Article Outline
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The Secular View of the World
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Paralleling the secularization of politics was the secularization of thought. The scientific revolution of the 17th century laid the foundation for a worldview that did not depend on Christian assumptions and categories. Cutting themselves loose from theology, philosophers discovered new allies in science and mathematics. For thinkers such as English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon and French philosopher René Descartes, the destiny of the soul was of less concern than the operation of the natural world. Further, even though Bacon was an empiricist and Descartes a rationalist, both believed that the power of human reason, rightly employed, rendered authority obsolete.
Of the several makers of the modern mind, none was more important or more celebrated than English physicist Sir Isaac Newton, who worked out an all-encompassing mechanical explanation of the universe resting upon the law of universal gravitation. The awe that Newton inspired in the 18th-century philosophers can scarcely be exaggerated. Determined to popularize the scientific worldview and to adapt its methods to the task of social and political criticism, the leaders of the Age of Enlightenment placed the affairs of this world squarely at the center of their work. In the most famous compendium of Enlightenment thought, the Encyclopédie (1751-1772), French philosophers Denis Diderot (the editor), Jean d’Alembert, Voltaire, and others challenged the religious worldview and championed a scientific humanism based on natural law.
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The Philosopher-Kings
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During the second half of the 18th century, the Enlightenment joined hands with absolutism. Inspired by the philosophes, absolute monarchs, such as Frederick the Great of Prussia, Joseph II of Austria, and Catherine the Great of Russia, modeled themselves on the ideal of the philosopher-king, attempting with varying degrees of success to enlist power in the service of the common good. Despite their sincerity, they succeeded in nothing so much as in making absolutism more absolute. At their command, historical particularism continued its retreat before the advance of uniform codes of law and bureaucratic regulations. To be sure, an aristocratic resurgence occurred during the century, but aristocrats owed their new lease on life to their willingness to serve the state. Under the enlightened absolutists, in sum, the centralization of power proceeded apace; in a genuine effort to improve the welfare of their subjects, the enlightened despots insinuated state power more deeply into daily existence.
Toward the end of the 18th century, the concentration of power in the hands of the monarch began to be challenged. European reaction to absolutism was enhanced by the success of the American Revolution (1775-1783), with its resultant republic, and by the rise of the English bourgeoisie concomitant to the Industrial Revolution. This reaction first crystallized in France in 1789 and from there spread throughout the continent in the following century.
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The French Revolution
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The French Revolution (1789-1799) comprised a series of events that transformed the political, social, and ideological atmosphere of modern Europe. These events were set in motion when the aristocracy, refusing to be taxed, made it necessary for King Louis XVI to revive the moribund Estates-General in the spring of 1789. Few suspected that this decision would unleash elemental and irresistible forces of discontent. Although they had different ends in view, aristocrats, bourgeois, sans-culottes (the urban poor), and peasants were united in their determination to alter the conditions of their existence. Accompanying this assertion of self-interest was a body of abstract ideas that gave direction to revolutionary energies. In particular, Jean Jacques Rousseau’s doctrine of popular sovereignty inspired the more articulate leaders of the third estate (the common people). When the National Assembly proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in August 1789, it intended to serve notice to the rest of Europe that it had discovered universally valid principles of government.
The constitutional monarchy that had evolved by 1791 was as unsatisfactory to the king as it was to the increasingly powerful and vocal faction called Jacobins. In the Legislative Assembly (1791-1792), they and the Girondins, another faction, agitated for a republic at the same time as they engineered a declaration of war against Austria (April 1792). When French forces suffered initial reversals, revolutionary temperatures rose even higher, and in September the newly formed National Convention promptly proclaimed France a republic. On January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was executed, and during the ensuing year and a half, the country was ruled by dictators, whose dreams of moral perfection and hatred of hypocrisy inspired a reign of terror that made the guillotine the symbol of political messianism. The moral fury of the Committee of Public Safety recognized no territorial boundary, and its members prosecuted the escalating war against a coalition of European powers. In part, their success can be attributed to the national conscription that was instituted in August 1793; it demonstrated the awesome military potential of a nation in arms. Eventually, however, fear invaded the committee itself; in July 1794 Maximilien Robespierre, its own leading member, was arrested and executed. During the reaction that followed, the French quickly forgot the “republic of virtue” and welcomed vice almost as a symbol of liberty.
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