What Areas of Life did the Enlightenment Reform?
A key element of the Enlightenment was new ways of thinking, of breaking mental bonds and taking new approaches. But equally key were people applying those ideas onto the world: to ‘reform’ human society. The use of the term reform in the breadth and the scope of the Enlightenment was new, having been limited in the past to small areas of human experience. But in an out pouring of literature, there were tens of thousands of works with calls to action, and plans for people to follow.
Reform grew to become an Enlightenment attack on almost everything, all the old thoughts and conclusions were to be comprehensively re-examined and changed if found wanting. The intellectuals of the Enlightenment became leaders of total change, and crucially it was felt this change was not only desired, but possible, and increasingly likely to occur.
It won’t surprise anyone to know that the Enlightenment changed philosophy, regarded since Classical Greece as a valuable practice for challenging and evolving ideas. But on the eve of Enlightenment philosophy was still apart, separate from the world of doing, still largely an intellectual pursuit, and the Enlightenment both reformatted old philosophies as it reformatted the world, and spread these ideas more thanks to creations like the Encyclopédie. This, created by Denis Diderot and allies, coalesced the new thinking and science into thirty six volumes which took Enlightenment ideas to a wider audience. It also allowed Enlightenment thinkers to publish popularly on just about everything.
This helped make philosophy and philosophising a trend to be adapted by society. The Enlightenment challenged religion as the dominant source and mode of thinking, and applied itself to the world rather than leaving it to be discussed in small gatherings. Enlightenment philosophy became the bedrock for most everything else. People didn’t want to be ordered about by churches and monarchs without new philosophical backing and authority.
The vast majority of Europeans remained Christian, and atheists were a small number who faced many problems. But Christianity was exposed and subjected to Enlightenment ideas, and its practices began to change. The idea of a created humanity moving towards end times was further loosened, and the bible and its statements, as well as centuries of accrued religious doctrine, was re-examined in an Enlightenment style, not just by philosophers, but by churchmen themselves. Local church figures were often at the centre of Enlightenment influenced charities and secular reform, and they brought this into what they preached. While effort was made to square the revelatory aspects of religion, the main push was for the Christian factions to tolerate each other more. All the Christian factions developed reforming movements, from the German Pietists to the British Methodists.
Protestants have been called more likely to accept Enlightenment ideas as there was already an emphasis on challenge and scriptural re-examination, and Catholicism was felt to be more resistant. However, Enlightenment was felt by Catholics, not least in Pope Benedict XIV (1740 – 58), who corresponded with leading Enlightenment thinkers. But the big effect of the Enlightenment on Catholicism was the end of the Jesuits. The former foot soldiers of the Counter Reformation, they had dominated Catholic education and Catholic government, but were dissolved, opening many doors. Meanwhile an emphasis on internal faith grew, as showy displays declined.
We now regard Absolutism as more of a theoretical ideal than a system which really existed, but even so Enlightenment thinkers found themselves in a world filled with powerful monarchs ruling courts bound together with privilege and hereditary ties. Not only was this ancient regime system, if not offensively medieval, then disliked anyway, and an opponent to natural laws of Enlightenment, but it prevented reform with too many ties holding back. For Enlightenment thinkers, from Locke to Rousseau, government should be a contract between ruler and ruled based on natural law. People were free under this law, but allowed a ruler to rule them to organise effectively and prevent chaos. Society would produce a representative body and an executive to manage, reforming public health, welfare, education, economic laws (reform, not revolution.)
While the USA was able to build an Enlightenment government from scratch, many Enlightenment monarchs reworked their own state to allow natural law in, and these changes could be large (like Joseph II) to more minor (and effective) reforms. However, some Enlightenment thinkers were critical of the social contract, including Hume, who attacked it. In addition, the experiences of Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Diderot at the courts of Frederick and Catherine the Great have led their reforms to be labelled failures, but this is to focus on individuals at the expense of a wider movement.
The idea of natural law, that is legal rights and obligations issuing not from divine statements or Roman memory, but from a study of history, society and logic, had been evolving in the seventeenth century. But the idea of natural laws developed into the eighteenth century, and could be seen in action; what the Enlightenment brought was the evolution into ‘human rights’ and ‘rights of man’, inviolable rights and laws that applied to anyone, always, with no gods or governments backing it. Society had to respect and uphold these rights, and this led to legal reforms like the abolition of torture (and so end of the Witch Trials,), as well as calls against the death penalty.
The Enlightenment coincided with, and helped produce, a series of technological and scientific advances, causing an industrial revolution. Scientific thinking became a major mode, and enquiry helped Enlightenment writers probe into many areas. New schools for medicine emerged, creating a new improved group of doctors and vets, and the road to today’s breakthroughs began. People began to experiment more, make more deductions, and dream of what could be achieved: the hot air balloon may seem passé now, but it was a massive shock then.
The Enlightenment didn’t want to be a world of intellectual elites, and it turned itself to educating as many people as possible. This included reforming schools, which had been dominated by religious teaching, and expanding universities, including engineering schools to fuel the revolutions in technology. The Enlightenment saw a growth in the numbers of people reading, and the material they read, and this has been called a ‘Reading Revolution’ (but equally this has been challenged). What is certain is that more people consumed more works, and Enlightened ideas spread with it, helping form a greater ‘public opinion’.
While the finance system had been developing in recent centuries, the Enlightenment targeted this too. Physiocrats argued for reform, and they shared a desire for free tariff economy with thinkers like Adam Smith, who evolved historically famous economic ideas in The World of Nations, wanting to end monopoly, and introduce a free trade market economy. Natural law, not old fashioned divided control.
These are just a few areas, but the Enlightenment seeped into and changed most aspects of the human experience during the eighteenth century, albeit with the usual regional variations. Of course, they were themselves reacted against: The Counter Enlightenment.
This article is drawn from Im Hof’s The Enlightenment, Blackwell’s Companion to the Enlightenment, Routledge’s The Enlightenment World, Dorinda Outram’s The Enlightenment and Roy Porter’s The Enlightenment.
Reform grew to become an Enlightenment attack on almost everything, all the old thoughts and conclusions were to be comprehensively re-examined and changed if found wanting. The intellectuals of the Enlightenment became leaders of total change, and crucially it was felt this change was not only desired, but possible, and increasingly likely to occur.
Thinking
It won’t surprise anyone to know that the Enlightenment changed philosophy, regarded since Classical Greece as a valuable practice for challenging and evolving ideas. But on the eve of Enlightenment philosophy was still apart, separate from the world of doing, still largely an intellectual pursuit, and the Enlightenment both reformatted old philosophies as it reformatted the world, and spread these ideas more thanks to creations like the Encyclopédie. This, created by Denis Diderot and allies, coalesced the new thinking and science into thirty six volumes which took Enlightenment ideas to a wider audience. It also allowed Enlightenment thinkers to publish popularly on just about everything.
This helped make philosophy and philosophising a trend to be adapted by society. The Enlightenment challenged religion as the dominant source and mode of thinking, and applied itself to the world rather than leaving it to be discussed in small gatherings. Enlightenment philosophy became the bedrock for most everything else. People didn’t want to be ordered about by churches and monarchs without new philosophical backing and authority.
Believing
The vast majority of Europeans remained Christian, and atheists were a small number who faced many problems. But Christianity was exposed and subjected to Enlightenment ideas, and its practices began to change. The idea of a created humanity moving towards end times was further loosened, and the bible and its statements, as well as centuries of accrued religious doctrine, was re-examined in an Enlightenment style, not just by philosophers, but by churchmen themselves. Local church figures were often at the centre of Enlightenment influenced charities and secular reform, and they brought this into what they preached. While effort was made to square the revelatory aspects of religion, the main push was for the Christian factions to tolerate each other more. All the Christian factions developed reforming movements, from the German Pietists to the British Methodists.
Protestants have been called more likely to accept Enlightenment ideas as there was already an emphasis on challenge and scriptural re-examination, and Catholicism was felt to be more resistant. However, Enlightenment was felt by Catholics, not least in Pope Benedict XIV (1740 – 58), who corresponded with leading Enlightenment thinkers. But the big effect of the Enlightenment on Catholicism was the end of the Jesuits. The former foot soldiers of the Counter Reformation, they had dominated Catholic education and Catholic government, but were dissolved, opening many doors. Meanwhile an emphasis on internal faith grew, as showy displays declined.
Government
We now regard Absolutism as more of a theoretical ideal than a system which really existed, but even so Enlightenment thinkers found themselves in a world filled with powerful monarchs ruling courts bound together with privilege and hereditary ties. Not only was this ancient regime system, if not offensively medieval, then disliked anyway, and an opponent to natural laws of Enlightenment, but it prevented reform with too many ties holding back. For Enlightenment thinkers, from Locke to Rousseau, government should be a contract between ruler and ruled based on natural law. People were free under this law, but allowed a ruler to rule them to organise effectively and prevent chaos. Society would produce a representative body and an executive to manage, reforming public health, welfare, education, economic laws (reform, not revolution.)
While the USA was able to build an Enlightenment government from scratch, many Enlightenment monarchs reworked their own state to allow natural law in, and these changes could be large (like Joseph II) to more minor (and effective) reforms. However, some Enlightenment thinkers were critical of the social contract, including Hume, who attacked it. In addition, the experiences of Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Diderot at the courts of Frederick and Catherine the Great have led their reforms to be labelled failures, but this is to focus on individuals at the expense of a wider movement.
Law and Rights
The idea of natural law, that is legal rights and obligations issuing not from divine statements or Roman memory, but from a study of history, society and logic, had been evolving in the seventeenth century. But the idea of natural laws developed into the eighteenth century, and could be seen in action; what the Enlightenment brought was the evolution into ‘human rights’ and ‘rights of man’, inviolable rights and laws that applied to anyone, always, with no gods or governments backing it. Society had to respect and uphold these rights, and this led to legal reforms like the abolition of torture (and so end of the Witch Trials,), as well as calls against the death penalty.
Science and Education
The Enlightenment coincided with, and helped produce, a series of technological and scientific advances, causing an industrial revolution. Scientific thinking became a major mode, and enquiry helped Enlightenment writers probe into many areas. New schools for medicine emerged, creating a new improved group of doctors and vets, and the road to today’s breakthroughs began. People began to experiment more, make more deductions, and dream of what could be achieved: the hot air balloon may seem passé now, but it was a massive shock then.
The Enlightenment didn’t want to be a world of intellectual elites, and it turned itself to educating as many people as possible. This included reforming schools, which had been dominated by religious teaching, and expanding universities, including engineering schools to fuel the revolutions in technology. The Enlightenment saw a growth in the numbers of people reading, and the material they read, and this has been called a ‘Reading Revolution’ (but equally this has been challenged). What is certain is that more people consumed more works, and Enlightened ideas spread with it, helping form a greater ‘public opinion’.
Economy
While the finance system had been developing in recent centuries, the Enlightenment targeted this too. Physiocrats argued for reform, and they shared a desire for free tariff economy with thinkers like Adam Smith, who evolved historically famous economic ideas in The World of Nations, wanting to end monopoly, and introduce a free trade market economy. Natural law, not old fashioned divided control.
These are just a few areas, but the Enlightenment seeped into and changed most aspects of the human experience during the eighteenth century, albeit with the usual regional variations. Of course, they were themselves reacted against: The Counter Enlightenment.
This article is drawn from Im Hof’s The Enlightenment, Blackwell’s Companion to the Enlightenment, Routledge’s The Enlightenment World, Dorinda Outram’s The Enlightenment and Roy Porter’s The Enlightenment.
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