The Influence of the Enlightenment: Intellectual, Scientific and Religious Areas
The Enlightenment could be broadly defined as an ethical or philosophical movement that came about during the 18th century. It is one of the most influential periods of time and challenged long-held assumptions in every area of thought ‘ religion, science, politics, economics, psychology, and the arts ’ and in doing so reshaped the mental landscape of western society. This exceptional movement began in Paris but extended to Western Europe, including the German states, the Dutch Republic, Great Britain and as far as North America by the 1700s. The great changes that took place during the Enlightenment period not only allowed people to see society in a more realistic way but also freed them from superstition, ignorance, and oppression, thus trying to make the world a safer place by providing mental and physical liberty. In turn, it was able to draw a line between the modern and ancient world. Although the Enlightenment influenced intellectual, cultural, artistic and scientific areas of life, in my opinion it had the greatest impact culturally within public spaces like cafes and salons as it created networks to circulate information which I will be discussing further in this essay.
The Age of Enlightenment also known as the Age of Reason was based on social transformation and describing knowledge in terms of human experience; it was a period of scientific awakening. People who were interested in academia started to share their scientific knowledge with one another on a scale that was not previously realised, making progress an inevitable part of the Enlightenment. Science within institutions like academies freed people from superstition and it allowed them to draw a line between the modern world and the ancient world. The Royal Society was a learned association which was established to help scientists share ideas between each other, as well as build upon their own ideas with the advice of other members. They gathered together to deeply understand fields and came for intellectual endeavours. This turning point reshaped the mental landscape in Europe as these institutions were established in large cities within Europe and then became an international phenomenon with academies all around the world.
The Royal Society and other institutions like this held a prestigious status and were funded by the state. These spaces created communities of knowledge which were promoted as an endeavour and it consisted of elected members. Some academies had a limited amount of numbers so expertise was demonstrated through examination or you had to be elected by other members. The principal activities of these academies were to discuss ideas or note down research to essentially circulate the information accumulated. Institutions and academics during the Enlightenment had a significant impact on Science and Knowledge as there were lively international exchanges between academics where they tackled key problems and issues. Furthermore, they appeared to be crucial spaces for lots of ideas and discoveries for driving these projects forward towards the Enlightenment and were also key spaces for the circulation of these ideas. Despite this, they consisted of largely male communities of members; the ones with females were very restricted and it is clear there was a lot of gender exclusion as illustrated in many paintings which therefore hinders the impact that the Enlightenment had on the lives of females members in regards to scientific knowledge. The Encyclopedia however was also important in giving an overview of knowledge; as if ‘gazing down on a vast labyrinth of all the branches of human ideas’. It was revolutionary, encapsulating the ideas of the time that were deemed significant into one collection making it easy and straightforward for people to educate themselves on this knowledge.
The Encyclopedia had a substantial impact for present-day historians because it showed us what they thought was important for enlightened thinking. Not only, but it is also often seen as an influence for the French Revolution with its emphasis on Enlightenment political theories. Diderot and other authors in well-known articles, such as ‘Political Authority’, emphasized the shift of the origin of political authority from divinity or heritage to the people. In turn, the Encyclopedia was the largest publishing project of its time, it was read by individuals and communities, by reading clubs and societies, and its message of the Enlightenment went far. It was hugely popular in France and within Europe, with multiple editions reprinted reaching approximately 25,000 sets. In addition, pirated and plagiarised editions followed, all of which spread the message further. Although it wasn't the first comprehensive guidebook, it was nonetheless a momentous achievement amidst censorship, bans, betrayals, and reprieves. It inspired future thinkers with its goals of democratizing knowledge and improving the state of humanity with reason and science. It was an embodiment of the Enlightenment the movement to replace tradition, superstition, and faith with knowledge, reason, and science. Most importantly, the Enlightenment’s main aim was to ‘change the way people think’ in which it succeeded partly through wisdom.
The Enlightenment helped shift Europe to a more secular 19th century and it had a huge impact across the social spectrum. Public spaces like literacy salons and cafes gave ordinary people the opportunity to set up connections. Literacy salons were unofficial but equal social spaces that essentially created networks for ideas to circulate. They consisted of an egalitarian mixing of genders and were large spaces convened by women where the intellectual exchange was discussed. There were regular gatherings of members coming together to talk about current affairs. Even though it may seem as if salons were frivolous social gatherings, they were in fact crucial during the Enlightenment period. Some historians argued that this space was a serious and effective working place; they consisted of vital intellectual conversations.
Anyone was able to participate and some historians argued that the salons were part of the public sphere, however, they were semi-public spaces as you had to be invited to regular people’s homes for these discussions but they were also on the threshold of the public sphere. It is vital to note that salons were perhaps more important than the official academies, mainly because they were more willing to allow freedom of speech and conversation as well as ordinary citizens being able to participate. Not only, but females were able to take part in these gatherings unlike in the academies where it was extremely rare. As a result, the Enlightenment had a profound impact on the social aspect of people's lives at the time. Moreover, Cafes were a space in the newly redefined public sphere and it was the most important social aspect in the Enlightenment. The public sector was a complex and controversial idea, it seeks to explain the emergence of a collected space for critical discourse that was beyond or opposed to the government or official authorities. In the 18th century, public spaces were in cafes and coffeehouses open to everyone where news was exchanged, ideas could be circulated and business could be conducted. It was also a crucial space for printing news. The cafes were dangerous places for the authorities as discussions could be spread beyond their control they were meeting points for revolutionary people etc who conversed about the world of science, biology, neurology, geology, and even astronomy. They were important places for many of the aspects involved in the Enlightenment, as all classes could gather here. In addition, coffeehouses and the availability of discourse meant more opportunities to be educated in politics. All groups of people were discussing new ideas and inventions that were being made which reinforces the idea that the Enlightenment had a great impact on the social aspect of people's lives.
Religion during the Enlightenment had lost its influence as there was a struggle between religious faith and philosophical scepticism. Personal judgements on matters of belief were actively debated during the period, leading to bold atheism, among the enlightened elite. These views on religion led to rising fears among the clergy that the Enlightenment was ungodly and thus harmful to the moral well-being of an increasingly secular society. With church attendance steadily declining throughout the 1700s, evidence of growing agnosticism and a rejection of some scriptural teachings were close at hand. Distinct anti-clericalism also emerged in some circles, stirred up by the reflections of ‘deist’ writers such as Voltaire, who argued that God's influence on the world was minimal and revealed only by one's own personal experience of nature. Deism, difficult to define, is essentially the belief that a God is usually remote from everyday human concerns. Deists thus dismissed the need for any mediation between humanity and divinity in the form of the Church and rejected the Church's claimed mediation as self-interested fraud.
This view was understood as a potential threat not only to Christianity but also to the established social order, for Christian teachings and the Church was widely acknowledged as the loose foundation for morals, principles, and law. The Enlightenment is often thought of as an attack on religion, Voltaire being the iconic figure, as mentioned, advocated for freedom of religion, the right to free trial, and freedom of speech and had campaigned against the power of the Churches. These ideas promoted by Voltaire are now implemented in great numbers in the present day, such examples include voting, giving the people the decision to elect whomever they feel is best suited to govern society. But there are also many articles which argue that religion remained crucial to how eighteenth-century French scholars and statesmen understood the physical and spiritual constitution of human beings, the origins of society and of social institutions, the roots, and causes of cultural difference, and the nature of political authority.
In addition to this, some historians argue the Enlightenment was centrally about religion, Derek Beales said: ‘To enlarge religious toleration, to reduce the influence of the clergy and Churches generally, to exclude it altogether from a growing range of affairs now conceived to be purely secular, to control the study of theology, to attack what was seen as ’superstition' and ‘fanaticism’ these were always and everywhere aspects of Enlightened statesmanship'. Despite this, the impact of the Enlightenment on religious aspects of life was somewhat insignificant due to the fact that members of the eighteenth century as a whole relentlessly interrogated religious systems as systems of meaning, sought to reconcile them with one another and with the growing body of knowledge compiled by experimental science, and recycled old terms and categories to serve new purposes, putting new wine in old bottles, so to speak. As a whole, the political and religious convulsions across Europe from the Reformation until the eighteenth century were frequent and bloody. The resulting religious divisions were enshrined in confessional states, but, as with the cases of Protestant England and Catholic France, religious minorities remained persecuted and disabled. Although Christianity certainly underwent a change in this period, no antichristian religion or atheist upsurge arose to challenge it. Atheism led strongly at first but it later remained a private matter and texts written by atheists quickly gained infamy by the fact of their in frequency, and the same can be said of deism. The issue is that the Enlightenment is known for challenging the Church, and the absence of antichristian movements in the immediate period preceding the Enlightenment has frustrated many historians.
In conclusion, the Enlightenment had a significant impact on the intellectual, scientific and religious areas of life but it had the greatest impact culturally. Salons were perhaps more important than the official academies when discussing intellectual exchange, mainly because these places within the public sphere were more willing to allow freedom of conversation as well as allowing ordinary citizens (women and men included) to participate. As aforementioned Religion lost its influence across many countries on the lives of people so cafes, salons and coffeehouses widened the availability of discourse which meant there were more opportunities to be educated in politics. Important discussions and new inventions occurred in these places with networks forming that circulated information to all groups of people. Furthermore, the progress in science and reason gave people new knowledge that allowed them to articulate their own views and not just what the Church believed so there was a decline in religion partly due to that reason. Indeed, the Enlightenment was cultural in nature and it helped differentiate the modern and ancient world.
