History 112: Midterm Essay

How are the ideas of Enlightenment manifested in what happened during the French revolution? Connect specific thinkers to specific events, policies, or systems developed during the French revolution.

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The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that dominated the world of thinking in Europe in the seventeenth century (Brown, 1990). The movement was based on the notion that the primary source of legitimacy and authority is the reason. It promoted ideals such as fraternity, tolerance, constitutional government, separation of state and church, progress, and liberty. It was characterized by stressing on reductionism and the scientific method. Further, academic disciplines such as humanities and social sciences and sciences founded on empirical methods were developed during this period (Brown, 1990).

The Enlightenment took root in several European nations usually with a local focus. In the case of France, it was linked to anti-church and anti-government radicalism. Enlightenment thinkers were against property ownership whereby only the rich owned land. Also, they wanted democracy, civil rights, and freedom of speech, property ownership, press, worship, and association. Indeed, the French government was hostile and the thinkers of this period fought against government censorship. Sometimes they were imprisoned or exiled. And this led to the French revolution.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire led the philosophical movement. They advocated for a society that is founded upon reason instead of catholic doctrine and faith, for science-based on observation and experiments, and new civil order founded on natural law (Brown, 1990). Montesquieu, a political philosopher, proposed the concept of separating government powers, the idea was earnestly adopted by the authors of the US constitution (Brown, 1990). During the era of enlightenment thought and discourse science came to play a key role. Most thinkers and writers of the time had backgrounds in sciences and related scientific advancement with the downfall of traditional and religious authority in favor of the development of free thought and speech. Generally, the science of the ear valued rational thought and empiricism and was entrenched with the enlightenment ideal of progress and advancement (Brown, 1990).

In religion, the period of enlightenment led to the religious conflict in France and entire Europe during the French revolution. The era's philosophers sought to reduce the political power enjoyed by organized religion in efforts to thwart another period of intolerant religious conquests. Many innovative ideas were established such as belief in God without reference to the Bible or other source, deism, and atheism. For example, Voltaire posits that without a belief in a God that punishes sinners, the moral order of the society would be undermined (Brown, 1990).

The Enlightenment idea was divided into distinct factions. On the one hand, the radical enlightenment was inspired by the philosophy of Spinoza, which advocated for personal liberty, democracy, freedom of expression, and removal of religious authority. On the other hand, there was a more moderate variety that was popular among thinkers including Isaac newton, Christian Wolf, Rene Descartes, and John Locke. They wanted a modification between the traditional systems of faith and power and new proposed reforms.

In conclusion, enlightenment ideas performed a leading role in encouraging the French revolution, which stressed the civil liberties of common people as opposed to the absolute elite's entitlements. Also, it asserted that rights, freedoms, and power are not genetic. Thus, the era positioned the basis for contemporary, democratic, and rational societies.

Which of the two had a greater effect (either positive or negative) upon the history of Europe, the French Revolution or the Industrial Revolution?

On the one hand, Industrialization exemplifies the creation of instrumental development of goods and brand new properties. Industrialization possessed positive effects on society and the people of Europe in the eighteen and nineteenth centuries. Industrialization included numerous positive effects on camaraderie in Europe in the nineteenth century. The establishment of endowment gadgets along with workrooms implemented new job opportunities. The unique machinery expanded manufacturing goods that led to fast production and helped people transport raw substances. Furthermore, Industrialization conjointly contributed to urbanization, urbanization abides the regression of people towards cities and urban buildings. The community requested to live nearby their jobs and factories where they worked. The western world left from being rural to gardening to urban machine-made. Then came steam engines, this new invention helped people transfer goods more cheaply.

Canals were also built to help transport goods with ease. The railroad system reformed life in Great Britain. The railroads provided mass production as a cheap way to transport products as well as fresh food. The railroads allowed the community to travel, which resulted in people having relationships from different cities and leading to marriage and having a family. A huge accomplishment of the railroads was the creation of time and news and mail arrangements were made. As such, the era of industrial revolution witnessed a leap in industrial production, new sources of power and energy, particularly steam and coal, and human labor were organized in a specialized way and the European countries' economy move away from labor-intensive to the capital intensive economy (Stearns, 2012).

On the other hand, the French revolution in the early 18th century quickly and dramatically changed the political structure of Europe whereby Napoleonic wars spread many of the revolutionary principles stunningly and rapidly (De Tocqueville, 2010). It led to the destruction and downfall of the French economy. Nonetheless, its effects on positive effects outweighed its negative effects. During the revolution, democracy was created and the monarchy was abolished. Napoleon implemented civil rights which granted people freedom of association, worship, speech, ownership of land, and press. The revolution developed equality before the law for people of all social classes that ended the discriminative class system. Peasants including napoleon himself got their way in higher ranks which initially were limited to the noble. The notion of democracy, civil rights, and equality was spread to other European countries such as Germany and Italy (De Tocqueville, 2010).

In this light, the industrial revolution had a greater positive effect on the history of Europe than the French revolution. It became one of the main forces of change in the 19th century which lead to the civilization of Western Europe into the industrial period that characterize the contemporary world. Starting in Britain, the industrial revolution spread to other European countries such as France, Belgium, Germany, and Scandinavia. It also spread to the new world in North America such as the United States of America. The industrial revolution proved that through the scientific revolution people can dominate nature by reasonably controlling the material environment for human gains. People across the world could now develop novel degrees of material wealth and manufacture machines as never before.

References

Brown, C. (1990). From the ancient world to the age of enlightenment. Vol. 1 of Christianity and western thought: A history of philosophers' ideas and movements.

De Tocqueville, A. (2010). The old regime and the French revolution. Anchor.

Stearns, P. N. (2012). The industrial revolution in world history. Westview Press.