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Today, I discussed much of the material about the Age of Reason (1500-1780), contained in chapter 17. As the printing press and the growth of an urban bourgeoisie increased literacy rates in western Europe, a new emphasis on scientific method and rationality emerged. This emphasis on rationality or reason is embodied by Rene Descartes' famous statement, "I think, therefore I am." Descartes (1596-1650) himself was a mathematician and philosopher, but the earliest important scientific advances of the Age of Reason came in anatomy and astronomy. I mentioned two influential works, both published in 1543. Andreas Vesalius' (1514-1564) book, The Structure of the Human Body, was a landmark in anatomical science. Using dissections, Vesalius produced anatomical descriptions that opened a new era of observation and experimentation in studies of the body. The same year, Nicolaus Copernicus' work, On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres, was published. There, Copernicus rejected the medieval (and church-supported) view of an earth-centered universe, arguing instead that the earth rotated around a fixed sun. Copernicus' view was controversial, and without the availability of the telescope, astronomers like Denmark's Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) would be hard-pressed to render a definitive verdict. In 1619, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) proposed that the planets orbited the sun in regular ellipses; Kepler believed that only the language of mathematics could describe the movements of the heavens. This emphasis on harmonizing math, physics and astronomy would be an important component of the Age of Reason. But at the time, Kepler's views were not accepted by the scientific community. An Italian contemporary of Kepler, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) developed a new theory of motion (and inertia) that would support Kepler's mathematical view. Galileo also constructed a simple telescope with which he made observations of Jupiter, the moon, and other heavenly bodies. But Galileo's writings brought him into direct conflict with the Catholic Church, which had rejected Copernicanism and always held (contrary to Galileo's telescopic observations), that the heavens were perfect and unchanging. In 1633, he stood trial for having taught heretical doctrine, and was forced to recant. Galileo's prosecution temporarily silenced further scientific inquiry in Italy and other Catholic countries, but interest in science had already spread to Protestant nations, including England. The task of discovering the underlying principles that governed a "limitless" universe thus fell on an Englishman, Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Newton's Mathematical Principals of Natural Philosophy (1687) was the culmination of the 17th century's scientific revolution. Meanwhile, scientists such as William Harvey (1578-1657) were expounding on Vesalius' conception of the human anatomy. Harvey's theories of blood circulating through veins and arteries "were backed up by simple, yet highly effective empirical proofs." (text, p. 523) Harvey's work also had the practical benefit of improving the treatment of wounds, especially on the battlefield. I've given these examples of advances in astronomy and anatomy as part of a broader revolution taking place in Western Europe, which emphasized rationality and scientific method. During the Renaissance, which began in Italy during the early 1400's, the ancient scientists and philosophers (e.g., Aristotle, Hippocrates, Ptolemy) were revered, and their scholarship was considered beyond reconsideration. But the thinkers of the 1600's and 1700's would demand greater proof, and even the great minds of the ancient past would be questioned. Philosophers such as Francis Bacon (1561-1620) urged that the human mind be freed of prejudices and presuppositions "so that it could apprehend hard facts with pure reason." (text, p. 525) A few would also begin to question the assumptions of Christianity, even going as far as to wonder about the existence of God. Francois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), better known as Voltaire, was one of Christianity's harshest critics. Voltaire called Christianity "l'infame" ("the infamous thing") and declared that "every sensible man, every honorable man must hold it in horror." Voltaire was especially critical of his contemporaries' religious intolerance, and persecution of Jews and other religious minorities. Voltaire and others of the Age of Reason embraced a new view of religion known as deism. Deism was the belief in God as a Creator, but the view that the world, once created, functions according to natural laws without interference by God. According to the deist view, humanity was on its own. This deism was a direct challenge to organized religion, and also to absolute monarchy, since absolutist kings such as Louis XIV believed that their rule was predicated on the idea of divine right (the notion that God had chosen them to rule). Absolute monarchy was also assailed by political theorists of the Enlightenment, most notably Englishman John Locke (1632-1704). In his Two Treatises on Civil Government, Locke proposed a theory of government by consent rather than coercion, and directly attacked the ideas of divine rulership and absolute monarchy. The Frenchman Montesquieu (1689-1755) expanded on Locke's views, and argued for constitutionalism, the idea that the rule of law should act to safeguard against both the arbitrariness of kings and the chaos of democracy. Locke and Montesquieu would in turn greatly influence the intellectuals of the American Revolution, most notably Thomas Jefferson, author of the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom as well as the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws (1752) provided a blueprint for the American constitutional system, which has survived largely intact down to the present day. So what started out in the 16th century as an examination of the natural sciences would develop by the 18th into a wholesale re-examination of religion, politics and society, premised on the Enlightenment view that all problems, however severe, could be solved with a rational, scientific approach, and that few traditions were off limits to critical reappraisal. In chapters 19 and 20 we'll see the result of that trend: a period of revolt and revolution that would forever change the course of Western Civilization.
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