be have more natural rights. One of these was equality. When equality is mentioned at this time it does not imply that women always have the same rights as men. Monarchs were being held to the same laws that they expected their subjects to follow. Monarchs were allowing religious tolerance, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to assemble, the right to hold property, and other rights that people did not previously have. In addition some monarchs gave up some of their power in order to reform government and create a new body of legislation.
The center of the enlightenment took place in Paris, France. Some of the monarchs in Europe adopted the ideas of Enlightenment because they genuinely cared for the people, one such ruler was Joseph II. In others areas such as France it took a revolution in order for the monarch to be changed and give more freedom to the people.
In France changes were not made because the Kings were not intelligent enough to do anything about the wants or the needs of the people. Instead they were concerned with their own wants of living lavish lifestyles. In addition they also had a huge amount of debt that was created by the spending of Louis XIV on palaces and expanding the territory as well as France aiding the American colonies in their fight against the British with arms, money, and soldiers. At that time France was broken up into estates, the lowest being the commoners. According to the textbook, Western Civilization, Brief Discovery Edition, Volume 2 by Jackson J. Spielvogel, these people made up close to 97% of the population but they were the only estate that was taxed. The poor treatment of the Third Estate, the shortage of food, rising prices of other necessities, high unemployment, and the unwillingness or the dismissal of the government to adopt the ideas of the Enlightenment caused the French Revolution to begin.
