The Age of Reason

Frank Manuel

The Enlightenment owes its substance to the thought of a relatively small group of eighteenth-century philosophes who came from many countries but were centered in France. Although they often argued among themselves, there was a set of approaches and propositions upon which most of them agreed. In the following selection Frank E. Manuel, a historian of ideas from Brandeis and New York University, analyzes the philosophes'new moral outlook, an outlook that seems particularly modern.

Consider: How the primary documents support or contradict Manuel's interpretation; the ways in which the moral outlook described here is overly optimistic and naive; the elements of this outlook that make the most sense to you for today's world.

Despite their sharp cleavages and varying interests, there was a common ground on which all the intellectuals could stand, and from their inconsistent and even incompatible tendencies there emerged a moral outlook distinct from that of the previous age. The eighteenth-century philosophers popularized general precepts of conduct which in time were widely accepted in most civilized societies. They made aggressive war look odious and mocked the ideal of military glory. They preached religious toleration, free speech, a free press. They were in favor of the sanctions of law to protect individual liberties and they were against tyranny which governed by caprice. They wanted equality of all citizens before the law and they were opposed to any recognition of social distinctions when men were brought to justice. They abhorred torture and other barbaric punishments and pleaded for their abolition; they believed that punishment should fit the crime and should be imposed only to restrain potential malefactors. They wanted freedom of movement across state boundaries both for individuals and articles of commerce. Most of them believed that it did not require the threat of eternal torment in hell to make moral ideas generally accepted among mankind. They were convinced that the overwhelming number of men, if their natural goodness were not perverted in childhood, would act in harmony with simple rules and the dictates of rational principles without the necessity for severe restraints and awful punishments.

In summary, though the philosophes did not solve the problem of the existence of evil and suffering in the world, they did manage to establish in European society a general consensus about conduct which is evil, a moral attitude which still sustains us. Despite their subservient behavior toward some of the European despots and the social anarchy ultimately inherent in their doctrines of absolute self-interest, the eighteenth-century men of letters did formulate a set of moral principles which to this day remain basic to any discussion of human rights. The deficiencies of their optimistic moral and political outlook are by now visible, but they did venture the first bold examination of reality since the Greeks and they dared to set forth brandnew abstractions about man and the universe. They taught their contemporaries to view the institutions of church and state in the light of reason and to judge them by the simple criterion of human happiness.

The Party of Humanity:

The Struggling Philosophes

Peter Gay

There are major disagreements among historians who study the Enlightenment and the philosophes. One group holds that the philosophes were shallow, destructive dilettantes who enjoyed rubbing shoulders with the elite while poking fun at eighteenth-century institutions and practices. Another group holds that the philosophes were sincere, thoughtful intellectuals who braved much to express many of the most important precepts of the modern world. Peter Gay takes into account both of these views in his highly respected interpretations of the French Enlightenment, The Party of Humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment. In the following selection, Gay focuses on the psychological underpinnings of much of the philosophes' struggle.

Consider: What was so difficult about the philosophes' struggle; any connections between what Gay terms the "struggle of the philosophes" and their "two enemies 11 ; what historical or institutional changes the philosophes would have supported, according to Gay.

The philosophes had two enemies: the institutions of Christianity and the idea of hierarchy. And they had two problems: God and the masses. Both the enemies and the problems were related and woven into the single task of rethinking their world. The old questions that Christianity had answered so fully for so many men and so many centuries, had to be asked anew: What as Kant put it - what can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?

Science itself did not answer these questions. It only suggested - ever more insistently as the century went on -that the old answers were wrong. Now, the philosophes were products of Christian homes and Christian schools. If they became enemies of Christianity, they did so not from indifference or ignorance: they knew their Bible, their catechism, their Church Fathers, their apologetics. And they knew, because it had been drummed into them early, the fate that awaits heretics or atheists in the world to come. Their anticlerical humor therefore has the bitter intimacy of the family joke; to embrace materialism was an act of rejection.

The struggle of the philosophes was a struggle for freedom. They did not fully understand it, but to the extent that they did understand it, they knew their situation to be filled with terror and delight. They felt the anxiety and exhilaration of the explorer who stands before the unknown.

To use such existentialist language may seem like a rather portentous way of describing men noted for their sociability and frivolity. It is of course true that the philosophes did not suffer alone: they had the comforting company of elegant salons and of respectable philosophical forebears.

Yet even the supple Voltaire, who had been initiated into unbelief by fashionable teachers, was not free from the symptoms of this struggle. Much of his mockery was a weapon in a grim fight, and a device to keep up his own morale. Much of his philosophical rumination on free will reveals the persistence of a troublesome inner conflict. . . .

I am not simply arguing that the philosophes were less cheerful than they appeared in their social roles-most of us are. Nor that they suffered personal crises -philosophers, especially young philosophhers, often do. I am arguing that the philosophes' anguish was related to the crisis in their Christian civilization; that (to use different language) whatever childhood experiences made them psychologically vulnerable in adult life, their obsessions, their selfquestionings, their anxieties, were poured into their religious, moral, and political speculation.

The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers

Carl Becker

Another point of interpretive division among historians of the Enlightenment centers on how modern and secular the philosophes were. Nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century historians argued that the philosophes were more modern than medieval and indeed drew more from the classical pagan world than from the medieval world. This view still predominates among historians of the period. A famous challenge to this view was made some fifty years ago by Cornell historian Carl Becker. His book, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (1932), became the most influential book on the subject, although today it is no

longer as popular as it once was. In the following selection from this work, Becker presents the substance of his thesis.

Consider: The ways in which the philosophes were more medieval than modern; the support Becker offers for his argument that there was much Christian philosophy in the philosophes' writings; how Gay or Manuel would react to Becker's interpretation.

We are accustomed to think of the eighteenth century as essentially modern in its temper. Certainly, the Philosophes themselves made a great point of having renounced the superstition and hocus-pocus of medieval Christian thought, and we have usually been willing to take them at their word. Surely, we say, the eighteenth century was pre6minently the age of reason, surely the Philosophes were a skeptical lot, atheists in effect if not by profession, addicted to science and the scientific method, always out to crush the infamous, valiant defenders of liberty, equality, fraternity, freedom of speech, and what you will. All very true. And yet I think the Philosophes were nearer the Middle Ages, less emancipated from the preconceptions of medieval Christian thought, than they quite realized or we have commonly supposed. . . .

But, if we examine the foundations of their faith, we find that at every turn the Philosophes betray their debt to medieval thought without being aware of it. They denounced Christian philosophy, but rather too much, after the manner of those who are but half emancipated from the "superstitions" they scorn. They had put off the fear of God, but maintained a respectful attitude toward the Deity. They ridiculed the idea that the universe had been created in six days, but still believed it to be a beautifully articulated machine designed by the Supreme Being according to a rational plan as an abiding place for mankind. The Garden of Eden was for them a myth, no doubt, but they looked enviously back to the golden age of Roman virtue, or across the waters to the unspoiled innocence of an Arcadian civilization that flourished in Pennsylvania. They renounced the authority of church and Bible, but exhibited a nalve faith in the authority of nature and reason. They scorned metaphysics, but were proud to be called philosophers. They dismantled heaven, somewhat prematurely it seems, since they retained their faith in the immortality of the soul. They courageously discussed atheism, but not before the servants. They defended toleration valiantly, but could with difficulty tolerate priests. They denied that miracles ever happened, but believed in the perfectibility of the human race. We feel that these Philosophers were at once too credulous and too skeptical. They were the victims of common sense. In spite of their rationalism and their humane sympathies, in spite of their aversion to hocus-pocus and enthusiasm and dim perspectives, in spite of their eager skepticism, their engaging cynicism, their brave youthful blasphemies and talk of hanging the last king in the entrails of the last priest - in spite of all of it, there is more of the Christian philosophy in the writings of the Philosophes than has yet been dreamt of in our histories.

Eighteenth- Century Europe: Enlightened Absolutism M. S. Anderson

Historians have long debated exactly how much the Enlightenment influenced monarchs of the time. Traditionally there has been considerable acceptance of the view that monarchs such as Joseph II of Austria and Frederick II of Prussia were enlightened. In recent years this view has been seriously narrowed and questioned to the point where many historians feel that enlightened despotism and enlightened absolutism are no longer terms that can usefully be applied to these eighteenth-century monarchs. M. S. Anderson, of the London School of Economics and Political Science, supports this newer critical view. In the following selection he analyzes the limited ways in which eighteenth-century monarchs can be considered enlightened.

Consider: The characteristics of enlightened despotism; why Joseph II (see the primary documents in this chapter) and Frederick II (see primary documents in the preceding chapter) might be considered enlightened despots; how enlightened despotism differs from seventeenth-century absolutism and the "new monarchs" of the sixteenth century.

It is generally agreed that in the later eighteenth century, notably in the generation from about 1760 to 1790, many of the monarchies of Europe began to display new characteristics. In one state after another rulers or ministers (Catherine 11 in Russia, Frederick 11 in Prussia, Gustavus III in Sweden, Charles III in Spain, Struensee in Denmark, Tanucci in Naples) began to be influenced, or to claim that they were influenced, by the ideas which economists and political philosophers, notably in France, had been proclaiming for several decades. This 'enlightened despotism' is in many ways an unsatisfactory subject of study. Except in a few cases-notably those of the Archduke Leopold in Tuscany (1765-90) and his better-known brother Joseph in the Habsburg dominions-it was always largely superficial and contrived. Usually the policies actively pursued by the enlightened despots, however warm the welcome they gave to new theories of government and administration, ran to some extent in traditional channels.

All of them attempted to improve the administration of their states, especially with regard to taxation, and to unify their territories more effectively. Many of them attempted or at least envisaged judicial reforms, notably by the drawing up of elaborate legal codes. The code of civil procedure and the penal code issued by Joseph II in 1781 and 1787, and above all the great Prussian code of 1791, the outcome of many years of labour during the reign of Frederick II, are outstanding examples. With few exceptions the enlightened despots hoped to achieve their ends by increasing their own authority and the power of the central government in their states. But with the partial exception of the desire for legal reform none of these ambitions was new. In differing ways they had been seen in the activities of the 'New Monarchs' of the sixteenth century and in those of Louis XIV and his contemporaries; they were to be seen once more, with greater intensity and effect, in those of Napoleon 1. Some elements of novelty can, it is true, be detected in the attitude of several rulers and governments of the later eighteenth century. In particular the growing humanitarianism. which I enlightened' thought and writing had done much to foster, was now inspiring efforts to abolish judicial torture and greater consideration than in the past for the interests of such groups as orphans and old soldiers. But there were few rulers whose policies in practice represented more than the development of ambitions cherished by their predecessors. Thus Frederick II made little real alteration in the administrative system bequeathed him by his father; and most of his territorial ambitions, notably in Poland, were also inherited. Most of the changes which Catherine 11 attempted or contemplated in Russia -the secularization of church lands in 1764, the reform of local government in 1775, the codification of the law, attempted particularly by the unsuccessful Legislative Commission of 1767 -had been suggested during the reigns of her predecessors. What distinguished Frederick and Catherine from Frederick William I and Peter the Great was not so much their policies as their explicit justification of them (especially in the case of Catherine) in terms of advanced contemporary thought. It was this appeal to intellectual and moral standards rather than to those of mere expediency that made these rulers appear to be doing something new. And this appeal was essentially spurious. No ruler of any major state could allow his policies to be dictated by theory, however attractive. The history, geographical position, and resources of the state he ruled, the power or weakness of its neighbours, and a host of other factors, set limits to what he might reasonably attempt in either internal or external affairs. Joseph 11 spent his reign in a continuous series of efforts to improve the administration of his territories and the condition of his subjects. More than any other major ruler of the period he was truly inspired by the theories of government then current in enlightened Europe. Yet his disregard of realities in his relations with the Hungarians, with the inhabitants of his Netherlands provinces, and with the Catholic church, and the failure and near-collapse to which this disregard had led by the end of his reign, were the supreme proof that, as always, there was an 'order of possible progress I in politics and all other aspects of life in the eighteenth century, and that this order could be disregarded only to a very limited extent.

Chapter Questions on the Enlilghtenment

Chapter Questions on the Enlightenment

1.    What core of ideas and attitudes most clearly connects Enlightenment thinkers as revealed in these sources? How do these ideas relate to eighteenth-century society and institutions?

2.    What policies would an eighteenth-century ruler have to pursue to fit to the greatest degree the ideas and assumptions of Enlightenment thinkers? What hindrances were faced by monarchs who wanted to be more enlightened?

3.    What ideas and attitudes of Enlightenment thinkers do you think remain valid for the problems facing today's world? What Enlightenment ideas and attitudes no longer seem valid or appropriate?